insurejae.blogg.se - Good short stories to write cultural anaylisis on

Poe claims the highest ground for his work, though it is debatable whether he was entirely serious. He even has the audacity to claim that the design of the “The Raven” rendered the work “ universally appreciable.” It may be so, but perhaps it does not universally inspire an appreciation of Beauty that “excites the sensitive soul to tears”-Poe’s desired effect for the poem. Poe assumes here a tremendous amount about the ability of authors to manipulate readers’ emotions. The author must decide in advance “the choice of impression” he or she wishes to leave on the reader.

Poe cites Robinson Crusoe as one example of a work of art “demanding of no unity.” But the single sitting rule applies to all poems, and for this reason, he writes, Milton’s Paradise Lost fails to achieve a sustained effect. It must-or the novel would be disqualified as literature. This “limit of a single sitting” admits of exceptions, of course. Poe contends that “if any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression.” Force the reader to take a break, and “the affairs of the world interfere” and break the spell.

Keep it short-the “single sitting” rule.

“Nothing is more clear,” writes Poe, “than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its dénouement before any thing be attempted with the pen.” Once writing commences, the author must keep the ending “constantly in view” in order to “give a plot its indispensable air of consequence” and inevitability.

Know the ending in advance, before you begin writing.

Below, in condensed form, we have listed the major points of Poe’s essay, covering the elements he considers most necessary to “effective” literary composition. But how does it do so? Against commonplace ideas that writers “compose by a species of fine frenzy-an ecstatic intuition,” Poe has not “the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive steps of any of my compositions”-steps he considers almost “mathematical.” Nor does he consider it a “breach of decorum” to pull aside the curtain and reveal his tricks.

To illustrate what he means, Poe walks us through an analysis of his own work, “ The Raven.” We are to take for granted as readers that “The Raven” achieves its desired effect. It is here that we find Poe’s famous theory of what good literature is and does, achieving what he calls “unity of effect.” This literary “totality” results from a collection of essential elements that the author deems indispensable in “constructing a story,” whether in poetry or prose, that produces a “vivid effect.” The essay delivers on its title’s promise. But Poe has much more to say that does not involve a romance with dead women.