Edgar Allen Poe

Eureka Edgar Allen Poe

In this remarkable work, master story-teller Edgar Allan Poe builds on known scientific truths to propound a universe governed by the immutable laws of attraction and repulsion, i.e., expansion and a return to unity. The irascible, vindictive God of the Old Testament and the Deists' Master Clockmaker are routed by Poe's pantheistic World Spirit who, through the force of expansion, is diffused throughout his creation. Moreover, we humans are all part of this universal spirit and each of us is his own god. Published after his death, as Poe desired, Eureka was based on a lecture Poe presented in 1848, titled "On The Cosmography of the Universe". Eureka remains a startlingly different work from the author's more popular offerings.