One possible influence of Poe's environment on his art Professor Smith is, so far as I know, the first to point out; and it is a very valuable suggestion, even if it can not be thoroughly proved. In Virginia, more than in any other American State, the English and Scots ballads survive by oral tradition. It is possible that as a child Poe heard these ballads recited or sung, and from them derived his sense of refrain and repetition. To the influence of the ballad Professor Smith adds the possible influence of plantation melodies as "subsidiary sources of Poe's lyrical technique." He is certainly right in thinking that Poe's originality consists not in the contribution of a new form to poetry but in his individual development of forms already established. His charm resides in the color of his words rather than in the shape of his stanzas. But of course the two things are inseparable and whoever tries to analyse them is hopelessly baffled. Poe's own attempt to explain how the trick is done is far from explaining it, and if he could not expound in prose the secret of poetry, nobody can.
For Poe was first and always a critic, inquisitive of methods, and making his effects with cool calculation. Even if his tales of horror no longer give us the creeps, they will always give to any one who cares about writing, that shiver of pleasure which comes when we watch a dexterous craftsman at work. Professor Smith calls Poe the "father of the short story," but he came too late to be credited with such paternity. After all, Boccaccio and whoever made "The Arabian Nights" lived long before Poe and in Poe's stories are evident traces of old tales of magic and mystery. What Poe did was to rationalize the short story so highly, in some cases, as to sacrifice the illusion of spontaneity which is one of the merits of a tale that seems to tell itself.
With the purpose of suggesting the range of Poe's intellectual interest and of classifying some of his miscellaneous work that does not fall into certain obvious groups, Professor Smith has adopted the term "frontiersman." The image evoked by that word somehow does not fit Poe. He was, in a sense, an explorer of ideas, and he had a genuine gift for philosophy which he did not live to develop. We could spare many of his short stories rather than lose "Eureka." If it is not profound philosophy and if it does not solve the riddle of the universe, it is profound in its beauty, a prose poem. Poe's science is obsolete, no doubt, and even in the science of his day he was little more than an amateur. But the mark of a great intellect is on every page. An amazing mind! He succeeded in all forms of literary art which he tried. If the poet or the critic or the short-story writer should be obliterated, there would still remain a man of genius.