E. A. Poo?

Poe was important influence on the short format thats why he gets credit for it more than others, his detective stories were the first of its kind no matter what you think of its quality million of fans,writers find it important and you can find copy cats even today. Sherlock Holmes the most famous literary chararcter of them all would be nothing without Dupin. Conan Doyle was clear about that even in the first Holmes story. You can see the smart intuitive dective that Poe created 100s times a year in movies,tv. Monk,Mentalist,Sherlock tv,movies etc

Poe got his huge place in western literature because writers after saw him as important. French,Russian greats and many others. He was a genius in many type of fields of literature thats why he might seem to be overrated.

You might not like him but you can understand why others see him so influentil. Its like even if you dont like Shakepeare type stories,drama you know why he is seen so important in literature,drama.

You talk about critics ? If you arent critically acclaimed you are forgotten like hack bestsellers that was bigger in his times. His rep was build after his lifetime like Kafka.
 
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I like Poe, but I don't put him on a pedestal. As for his influence, some important voices have been critical of him: Borges compared him disfavourably to Ray Bradbury. Literary critic Harold Bloom thinks he's awful and contends that he's better in translation; indeed he only found success after the French read him. After reading him in Portuguese and English, I'm forced to agree with him.

As for his influence on the modern short story, I'd say that modern greats like Hemingway and Raymond Carver owe more to Chekhov than Poe. Poe is in the line of O. Henry and Robert Dahl, building and carrying suspense and a twist at the end. The others are more about describing a scene, a mood, with an anti-climatic ending, and with a precision and economy of words.
 
Robert Dahl, political scientist? Or do you mean Roald Dahl? As you intimate between the lines, being a writer does not automatically make one unwise in the arena of literary criticism where one man's authority is another man's mythmaker. Poe himself was a critic of worth. "His keen and sound judgment as appraiser of contemporary literature" is one among several reasons cited by the Encyclopedia Britannica which has "secured him a place among universally known men of letters", a sentiment I doubt could pass editor's muster had it been patently untrue. No matter what one may think of individual writers, collectively their a fairly hearty breed intellectually. (I think.)
 
Yeah, good old Roald, sorry, it's been ages since I've opened a book by him :D

I won't dispute Poe's merits as a critic since I haven't read his criticism. But some good writers have been critical of his style:

"To me his prose is unreadable--like Jane Austen's. No, there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary" - Mark Twain :p
 
Every classic author is put on a pedestal, if anything Poe is more undderated in US than he is in europe. Show me a writer who didnt have his critics.... Specially literary giants.

Its not about personal feelings, when we read literary history,greats of prose,poetry,plays in my Lit class A he was mentioned as most important in the prose genres,literary movement he was in. In poetry only Baudelaire was put on the same important level,influence for modernist poetry.

Those scholars,teachers are the critics that write about classic authors. You dont have to like but show some respect for his works,influence. I dont like Jane Austen,Dickens and many others but i see why they were important in their times.
 
I have a conflicted view of Poe. As a child I read his work, in translation, and loved it. He was one of my gateways into literature, along with Wilde and Verne and Wells, so it pains me to diss him. But many years later I re-read him in the original and found him unreadable. Reading him seemed like trudging through sludge and not the fun it was. Ironically, Lovecraft originally seemed very hard to read but now I find him immensely readable.

I think I understand why the French appreciated him better. Translation can do wonders for writers. I've read that Dostoevsky's prose in Russian is awful - greats like Tolstoy, Chekhov and Nabokov disliked him for this - and benefits from translations.

So I can appreciate Poe's historical importance, and I retain some nostalgia for my initial discovery of him, but these days I prefer to stay away from him.
 
I dunno.. it's hard to argue with Poe's writing. His humor and sarcasm is the part people forget. Twain was probably jealous. )
There's only a handful of Poe doesn't read well today, usually because of the subject matter more than the style.
A true artist, it's no wonder Poe was underpaid in his time.
 
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