Thesis On The Artistic Characteristics Of Allen Poe's Short Stories

As an important author in the 19th century history of American literature, Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) exerted certain international influences. The past one and half century saw his literary fame rise steadily. Up to now, he has been regarded as one of the classic authors in American Literature. His creation in aesthetic and literary theories focuses on expounding aesthetics of effect and other important issues such as the legitimation of short stories, the poetry or literary work for the sake of itself, literary imagination and originality. What he thought about literature looms large in literary currents of "the art for the sake of art", aestheticism, and symbolism that were popular meanwhile or later on. He became the second internationally-known American writer after James F. Copper.When Poe began his literary career, Gothic literature was very favorable. Gothic novels, with European Middle Age as its background, told grotesque stories of feudal revenge, property contention, psychological abnormality and mental deliriousness. They employed super-natural powers and brought about the effects of bloody violence, absurdness and terror. During the end of 18th century and the first half of the 19th century Gothic literature reached its climax. Most of Poe's short stories fell into the category of Gothic literature. His stories suited both popular and refined tastes with great readability and artificial originality. They were different from the bulk of Gothic tales, being popular but not vulgar. By reforming the common mode of Gothic tales, he contributed a lot to the composition of modern short stories.First of all, Poe explored the spiritual world of the humans in his tales. He made Gothic tales turn inward and appear psychologically-oriented when exploring the hidden passages and cabinets in human souls. Madness, deliriousness, extremities, abnormality, spiritual division and illusion remained recurrent themes in his tales, some heroes of which were bound to certain psychological extremities and broke down as a rule after painful contemplations, some so sensitive and anxious that they became victims of their nightmares, and some had deep insights into worldly affaires and what they had thought turned out eventually the fact. So far as the effect is concerned, it is the inner world of his heroes that shocks the reader instead of the simple criminal cases. What he did with the human minds is obvious in other aspects of the short stories. For instance, his scenic descriptions are combined with the feelings of heroes and heroines and expressed with direct and indirect ways.Secondly, his tales are irony in multi-implications, structures and characters. More than one interpretation fits his best tales and readers may find specific implication with different views. The interpretative potentiality with which his tales are loaded initiates the critics all the time. His tales are multi-plotted as well, with Metzengerstein as the instance of ironies between the first and the second part of the tale and The Fall of the House of Usher of ironies between the obvious plot and the hidden one.It follows from above that Poe's literary creation centers around aesthetics of effect and changes its focus from representing the horrible events to generating horrible effects, from textual expression to its reception. He made valuable modifications of Gothic tales in regard to what to write and how to write it and to content and form as well. He helped improve the quality of Gothic tales and explored extra areas for modern short stories.