Eureka: A Prose Poem

The last of Edgar Allan Poe’s books to be published during his lifetime, Eureka, A Prose Poem is a strange book indeed, particularly within the context of his desire for the work to be judged only as a poem. Part scientific tract, part crazed speculation, Eureka reveals the heart of Poe’s aesthetic and literary concerns. Poe’s concept has a great deal in common with the Big Bang Theory of the creation of the universe. “…I propose to show that this Oneness is a principle abundantly sufficient to account for the constitution, the existing phænomena and the plainly inevitable annihilation of at least the material Universe.” His exploration of the stars, planets, gravity, soul, body, and God is a remarkable phantasia of scientific thinking. Rarely available in a single volume edition, Eureka presents Poe as a brilliant American intellect, attempting to grapple with the most complex ideas.