A POEster about a writer who still has not been forgotten after 200 years, along with his works— “POEtica” is a tribute to a highly intelligent, eloquent (if sober) writer who was one of the first Americans to make a meager living solely from writing. He was a complex, sensitive person with real problems—alcoholism, depression, paranoid tendencies, and self-destructive behavior. So it is not surprising that the Poe myth paints a picture of a mad, alcoholic genius. But he is also the inventor of the detective story, a master of psychological horror with an influence on symbolism and modernism that should not be underestimated. In the theoretical examination of the nature, rules, and possibilities of poetics (hence the title of the work, “POEtica”), it can be said that Poe anticipated core ideas of structuralist poetics even in his own time. His texts function as complex sign systems that reflect their own poetics. His emphasis on form over content and his understanding of literature as a calculated system make him a pioneer in understanding how literature functions as a system of signs.