CRITICAL SURVEY
OF
SHORT FICTION
Volume 5
e distinguished Twayne
3 is one of the best studilable. Doyle, an authority on Plomer's writings, taught at many South African universities and published essays in a
number of South African periodicals. Chapter 2
describes and analyzes Plomer's short stories in
depth. Contains a chronology, copious reference
notes, a bibliography, and an index.
Spender, Stephen. "A Singular Man." New Statesman
86 (November 9, 1973): 690. Spender, a leading
English poet and influential literary figure, published this tribute shortly after his friend Plomer's
death. Spender writes: "All his qualities were
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Critical Survey of Short Fiction
wind-blown, sun-saturated, sparkling, and in his
writing the language shines and curls like waves
animated by a strong breeze on a clear day."
Tucker, Martin. Africa in Modern Literature: A Survey of Contemporary Writing in English. New
York: Frederick Ungar, 1967. This interesting and
authoritative discussion of all modern literature
about the African continent contains many pages
about Plomer in various contexts. Tucker hails
him as the first white South African writer to treat
miscegenation and interracial fraternization from
the viewpoint of social and political protest rather
than as something forbidden and shameful.
Bill Delaney
EDGAR ALLAN POE
Born: Boston, Massachusetts; January 19, 1809
Died: Baltimore, Maryland; October 7, 1849
PRINCIPAL SHORT FICTION
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, 1840
The Prose Romances of Edgar Allan Poe, 1843
Tales, 1845
The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, 1976 (Stuart
and Susan Levine, editors)
OTHER LITERARY FORMS
During his short literary career, Edgar Allan Poe
produced a large quantity of writing, most of which
was not collected in book form during his lifetime.
He published one novel, The Narrative of Arthur
Gordon Pym (1838), and several volumes of poetry,
the most famous of which is The Raven and Other
Poems (1845). Poe earned his living mainly as a
writer and as an editor of magazines. For magazines,
he wrote reviews, occasional essays, meditations, literary criticism, and a variety of different kinds of
journalism, as well as poetry and short fiction.
1940
ACHIEVEMENTS
During his life, Edgar Allan Poe was a figure of
controversy and so became reasonably well known in
literary circles. Two of his works were recognized
with prizes: "Manuscript Found in a Bottle" and "The
Gold-Bug." "The Raven," his most famous poem,
created a sensation when it was published and became something of a best-seller. After his death,
Poe's reputation grew steadily—though in the United
States opinion remained divided—until by the middle
of the twentieth century he had clear status as an author of worldwide importance. Poe's achievements
may be measured in terms of what he has contributed
to literature and of how his work influenced later culture.
Poe was accomplished in fiction, poetry, and criticism, setting standards in all three that distinguish
him from most of his American contemporaries. In
fiction, he is credited with inventing the conventions
of the classical detective story, beginning the modern
genre of science fiction, and turning the conventions
of gothic fiction to the uses of high art in stories such
Critical Survey of Short Fiction
as "The Fall of the House of Usher." He was also an
accomplished humorist and satirist. In poetry, he produced a body of work that is respected throughout the
world and a few poems that have endured as classics,
notably "The Raven," as well as several poems that,
in part because of their sheer verbal beauty, have persistently appealed to the popular imagination, such as
"The Bells" and "Annabel Lee." In criticism, Poe is
among the first to advocate and demonstrate methods
of textual criticism that came into their own in the
twentieth century, notably in his essay "The Philosophy of Composition," in which he analyzed with remarkable objectivity the process by which "The Raven" was built in order to produce a specified effect
in its readers.
Poe's influence on later culture was pervasive.
Nearly every important American writer after Poe
shows signs of influence, especially when working in
the gothic mode or with grotesque humor. The
French, Italians, and writers in Spanish and Portuguese in the Americas acknowledge and demonstrate
their debts to Poe in technique and vision. Only to begin to explore Poe's influence on twentieth century
music and film would be a major undertaking. In
terms of his world reputation, Poe stands with William Faulkner and perhaps T. S. Eliot as one of the
most influential authors of the United States.
BIOGRAPHY
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston on January
19, 1809. His parents, David and Elizabeth Arnold
Poe, were actors at a time when the profession was
not widely respected in the United States. David was
making a success in acting when alcohol addiction
brought an end to his career. He deserted his family a
year after Edgar's birth; Elizabeth died a year later in
1811, leaving Edgar an orphan in Richmond, Virginia. There, he was taken in by John Allan, who educated him well in England and the United States. Poe
was a sensitive and precocious child; during his
teens, his relations with his foster father declined.
Stormy relations continued until Allan's first wife
died and his second wife had children. Once it became unlikely that he would inherit anything significant from the wealthy Allan, Poe, at the age of
POE, EDGAR ALLAN
Edgar Allen Poe (Library of Congress)
twenty-one, having already published a volume of
poetry, began a literary career.
