what are some comparisons between poe's work and hawthornes work?

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2004

Answers

It is interesting to read Poe on Hawthorne at www.eapoe.org. that would be a start. The two were separated by region and personality. The allegory and characterization wedded in Hawthorne are beyond Poe's wilder and more organic stories. hawthorne is talking about morlaity issues and the human condition. Poe isolates the poetic experience and dark Romanticism beyond such preoccupations to the felt experience itself. Hawthorne of course was capable of great novels, which Poe could not do. Neither man was as dark as their fiction would suggest. Poe was a Sooutherner through and through as much as Hawthorne was a New Englander. Hawthorne concealed his dislike of Emerson. Poe did not. Hawthorne's tales(or anyone else's for that matter) focussed on the story, the plot and it's climax. Poe concentrated on the effect itself and a formula exposition of aboth an idea and a strong emotion. In fact, like Rod Serling, Poe's introductions are mainly erudite ways of leading into the mood.

Put a story of each side by side and see what is there and not there, what the story is doing and what are the ideas behind them, the artful techniques that develop them.

-- Anonymous, January 12, 2004