Poe's Critical Theory: THE MAJOR DOCUMENTS - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0252031237 ISBN 13: 9780252031236

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2009

Synopsis

Edgar Allan Poe's reputation as an enduring and influential American literary critic rests mainly upon the pieces in this edition. Editors Stuart and Susan F. Levine provide reading texts, detailed explanatory footnotes, variant readings, and introductions to show context. They also face frankly the contradictions in Poe's critical opinions. Poe argues both that poetry is for pleasure, not truth, and that poetic inspiration leads to truth. Great works, Poe maintains, result from studied calculation, but also from irrational, supernal sources. Poe, both a biting critic and the doughty defender of American artistic achievement, was contemptuous of democratic art--except when vigorously defending it. Critical Theory highlights such conflicting ideas and suggests why they are present.

What was consistent in Poe's work was not a single theory, but rather wit, playfulness, concern for the strong effect, a bin of recyclable allusions, anecdotes and quotations, and a craftsman's discipline. Poe's writing on theory is of a piece with his fiction, poetry, and journalism. The Levines explain how these critical statements also tie tightly to the social, political, economic, and technological history of the world in which Poe lived.

About this title

About the Author

Stuart Levine is an emeritus professor of English at the University of Kansas. Susan F. Levine is a former assistant dean of the Graduate School at the University of Kansas. Their collaborations have included scholarly editions of Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe and Poe's Eureka.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252031237
• ISBN 13: 9780252031236
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 248
• Editor: Levine Susan, Levine Susan F.