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Selected Stories And Poems
Even today many American critics seem unable to make up their minds about Poe. He is difficult to place or to judge by either conventional nineteenth-century standards or by those of the highly intellectualized tradition of contemporary English and American Poetry. He is almost completely sui generis and most original as the first great exploiter-the discoverer almost- of those dark corners of the human mind where visions of unearthly beauty are mingled with emanations from that pit of subconscious whence come nightmares tinged with madness. In fact, it might not be unjust to say that Poe was, among other things, the first of the surrealists.
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