Edgar allan poe (1809 ~ 1849), [Poe]19th century American poet, novelist, literary critic, and long-term newspaper editor. His works are "unique" at any time. The language and form are exquisite and beautiful, and the content is diverse. The originator of detective novels, one of the pioneers of science fiction, the master of horror novels, the peak of Gothic short stories, and one of the pioneers of symbolism and aestheticism. Literary criticism is a very important part of many works he wrote in his short life. At that time, in the literary world, almost no one could compare with James Russell Lowell. Lowell never praises others easily, but he regards Poe as "the most knowledgeable and philosophical fearless critic". Edmund wilson, a contemporary literary critic, also said that Poe's literary criticism is indeed an unprecedented masterpiece in American literature. However, it cannot be ignored that when Poe was a newspaper editor in his early years, he also wrote a lot of dross in exchange for the manuscript fee, so he has only retained a small part of the essence so far. He has always advocated "art for art's sake". His artistic thought runs through almost all his works, including poems, short stories and papers. In these works, he claimed that "the purpose of all art is entertainment, not truth." He believes that "only creating beauty in poetry-extraordinary beauty is the proper way to arouse interest." Music is an indispensable part of poetry, which is especially important for poets to strive to express extraordinary beauty. In story writing, artists might as well try to create thrilling, horrible and strong emotional effects. And every work should have an effect. His original papers, such as Philosophy of Writing (1846), Principles of Poetry (1850), Comments on Hawthorne's Old Stories, Poems by Longfellow, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Tennyson, Dickens' Old Antique Shop, etc. He wrote sixty or seventy short stories in his life. Although he only wrote four or five mystery novels, he is recognized as the originator of mystery novels. Masterpieces such as The Bloody Case in Mao Mu Street, The Mystery of Mary Roger, The Case of Stealing Letters, Scarab, etc. are all regarded as precedents of this kind of novels, which have great influence on later generations. Dobbin, the amateur detective he created in his first three novels, can be said to be the predecessor of Sherlock Holmes written by Conan Doyle. According to Howard Haykreft, an expert in detective stories, "This Dobbin is also the embodiment of Edgar Allan Poe's self-ideal. Because he was extremely smart since he was a child and wanted to show his superiority everywhere, he wrote Dobbin as an ideal figure with superhuman wisdom, meticulous observation and unpredictable things. In order to set off his greatness, he borrowed a friend who admired him infinitely and put him to shame to describe his deeds. Besides, he wrote a dull mind with good motives. The location of the crime is generally arranged in a tightly locked darkroom; The evidence of burying stolen goods is obviously surprising; In the process of solving crimes, we use logical reasoning (now called psychoanalysis); Then force the criminals to justice in an orderly manner; Finally, the protagonist will gloat and explain the whole process plausibly. This has become the mode for Poe to write detective stories. " In the past 140 years, this model has been imitated by detective novelists all over the world, and many such works have followed in his footsteps and cannot get rid of this model. Even the detective Foucault, known as the father of detective novels in Wilkie Collins's masterpiece The Moon Stone (1868), was born under the influence of Poe.