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Critical Overview | Critical Articles

Critical Overview

Ralph Waldo Emerson called him the jingle man, Mark Twain said that his prose was unreadable, and Henry James felt that a taste for his work was the mark of a second-rate sensibility. According to T. S. Eliot, "the forms which his lively curiosity takes are those in which a preadolescent mentality delights." After notices like those, most reputations would be sunk without a trace, and yet Edgar Allan Poe shows no sign whatsoever of loosening his extraordinary hold on our imaginations. In 1959, Richard Wilbur, an elegant poet and a critic of refined taste, inaugurated the Dell Laurel Poetry Series (mass-market paperback selections from classic British and American poets) with an edition of Poe's complete poems, for which he provided a long and thoughtful introduction. In 1973, Daniel Hoffman, also a distinguished poet and critic, published a highly regarded study of Poe's writings. In 1984, two massive volumes of Poe's collected works, together comprising some three thousand pages, were published in the Library of America. You may chose to approach your critical studies of Poe using one or more of the methods below.

Psychological Criticism:

The psychological approach has been a staple of Poe studies, and a great deal of attention has been focused upon the psychological states of the characters in his tales and poems, with "The Tell-Tale Heart" being an obvious candidate for such scrutiny. A great deal of attention, not all of it by any means deserving of the attention of readers, has also been focused upon the psychology of Poe himself.

Formalist Criticism:

His theorizing on the nature of poetry emphasized the concept of the poet as a conscious, deliberate creator of effect, and, following his lead, critics have taken a formalist approach to the discussion and analysis of his work.

Other Critical Approaches:

Perhaps no other American author, certainly no other of his stature, has produced such sharply divided critical reactions regarding the artistic merit of his major works. Opinions tend to be especially varied in response to his poetry, with some praising what they see as the artistry and beauty of such poems as "Annabel Lee," while others find the same texts to be shallow, sentimental, and awkwardly executed. Its formal skill, its unity of effect, and its memorable imagery and phrasing have led even sophisticated modern critics of the art to regard "To Helen" as one of Poe's finest poems, if not his very finest, but that has not stopped others from dismissing it as "perfectly dreadful."

In the light of such contrasting responses, it is not surprising that Poe has also attracted some interesting reader-response criticism. An especially rewarding instance is Daniel Hoffman's Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe (1973), which, as its title suggests, is a lively and subjective reading of its subject, grounded in a thorough familiarity with Poe's writings and arguing for the larger coherence of his extremely varied literary production.

 

 

Critical Articles

Three Tales by Edgar Poe by Fyodor M. Dostoevski

From an introduction to the Russian translation of "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Devil in the Belfry," and "The Black Cat"

from Edgar Poe's Significance by Walt Whitman

A short but interesting comment on Poe's talents

from Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe by Daniel Hoffman

A psychological analysis of "The Tell-Tale Heart"

Poe's Theory of the Short Story by Dana Gioia

A concise summary of Poe's hopes for short fiction

The Question of Poe's Narrator by James W. Gargano

A brief, helpful consideration of the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart"

Additional Resources: The Bibliography includes an extended list of writings about Edgar Allan Poe. Continue your Web Explorations by visiting Poe Links.

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