Poe also said:          (click here to read original article)

“It has been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and indirectly, that the ultimate object of all Poetry is Truth. Every poem, it is said, should inculcate a moral and by this moral is the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged. We Americans especially have patronized this happy idea, and we Bostonians very especially have developed it in full. We have taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem’s sake, and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and force: — but the simple fact is that would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls we should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem, this poem per se, this poem which is a poem and nothing more, this poem written solely for the poem’s sake.”

Poe thought that poetry should not be written to teach values and show people how to live moral lives. He said that if a poem does teach a moral lesson, it is not this lesson which gives the poem its merit or worth. He believed that the true value of a poem is in its emotional and artistic elements. He said the most noble of poetry is the poem written just for the poem’s sake – not to teach a lesson.

Do you agree? – A good poem gives the reader an emotional experience. It can teach a life lesson, but it does not need to – its true value is in its beauty and emotion. Why do you feel this way?

Do you disagree? – A good poem can teach valuable life lessons and be a beautiful and emotional experience at the same time. Why do you feel this way?

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