Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Character
Tales
Great
Variety
Profusion
Mere
Incident
Development
Demanded
Novel
Incidents
Courses
Tale
Course
Construction
Space
Proper

More quotes by Edgar Allan Poe

Image
All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
A fool, for example, thinks Shakespeare a great poet . . . yet the fool has never read Shakespeare.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
In reading some books we occupy ourselves chiefly with the thoughts of the author in perusing others, exclusively with our own.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
As a viewed myself in a fragment of looking-glass..., I was so impressed with a sense of vague awe at my appearance ... that I was seized with a violent tremour.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
Stupidity is a talent for misconception.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
Men have called me mad but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
The fever called living Is conquer'd at last.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
Ceux qui revent eveilles ont conscience de 1000 choses qui echapent a ceux qui ne revent qu'endormis. The one who has day dream are aware of 1000 things that the one who dreams only when he sleeps will never understand. (it sounds better in french, I do what I can with my translation...)
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
But our love was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we Of many far wiser than we And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
A poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
...for her whom in life thou dids't abhor, in death thou shalt adore
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
Yet we met and fate bound us together at the alter,and I never spoke of passion nor thought of love. She, however shunned society, and, attaching herself to me alone rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder it is a happiness to dream.
Edgar Allan Poe
Image
[E]very plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its dénouement before anything be attempted with the pen. It is only with the dénouement constantly in view that we can plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points tend to the development of the intention.
Edgar Allan Poe