“That sin which in poetry is not to be forgiven”: The Poe-Sigourney Correspondence

ABSTRACT: This article explores the little-known and brief correspondence between Edgar Allan Poe and Lydia Sigourney, positing it as a precursor to Poe’s later, more full-blown engagement with and critique of women’s poetry. Here we can see Poe’s early thinking about the role that popularity and imitation should and should not play in the composition and reception of poetry and how these preoccupations are primarily tied to issues of gender. Sigourney’s various reactions to Poe’s engagement with her reveal her trying out public, private, and creative responses to deeply-gendered critiques. This article argues that this correspondence serves as a testing ground for the active and continual construction of Sigourney’s legacy, which she will go on to craft over the long career that follows.