The Poetic Principle is an essay by Edgar Allan Poe, written near the end of his life and published posthumously in 1850 (Poe died in 1849). It is a work of literary criticism, and one of the most complete (but still far from being truly complete) discussions of Poe's literary theory. It is based on a series of lectures Poe had given on literary theory late in his life.

It argues that a poem should be written "for a poem's sake" and that the ultimate goal of art is aesthetic. He also argues against the concept of a long poem, saying that an epic, if it is to be worth anything, must instead be structured as a collection of shorter pieces, each of which is not too long to be read in a single sitting.

The essay critiques, sometimes rather sharply, the works of other poets of his time. His most common complaint is against didacticism, which he calls a "heresy".