Edgar Allan Poe's Literary Style: Three Analytical Approaches

Introduction: Poe's Invitational Literary Style

"Always in debt, Poe both sought and sneered at the popular audience of his day." — Andre Carrilho

Poe is said to have believed that fiction was art only insofar as it avoided didactics and carried meaning lightly, leaving much to the imagination of the reader (Jannaccone 1974). Telling a story that engages readers deeply and introducing characters that readers truly care about are hallmarks of compelling fiction. Poe's literary style is invitational, encouraging readers to fully engage in the story. Fans of Poe will enjoy his "virtuosic, showy, lilting, and slightly wilting quality, like a peony just past bloom" (Lepore 2009). If readers are enthralled in a gothic tale, they may anticipate an ending capable of thrilling and astonishing them; nonetheless, they will remain gripped by the unfolding story until its dramatic conclusion. Poe further compelled his readers by grounding his fiction in realistic details, convincing readers of the apparent rationality of each tale. As often as not, these details were presented as scientific fact, though Poe fabricated them to add color, texture, and authority.

Poe's literary style is a particularly good fit with several analytical approaches. This compatibility supports the use of three methods of analysis in particular: textual analysis, reception theory, and narratology. One objective of applying these three analytical approaches is to demonstrate how acutely they contribute to a platform that facilitates considered literary critique. A brief description of each follows below.

Three Analytical Frameworks

Textual analysis suggests that the reader negotiates the meaning of a literary work rather than passively accepting it (Gursimesek & Krotner, 2014). That is to say, readers are free to identify and interpret the meaning of a text according to their own perceptions, which are necessarily shaped by their culture, education, and life experiences (Gursimesek & Krotner, 2014). Clearly, the relationship that the reader establishes with the work determines its meaning, rather than meaning being something integral to the work itself (Gursimesek & Krotner, 2014).

The concept of reception theory is closely related to rhetorical analysis, which considers a literary work to be an "artistically structured instrument" that serves as communication (Corbett, 1985). Rhetorical criticism "is more interested in a literary work for what it does than for what it is," and in this way attempts to determine what effect the author seeks to establish on a particular audience in a particular work (Corbett 1985).

Narratology also serves as a way to structure perceptions of the world around us, and especially the cultural artifacts that are fundamental to those perceptions (Mosher 1987). Narratology fosters an analysis of a literary work that distinguishes between the story told through the narrative and the discourse — a term referring to the essential way in which the story is told. From this, the central research question emerges: To what extent do the narrative and discursive strategies of Poe's texts invite the reader to take part in the building of the story and enable the reader to become an active participant — a reader-actor or accomplice?

Poe's Gothic Sensibility and Public Taste

Poe understood the appeal of gothic and supernatural tales. He applied his intellect to deducing what the public wanted to read and what they would buy. Gothic stories sold well, and Poe concluded, "The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in nature — to Bernice" (Lepore, 2009). Having identified the public appetite, Poe set to work writing stories that compelled readers to stay with the narrative and engage fully in the tale. He experimented with different types of stories and a wide range of topics, albeit always with undergirding romantic or gothic themes. The following works form points in a unified constellation of stories:

William Wilson; The Oval Portrait; The Tell-Tale Heart; The Fall of the House of Usher; Ligeia; The Murders in the Rue Morgue; Eleonora; The Masque of the Red Death; The Gold-Bug; The Black Cat; Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar; The Pit and the Pendulum; Shadow: A Parable; and The Cask of Amontillado. Poe so aptly understood the public taste that, through his narrative and discursive strategies, he expertly crafted stories capable of engaging readers enough to purchase the periodicals that carried them — offering escape, however brief, from the economic and social hardships that surrounded them.

Conclusion

Poe's best horror stories are, at face value, wonderfully and flawlessly terrifying. "Half-banter, half-satire" is how Poe once described them (Lepore 8). Indeed, his gothic stories often have burlesque-style endings — half-guessed tricks that readers sense but must still pursue and verify in their reading. Poe's mastery of reader engagement was no accident; it was the product of acute commercial awareness, lived economic hardship, and a calculated understanding of gothic literary convention. Through the combined lenses of textual analysis, reception theory, and narratology, the full sophistication of his narrative craft becomes visible — revealing an author who made his readers not merely spectators, but active participants in the stories he told.

References

Corbett, Edward P.J. (1985). "Introduction." Rhetorical Analyses of Literary Works. Oxford University Press.

Gursimesek, Odul and Krotner, Kirsten. (2014, November). Lost spoiler practices: Online interaction as social participation. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 11(2). Institute for the Study of Culture, Media Studies, University of Southern Denmark.

Jannaccone, Pasquale (translated by Peter Mitilineos) (1974). "The Aesthetics of Edgar Poe." Poe Studies, 7(1). doi:10.1111/j.1754-6095.1974.tb00224.x

Lepore, J. (2009, April 27). The humbug: Edgar Allan Poe and the economy of horror. The New Yorker.

Mosher, Harold R., Jr. (1987). Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Poetics Today, 8(3/4): 694–698.

Wilbur, Richard (1967). "The House of Poe." In Regan, Robert. Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.