The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, EAP: Critical Theory (2009), title page and table of contents


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Title page:

 

 

Edgar Allan Poe

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CRITICAL
THEORY

The Major Documents

Edited with an Introduction,

Notes, and Textual Variants by

STUART LEVINE AND

SUSAN F. LEVINE

UNIVERSITY OF ILLIONOIS PRESS

Urbana and Chicago

[[2009]]

 

 



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Table of Contents

[pages v-vi, unnumbered:]

CONTENTS

                             Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS    vii
INTRODUCTION    ix
ABBREVIATIONS    xiii
LETTER TO B———    1
[[Headnote    1]]
A Note on the Text    4
Letter to B———    5
A Note on Variant Readings    11
Notes    12
PROSPECTUSES FOR “THE PENN” AND “THE STYLUS”    21
[[Headtnote    21]]
Note on the Text of the Prospectuses of “The Penn Magazine”    22
The Earlier (Austin) Version of the Prospectus of “The Penn” [[June 1840]]    23
The Second (Philadelphia) Version of the Prospectus of “The Penn” [[August 1840]]    25
Note on the Second (Philadelphia) version [[Version]] of the Prospectus of “The Penn Magazine”    27
The March 4, 1843, Version the Prospectus of “The Stylus”    28
[[Headnote to the March 4, 1843, Version the Prospectus of “The Stylus”    28]]
[[The March 4, 1843, Version the Prospectus of “The Stylus”    28]]
Notes on The March 4, 1843, Version the Prospectus of “The Stylus”    31
The January 1848 Version the Prospectus of “The Stylus”    32
The April 1848 Version the Prospectus of “The Stylus”    34
[[Headnote to the April 1848 Version the Prospectus of “The Stylus”    34]]
[[The April 1848 Version the Prospectus of “The Stylus”    34]]
EXORDIUM    37
[[Headnote    37]]
A Note on the Text    38
Exordium    39
Notes    44
PREFACE TO THE POEMS (1845)    51
[[Headnote    51]]
A Note on the Text    52
Preface    52
THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION    55
[[Headnote    55]]
A Note on the Text    59
The Philosophy of Composition    60
Notes    71
THE RATIONALE OF VERSE    77
[[Headnote    77]]
A Note on the Text    80
The Rationale of Verse    80
Variant Readings    121
Notes    127
NOTES UPON ENGLISH VERSE    145
[[Headnote    145]]
A Note on the Text    146
Notes upon English Verse    147
Variant Readings    171
THE POETIC PRINCIPLE    175
[[Headnote    175]]
A Note on the Text    177
The Poetic Principle    178
Notes    200
BIBLIOGRAPHY    213
INDEX    219

 


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The following text appears on the dust jacket:

[[Inside front of cover:]]

Critical Theory

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THE MAJOR DOCUMENTS

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Edited with an Introduction, Notes,

and Textual Variants by Stuart Levine

and Susan F Levine

Edgar Allan Poe's reputation as an enduring and influential American literary critic rests mainly upon the pieces in this edition. Editors Stuart and Susan F. Levine provide reading texts, detailed explanatory footnotes, variant readings, and introductions to show context. They also face frankly the contradictions in Poe's critical opinions. Poe argues both that poetry is for pleasure, not truth, and that poetic inspiration leads to truth. Great works, Poe maintains, result from studied calculation, but also from irrational, supernal sources. Poe, both a biting critic and the doughty defender of American artistic achievement, was contemptuous of democratic art — except when vigorously defending it. Critical Theory highlights such conflicting ideas and suggests the reasons they are present.

What was consistent in Poe's work was not a single theory, but rather wit, playfulness, concern for the strong effect, a bin of recyclable allusions, anecdotes and quotations, and a craftsman's discipline. Poe's writing on theory is of a piece with his fiction, poetry, and journalism. The Levines explain how these critical statements also tie tightly to the social, political, economic, and technological history of the world in which Poe lived.

[[Inside rear of cover:]]

EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-49), preeminent American writer and literary critic, exerted a worldwide influence on literature through his short fiction and his theoretical statements on poetry and the short story.

STUART LEVINE is founding chair of the American studies department at the University of Kansas. He is the author or editor of ten books, including Edgar Poe, Seer and Craftsman, and the founder of American Studies, which he edited for thirty years.

SUSAN F. LEVINE is a former assistant dean of the Graduate School at the University of Kansas. She is the author of articles on Latin American writers. Together with Stuart Levine, she is coeditor of The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe and coauthor of articles on Poe's work.

[[Outside, rear of cover:]]

Critical Theory

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THE MAJOR DOCUMENTS

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Edited with an Introduction, Notes, and Textual Variants

by Stuart Levine and Susan F Levine

“This book provides scholars and students of nineteenth-century literary theory and Poe with a reliable edition of his essays of critical theory, heavily annotated by respected Poe scholars. The notes provide explications not easily attained elsewhere, including Poe's relationships with his contemporaries and allusions to works few of today's readers would recognize. Levine and Levine have thoroughly researched the textual variants on all of these essays and provided the most accurate texts available to date.”

— Scott Peeples, author of The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS

Urbana and Chicago www.press.uillinois.edu


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Notes:

All material in this edition is protected by copyright, exclusively held by the the University of Illionis. Permission has been obtained by the Poe Society of Baltimore from the University of Illionis to provide this electronic edition for academic and research purposes only. (Permission was also obtained from the editors, personally.) The Poe Society of Baltimore asks all users of this material to respect these copyrights, and not to exceed what would typically be considered as fair use (generally interpreted as selective quotations and/or paraphrasing of only a small percentage of the total material, and with the appropriate attribution and citation).

Although Poe's writings are essentially in the public domain, the texts presented here embody often painstaking editorial work by Stuart Levine and Susan Levine, and that editorial work is protected by copyright. The introductory material, descriptions, annotations, and the apparatus of texts and variants are the editor's original work, and are even more clearly subject to copyright.

The text for this electronic version of the book was taken from an original printed form, revised for XHTML/CSS and to follow our own formatting preferences. Pagination of the original edition has been included.

The table of contents is a reasonable representation of the table of contents from the original printing. Dates for the first two prospectuses have been added for the sake of the reader. In most other respects, it has followed the form of the original.


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[S:0 - SSLCT, 2009] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Editions - The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe - EAP: Critical Theory (2009)