irect criticism on his theories, as he implemented his theories in all of his writing. As Charles E. May notes, "Poe's demand that inner coherence rather than external correspondence be the criteria by which to judge the artwork and his identification of 'plot' with form played a significant role in the creation of his own fiction and the development of his thought" (117).His "The Philosophy of Composition" and "The Poetical Principle" are two pieces of criticism, which will be forever debated. Essentially, Poe believed that length was extremely important. Poe said, "If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression - for, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and every thing like totality is at once destroyed" (May 129). Thus, length was the very key to the enjoyment of a poem or a short story. Unity was a very important element in Poe's writing. As May says, "The single unifying factor in all of Poe's works is the concept of unity itself" (11). Poe was deeply concerned with the relationship of words and their "effect" on the reader. He was also driven to create a dream world, one self-contained within the writing itself, without the help of external forces. He did not want his writing to be dependent on any outside variable. May adds, "And the function of Brassfield 4 language is not to mirror external reality but to create a self-contained realm of reality that corresponds only to the basic human desire for total unity" (11).Consequently, in Poe's writing one can find these theories at use. Now that short fiction has become an accepted genre, Poe's theories have become even more important. For the short story, Poe believed in an inverse approach to writing. He bel...
