Does anybody know what ideas poe´s theory of short fiction contains or where I can find information???

-- Anonymous, September 29, 2003

Answers

You can find Poe's theory of the "Short Story" at www.eapoe.org, among his critical writings. His main key-words are invariably the "Unity of Effect", and you may traced them as early as in some critical reviews published in the "Southern Literary Messenger" (e.g. about "Tales of the Peerage and the Peasentry", "Peter Snook", and "Watkins Tottle and other Sketches"), but, above all, in his 1842 reviews of Hawthorne's "Twice-Told Tales" for the Graham's Magazine (and their revised 1847 version for the Godey's Ladies Book). More unexpectedly, in his satirical view of the matter as humorously exposed in his "tale": "How to Write a Blackwood Article", and, a few months later, more seriously, and as a personal justification, in his own "Preface" to his 1839/40 "Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque". All these texts will provide you, I think, a good "digest" of Poe's remarkable major aesthetical credo and views on this literary genre. Good luck. Yours sincerely, Raven's Shade (Belgium).

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2003