EDGAR ALLAN POE, LITERARY CRITICISM AND MAGAZINES – A REVIEW

Abstract

Edgar Allan Poe was particularly impressed by work in magazines, so that from his early youth he was familiar with traditional British magazines, in particular Blackwood–s Magazine, and with the types of story that it nurtured. These were the burlesque and sensational stories that the American Zoilus experimented with on many occasions during his writing career. The extent of the importance of particular British and American magazines to Poe is evident when one considers the fact that all his essays and criticisms were published in periodicals. In individual critical reviews he also dealt with the issue of professional criticism, and emphasized the view that criticism could not be an essay, sermon, philosophical speculation, poetic prose, a novel or a dialogue. Criticism must be criticism, an analysis of art, otherwise it would be nothing but a farce. In this work we deal with Poe–s view that the true critic must be ready to rise above the trivial and above personal controversy, to carry out his task professionally and to comment objectively not on the content of the work, but on its elements that were successfully imagined and realized, as well as those segments of the work which can or cannot be considered flaws. He must be ready to analyze and compare very professionally, he must have an eye for beauty and an ear for music, as Poe demonstrated extensively in his own example, occasionally not without exaggeration. Research has shown that Poe scattered this extensively in „Marginalia”, „Pinakidia”, and „The Literati of New York City”, but also critical reviews written at the expense of countless British and American writer. It is these critiques that represent his decisiveness to lay the foundation for professional criticism which would be based on seriousness, high standards and exceptional professionalism.