ieved that the writer should have one "single effect," which motivated the entire piece of literature. The writer would come up with the "end," and find the "means" by which to achieve it. Poe said once in a review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Twice-Told Tales": "A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents: but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents - he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect" (May 124). For example, in "A Descent into the Maelstrom," Poe spends most of the story setting up the situation. He creates a whole world, one that is natural in its setting, but so extreme, that it becomes unnatural. By the end of the story, the situation is finally established, with the denouement being imminent, as well. Again, the story revolves around the one "single effect" (Poe 48-61).With poetry, Poe believed in its power to convey the beautiful - "Poe thought that art must attempt to convey the soul's vision of beauty, for man could not duplicate the Great Design. He could only attempt to reproduce the effect that an intuitive perception of perfect order would stimulate" (Jacobs 297). As previously mentioned, he also felt that there could never exist the Brassfield 5 "long poem." Poe said in "The Poetic Principle,": "I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, 'a long poem,' is simply a flat contradiction in terms" (May 130).In what is arguably Poe's most famous work, "The Raven," he attempts to put his theories into practice, creating a world independent of any outside force. He employs the mechanical in this poem and uses the Raven to express his opinion that beaut...
