Taylor's Annotated Bibliography

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[Taylor Whitmer]'s Bibliography

  • “Literary Criticism of Edgar Allen Poe.” Ed. Paul A. Olson & Robert L. Hough. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965.

The “Literary Criticism of Edgar Allen Poe” provides a numerous selection of American published articles. It begins with an introduction to who Poe is, as it primarily discusses Poe's career as an author, editor, and reviewer. Background information is given about his views on poetry, the short story, and even how he had some influence on the composition of the novel. However, it notes that his influence was greater in the realm of poetry.

While the book introduces Poe as a writer, the main focus of the book is on a wide variety of texts that are organized in chronological order. They are organized based upon when they appeared in the various range of American magazines. The first section addresses “First Principles” which analyze nature, poetry, music, poetry, imagination, plot, and the philosophy of composition. The following section discusses “English Poetry and Prose” which points out many influential writers such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Dickens and Shelley. Next comes “The American Scene” which includes famous American critics and criticism and the state of criticism. Additionally, a review of Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales is included and presents the fundamentals of Poe’s critical theory.

One essay that could be of particular importance is Poe’s “The Philosophy of Composition”, as it discusses the problems with the common modes of constructing a story. The article states “I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view” (Olson & Hough 21). The essay proceeds to discuss the notion and significance of the length of a literary work – it must not be too long to read in one sitting. Additionally, the article states that it must create a certain type of effect, which comes from the brevity of the work in conjunction with 'elevation of the soul'. It claims that if a work can follow this design, then it would be “universally appreciable” (Olson & Hough 23). The essay then continues to discuss Poe’s story “The Raven”, and use it as an example of the model short story. The article takes specific steps to expose how Poe created the “effect” that was discussed in the article previously. These steps are significant because essentially they utilize Poe’s story to model what is commonly known as Poe’s critical theory, specifically about the short story.


This website is interactive in all ways, shapes, and forms. There are three primary sections: Poe the Person, Poe the Writer, and the Poe Library. Each section gives the reader a glimpse into Poe’s life. As the reader goes from section to section, there is an audio voice recording that reads each page. After the page is done, the viewer can go to the next page and continue on the same way.

Something that I found to be particularly interesting was an interactive game regarding Poe's life. In the game It'll Be the Death of Me, there are a lot topics that could be discussed that would match up with topics discussed previously in the course, such as gaming, and narratives. The graphics are incredible, and the combination of audio with additional sound effects are particularly appealing.

The Poe the Writer section provides much information is provided about Poe such as the fact that he is known as 'father of the American short story'. In addition, the link Secret Writing is within this section, and this page is dedicated to his fascination with cryptography. It gives the readers a background about how it works and what it does. Also included is a link to the full text of The Poetic Principle. Finally, another exciting story that was turned into a sort of hypertext was "The Black Cat". In the project Picture This, readers can interact with text and images. The project brings light to new possibilities of 19th century texts in a contemporary period of digital media.


The House of Usher website holds a plentitude of important information ranging from full texts of Poe’s stories, to podcasts, criticisms, historical sites, and conferences. Within the Poe Library section there are many different links. The complete list includes: Artwork, Audio, Beer, Bibliographies, Biographies, Books , Clothing, Comics, Complete Works, Conferences, Courses, Criticisms, Cryptography, Encyclopedias, Essays, Events/Exhibits , Forums , General , Historical Sites, Humor, Home Pages, Images, Journals, Movies, Multimedia, Music , Musicals, New Books , Obituaries, Opera, Personalities, Podcast, Poems, Restaurants, References, RSS, Search, Signature, Societies, Songs, Stories, Theatre, Timeline, Translations, Video, Wine, Worldwide Sites and Works. The website is a bit overwhelming due to the vast array of choices and options; within each link there are additional links.

However, readers might find the multimedia aspects of most importance and interests. The website provides all sorts of new media, and thus, new opportunities to understand Poe as an author, and Poe’s works. Because our class has been discussing the combination of new media with older versions of texts, the site could potentially open up doors for new areas of research, by providing the Gold-Bug team with new innovative ideas for Poe’s stories.

Also, this site is only for his story, “The House of Usher”. Although it does not specifically address The Gold-Bug story, so much valuable information can be found on the site that it can be useful for any sort of questions that one may have about Poe or his many various works. Although the site does not specifically talk about Poe’s story of The Gold-Bug, the plenitude of research and information supplied on the website can help the team brainstorm and re-imagine his works in the age of technology.

  • Aruffo, Christopher, “Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe.” 2006. Acoustic Learning, Inc. Retrieved 15 May 2007. <http://www.aruffo.com/poe/>

This website consists entirely of audio recorded clips of several of Poe’s short stories. Although there is no recording of The Gold-Bug, “Acoustic Learning” should be taken into consideration, specifically regarding the effects of sounds upon a work. Mood is created through the tone, voice and intonation of the reader, which tends to be particularly important in Poe’s short stories. For an example of Poe’s works on the website, click here to hear an example; it is the last minute of "The Masque of the Red Death".

The site was created specifically for those who learn through listening, perhaps due to disabilities. However, the site could be of use for ideas in creating the proper sounds to set the mood of the Gold-Bug team’s creative project. Additionally, the team discussed the possibility of having someone read the story of The Gold-Bug and have the recording on the website (with the text). This site would be a great point to start to see if an audio recording would be beneficial or not. Would an actual reading enhance the overall effect of an online project or would eerie mood music suit the project better? After hearing several of the recordings, the team decided to play around with the idea. Furthermore, because there are multiple stories recorded, they are easy to access and to see if it could be beneficial for a future project, perhaps with a different story.

While this could be an interesting source to gain a broader base of knowledge for mixing audio with written text, Aruffo notes that there are potential problems. He states, "For example: I had read 'What now' assuming it was a complete question ('What now?'), but then realized it was a different usage-- however, I then read 'What now might have been my conduct' as a complete statement before realizing that it too joined with what came after" (Aruffo). Although this is noted as a slight difference from the actual text, audio could still provide interesting avenues of research and study.


  • "Poe's Critical Theories." 2000-2007. Wiley Publishing, Inc.

<http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/id-145.html>

In “Poe’s Critical Theories”, there are two essays of importance: Edgar Allan Poe and Romanticism, and Poe's Critical Theories. The former article discusses how Poe was a product of his period - Romanticism. The article states that "what might sometimes seem puzzling in a story by Poe, such as an unexpected ending or an unexpected event, is not puzzling if we remember that what he created was a result of his writing during the Romantic tradition. While his tales can be read as "stories," they take on further significance as superb examples of the Romantic tradition". It also discusses four central aspects that were particularly important to this era of literature:

    • Intuition and Emotion
    • Setting and Time
    • Characterization
    • Subject Matter

The latter article on “Poe's Critical Theories” addresses Poe’s short stories. about the short story. The article states that the composition of the story includes an "emphasis on (1) the unity of effect, (2) his rejection of allegory and didacticism,(3) the epic poem's being a non-poem, (4) the brevity of a work of art, (5) the appeal to the emotions, (6) the ideal subject matter for art, and (7) the importance of emotional responses; in addition, each of these separate ideas is closely associated with the others. For example, because Poe place such importance on creating an effect that would appeal to the emotions, he rejected all works of primitive art or works based on a primitive sense of art."

Each of these essays gives a brief view into Poe's context in terms of literary period and styles of writing.

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