Edgar Allen Poe wrote during the Dark Romantic Literary Period . Albeit , the earlier reprove mainly concerned themselves with moral , Poe focused his approbation on the specifics of style and construction that contributed to a work's efficacy . In his own work , He established a brilliant command of language and technique as well as an inspired and pristine imagination . Poe's poetry and short stories greatly influenced the French Symbolists of the tardy nineteenth century , who in turn transmuted the direction of modern literature . It is this philosophical and ingenious that sanction for much of Poe's consequentiality in literary history . Poe was actually an editor for a magazine , often writing reviews of his own stuff . He wrote American's