Poe praised by Poe

The Foam Pages brand restores a short essay that Edgar Allan Poe (Boston, Massachusetts, 1809-Baltimore, Maryland, 1849) devoted to his stories, which appeared in October 1845 in the monthly Aristidian. The text — extolling the originality of a work that stands out amid a rough and conservative literary scene — mentions the author in the third person, and this has led scholars to attribute it to the publication’s editor (Thomas Dunn English) and even to a third party. , but the truth is that knowing certain details makes it difficult to think of anyone other than the author of the poem Annabelle Leeessay eureka and the fictional detective Auguste Dupin.

Even the use of that “Mr. Poe” or the initials TDE could be explained as an attempt to avoid the impression that he glorifies his own work. And it was like that. “The genius of the story cannot be surpassed” (Golden bug), “A story elaborated, surpassed, in our opinion, only by Ligeia» (The Fall of the House of Usher), “An extraordinary and very original composition” (Tell-Tale’s heart), “It stands out above all for the boldness of its theme, a theme that has never been dreamed of before, and the clarity of its descriptions” (Descent into Maelström), etc.

Review each story to conclude: “Mr. Poe’s style is clear and strong. There is often thoroughness in detail, but on examination it will always be seen that such thoroughness was necessary for the development of plot, effect, or incident. His style can be qualified, strictly speaking, as a form. And this formality is one of its greatest charms. A writer must fully believe his statements, or must perfectly simulate that belief, in order to produce an absorbing interest in the mind of his reader. Only a genius can possess this power of simulation.”

The third of the four volumes of the book complete essays edited by Páginas de Espuma shows that Poe is not only the father of the modern short story, but also of modern criticism. In these texts, he evaluates what he considers worth reading and denigrates (sometimes very harshly) what he judges to be of poor quality. And he does it rigorously and conscientiously, in real time, with the literature of his country and his time.