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In the tale proper--where there is no space for development of character or for great profusion and variety of incident--mere construction is, of course, far more imperatively demanded than in the novel.

Edgar Allan Poe

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Edgar Allan Poe
Age: 40 †
Born: 1809
Born: January 19
Died: 1849
Died: October 7
Author
Crime Writer
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Theorist
Lyricist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
Poe
Edgar Poe
E. A. Poe
Novel
Incidents
Courses
Tale
Course
Construction
Space
Proper
Character
Tales
Great
Variety
Profusion
Mere
Incident
Development
Demanded

More quotes by Edgar Allan Poe

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When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect - they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul - not of intellect, or of heart.
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That single thought is enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret and mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of all consequences,) is indulged.
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Men have called me mad but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence.
Edgar Allan Poe
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There are two bodies - the rudimental and the complete corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the butterfly. What we call death, is but the painful metamorphosis. Our present incarnation is progressive, preparatory, temporary. Our future is perfected, ultimate, immortal. The ultimate life is the full design.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Every moment of the night Forever changing places And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces
Edgar Allan Poe
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And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy dark eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams-- In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams!
Edgar Allan Poe
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The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of Artist
Edgar Allan Poe
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The writer who neglects punctuation, or mispunctuates, is liable to be misunderstood for the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid.
Edgar Allan Poe
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I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never without a pocket-handkerchief.
Edgar Allan Poe
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I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. Death, I said, any death but that of the pit! Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
Edgar Allan Poe
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It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.
Edgar Allan Poe
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In me didst thou exist-and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Many years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want.
Edgar Allan Poe
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If the propositions of this Discourse are tenable, the state of progressive collapse is precisely that state in which alone we are warranted in considering All Things.
Edgar Allan Poe
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A poem in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having for its immediate object, pleasure, not truth.
Edgar Allan Poe
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The generous Critic fann'd the Poet's fire, And taught the world with reason to admire.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heartone of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man.
Edgar Allan Poe
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He is, as you say, a remarkable horse, a prodigious horse, although as you very justly observe, a suspicious and untractable character.
Edgar Allan Poe
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To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths!
Edgar Allan Poe
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Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!
Edgar Allan Poe