Edgar Allan Poe

To Margaret

Summary


"To Margaret" by Edgar Allan Poe is a short, tongue-in-cheek poem assembled almost entirely from borrowed lines — Milton, Cowper, Shakespeare, and Pope — each attributed with mock-scholarly precision. The poem poses a sly, self-contradicting argument: that writing is a "foul revolt" from beauty and wisdom, only to close with Pope's paradox that not writing is divine. The result is less a heartfelt address than a literary joke, daring the reader to untangle Poe's own voice from the chorus of borrowed authority.

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Who hath seduced thee to this foul revolt } Milton Par. Lost. Bk. I
From the pure well of Beauty undefiled? } Somebody
So banished from true wisdom to prefer } Cowper’s Task, Book I
Such squalid wit to honourable rhyme?
To write? To scribble? Nonsense and no more? } Shakespeare
I will not write upon this argument } do.Troilus & Cressida
To write is human — not to write divine. } Pope Essay on Man

Credits

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) was an American writer celebrated for his gothic fiction, poetry, and pioneering contributions to the detective story. "To Margaret" stands apart from his darker works as a rare comic exercise, a patchwork of quotations from Milton, Cowper, Shakespeare, and Pope that Poe stitches together with a winking hand.
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