The Influence of Edgar Allan Poe on Wallace Stevens’s Poetry

Abstract

The hints of American Romanticism in Wallace Stevens’s poetry can be traced to Edgar Allan Poe and his poetic vision. To show the extent of Stevens’s appreciation of Poe, the first part of the paper will examine some of Stevens’s letters sent to a number of his acquaintances to show his exposure to Poe’s writings and provide a historical and biographical account of the influence of
Edgar Allan Poe on Stevens. The second part of the paper will focus  particularly on the poetic ideas, concepts, and characteristics they have shared in their poetry and poetic theories. The last part of the paper will examine how Poe’s idea of the death of a beautiful woman, one of the main themes
these poets have shared, has been discussed in Stevens’s “Sunday Morning.”