SOURCE: "Poe on Fiction," in Edgar Allan Poe as Literary Critic, University of Georgia Press, 1964, pp. 24-56.

Using Poe's reviews of specific texts, Parks reveals their relationship with Poe's general theories concerning originality, unity, and totality of effect in a literary work. Parks argues that it is these general theoretical principles that led to Poe's emphasis on the short story, or "tale," as the ideal creation in prose. For a more general overview of Park's views on Poe, see NCLC 1.

By 1831, when he was twenty-two years old, Poe had become very much interested in the writing of short stories. Clearly in those days in Baltimore he had read and analyzed many magazine tales and sketches; he wrote parodies of several of these types that may well be considered as indirect literary criticism. The most obvious example is "A Tale of Jerusalem," since it is a burlesque of part...