en of indisputable genius;” he went on to formulate his famous conception of the short story, which must be designed for “a single effect” and every word of which must be made count. One popular variety that can be traced back to Poe, science fiction, was seen more as a joke to Poe’s generation. Orson Welles’ radio broadcast of a Martian landing is a later example of the American practical joke or tall-story tradition. In “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall” in which Poe attempted an ingenious simulation of a balloon flight to the moon or in “A Decent into the Maelstrom,” Poe’s imaginative science and pseudo-science made for compelling pieces of fiction, which led to future amplification in the work of such writers as Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov and Arthur Clarke. Another popular form, which Poe created, was the treasure-mystery combination with built in clues, which Robert Louis Stevenson later made the most of on. This type of story has been essential youth reading for years, but was badly developed until “The Gold Bug” was published. Poe is understandably famous for his tales of terror; his “arabesques” as he called them, in contrast with his “grotesques” to humorous satires on Gothic works. From “Morella”, the first of his treatments of the death and terrifying rebirth of a beautiful woman which was to find its most compelling expression in “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Poe used his awesome imaginative power. In such tales as “The Black Cat”, “The Imp of the Perverse” and “The Pit and the Pendulum”, Poe developed his ability to convey imagined horror by making it immediately physical. I cannot write this paper without mentioning one of Poe’s most famous writings. In the poem, “The Raven”, Poe used many different elements as s...