From 1831 to 1835, more or less dependent on his
Poe relatives, he worked in Baltimore, writing stories
and poems, a few of which were published. In 1835,
he secretly married his cousin, Virginia Clemm,
when she was thirteen. From 1835 to 1837, he was
assistant editor of The Southern Literary Messenger,
living on a meager salary, tending to drink enough to
disappoint the editor, publishing his fiction, and making a national reputation as a reviewer of books.
When he was fired, he moved with his wife (by then
the marriage was publicly acknowledged) and her
mother to New York City, where he lived in poverty,
selling his writing for the next two years. Though he
published The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym in
1838, it brought him no income. He moved to Philadelphia that same year and for several months continued to live on only a small income from stories and
other magazine pieces. In 1839, he became coeditor
1941
Critical Survey of Short Fiction
achieving a final view of its wholeness. The story itself may provide an experience that demonstrates the
ultimate inadequacy of human reason to understand
the mysteries of creation.
Although Poe wrote a variety of stories, he is best
remembered for his tales of terror and madness. His
popular literary reputation is probably a distorted
view of Poe, both as person and as artist. While Jhe
was tragically addicted to alcohol and while he did
experience considerable difficulty in a milieu that
was not particularly supportive, he was nevertheless
an accomplished artist whose work, especially when
viewed as a whole, is by no means the mere outpouring of a half- mad, anguished soul. To look closely at
any of his best work is to see ample evidence of a
writer in full artistic control of his materials, calculating his effects with a keen eye. Furthermore, to examine the range and quantity of his writing, to attend to
the quantity of his humor—of which there are interesting examples even in "The Fall of the House of
Usher"—to notice the beauty of his poetry, to study
the learned intelligence of his best criticism—in
short, to see Poe whole —must lead to the recognition
that his accomplishments far exceed the narrow view
implied by his popular reputation.
OTHER MAJOR WORKS
LONG FICTION: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon
Pym, 1838.
PLAY: Politician, pb. 1835-1836.
POETRY: Tamerlane and Other Poems, 1827; Al
Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, 1829; Poems,
1831; The Raven and Other Poems, 1845; Eureka: A
Prose Poem, 1848; Poe: Complete Poems, 1959;
Poems, 1969 (volume 1 of Collected Works).
NONFICTION: The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe,
1948; Literary Criticism of Edgar Allan Poe, 1965;
Essays and Reviews, 1984.
MISCELLANEOUS: The Complete Works of Edgar
Allan Poe, 1902 (17 volumes); Collected Works of
Edgar Allan Poe, 1969, 1978 (3 volumes).
BlBLIOGRAPHY
Burner, Vviiiiarri .Poe: A Biography. Boston: Little,
Brown, 1962. This volume is a reliable study of
POE, EDGAR ALLAN
Poe's life and is suitable for general readers.
Brown, Arthur A. "Literature and the Impossibility of
Death: Poe's 'Berenice.'" Nineteenth-Century Literature 50 (March, 1996): 448-463. Argues that
Poe's stories of the dead coming back to life and
of premature burial dramatize the horror of the
impossibility of dying. In "Berenice," our attention to the details of the tale reproduces the narrator's obsession with that which speaks of death
and does not die and thus implicates us in his violation of the still-living Berenice in her tomb.
Buranelli, Vincent. Edgar Allan Poe. 2d ed. Boston:
Twayne, 1977. This study of Poe's life and works
offers an excellent introduction. The book includes a chronology of his life and an annotated,
select bibliography.
Burluck, Michael L. Grim Phantasms: Fear in Poe's ^
Short Fiction. New York: Garland, 1993. Con-^/
siders the question of why Poe focused primarily
on portraying weird events in his stories. Discusses the gothic conventions Poe used to achieve
his effects. Argues that neither drugs nor insanity
are responsible for Poe's gothic tales, but rather
they were a carefully thought out literary tactic
meant to appeal to current public taste and the
general human reaction to fear.
Carlson, Eric, ed. Critical Essays on Edgar Allan
Poe. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987. This supplement to
Carlson's 1966 volume (below) offers a cross section of writing about Poe from the 1830's to the
1980's. Many of the essays deal with short stories,
illustrating a variety of interpretive strategies.
, ed. The Recognition of Edgar Allan Poe.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966.
This selection of critical essays from 1829 to 1963
is intended to illustrate the development of Poe's
literary reputation. It includes a number of the
most important earlier essays on Poe, including
Constance Rourke's discussion of Poe as a humorist. Also includes several essays by French and
British critics.
Crisman, William. "Poe's Dupin as Professional, the
Dupin Stories as Serial Text." Studies in American
Fiction 23 (Autumn, 1995): 215-229. Part of a
special section on Poe. Argues that the Dupin sto-
1947