The Greatest American Poetry Book

Years ago - 8, to be precise - I took a field trip with my honors American Literature class to a house Edgar Allan Poe lived in in Philadelphia. After the guided tour finished, we were led to the inevitable gift shop. There were copies of Poe's famous works everywhere, from the Rue Morgue to the Red death. All things I'd at that point conquered. Near the register, however, was this little book - essentially a long pamphlet - entitled 'Eureka.'

The tour guide saw my eyes wandering over its unknown cover, coveting its information, all new to me. She pulled me aside and told me that she had seen a handful of people - scholarly, upstanding people who wore glasses and contemplated newspapers while drinking tea - attempt to so much as read this work and that each one had in turn failed. Realize, she used the word "read." Not "comprehend," not "understand," not "kind of see the point to;" merely, read. Knowing this, I had to own this book. My friend Jess, another smart one, decided to buy a copy as well and race me through it.

Well, eight years and a partial college education later, I can say that I'm pretty sure I beat her.

You see, Eureka is quite literally impossible to read. It holds nothing in length. The difficulty exists not in a foreign or even made-up language. No, friends, the problem with 'Eureka' is that it is easily the most unnecessarily dense book I've ever put in front of my face.

For the record, I enjoy dense, when appropriate. I love verbosity. I welcome fragmented-yet-rambling syntax. Commas are my friend! What I hate - nay, loathe - is a quasi-philosophical rant made denser on purpose just to seem more intelligent and well-based than it ever could be based on its content alone.

At its core, 'Eureka' is a thesis by Poe that serves to prove his view that every atom in our known universe is a fragment of a higher power that spends its entire atomic existence gravitating back toward a central, universal point to reform the god that it originally came from.

Or something.

What makes it unreadable is that Poe writes it as if it's a true philosophical treatise, using the works of other renowned philosophers to bolster his idea and make it seem feasible, but then uses them in his own way, mostly just rewriting them. He goes so far as to create proofs and statements of truth from things that have never been proven or even generally taken as fact by science and then pages later refutes the truthfulness of the original idea (Gravity is repeated often, for example) without amending his own idea that derives its theoretical truth from the perceived truthfulness of the original idea he now assails as being false.

Confused? Me too! Here.