Edgar Allan Poe: Emotional and textual information driven by the interrelationship of the terms death, grow, eye, and length in his short stories of 1890. 

The ten short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe creates deeper emotional meaning and connection. By coding the textual surface into primary categories (death, eye, grow, and length) and secondary collocates of the primary the interaction of the elements are analyzed; through using charts and figures the connection among the elements is heightened. 

Edgar Allan Poe’s short story pieces in the year 1890 speaks to how writing in first person about emotional events and combining them with macabre and science fiction concepts connects to audiences and themes on a personal level.  Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories written in 1890 develop the terms of length, eye, death, and grow in a way that the audience is  provided with satirical and intellectual concepts.

Question:

In Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories published in 1890 what is the importance of theme and concept development in regards to the anticipated theme of horror and the macabre?

Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories written in 1890 develop the terms of length, eye, death, and grow in a way that the audience is  provided with satirical and intellectual concepts.  These concepts are hidden beneath the textual surface.

The life of Edgar Allan Poe drove the development of his literary content.  According to Westfhal Poe “may well be called the father of "scientifiction””(1992, pg. 342) as his shift to short stories developed the concept.  Poe’s shift from poetry to short fiction was, as written by Hubbell, “after his first three volumes of poems had failed to bring him either money or fame, Poe turned to the writing of short stories”(1969, pg. 99).  Unrue states “the elusiveness of Poe but also perhaps to his genius and to the failure of most critics and scholars” (1995, pg. 112) drove Poe to create content that is now academically appreciated.  The intent Poe creates in his short stories is a reflection on his life.

Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories provide audience with a macabre and scientific textual landscape.  According to Westfhal Poe created “a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision” (1992, pg. 342) in many of his short stories.  The intent, according to Hubbell, of Poe was in many instances to create satirical pieces but discovered that people took the pieces for face value (1969, pg. 100).  The way Unrue describes Poe’s writing is as follows “romantic and Gothic elements in his fiction and poetry as proof of Poe's predilection for the subjective, macabre, and fantastic, as well as the transcend” (1995, pg. 112).  Poe’s short stories create an environment that invites analysis.

The developmental themes and concepts in Poe’s pieces are consistent with the social and personal life of the author.   Westfhal states that Poe can “typically offer different explanations for those changes focussing less on individuals to identify larger cultural and literary developments to explain the growth” (1992, pg. 347-348) of the science fiction genre.  Unrue states that Poe’s stories demonstrate how he “is miserable in solitariness, and is frustrated by the restrictions of the subjective perspective” (1995, pg. 113).  The emotional aspects to the stories are heightened as the stories are often first person; according to Hubbell this “method makes it easier for a reader quickly to identify himself with the narrator and thus to share with him the strange and moving events which he witnesses or participates in” (1969, pg. 104).  Poe connected with the audience by creating stories where it is written in first person to emotionally connect with concepts that many people can relate to.

Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories written in 1890 develop the terms of length, eye, death, and grow in a way that the audience is provided with satirical and intellectual concepts.  The personal and social life the surrounded Poe directly affected the way he decided to tell his emotional and visual stories in the 1890’s.

The selected sample of Poe’s were selected on the basis that in the year 1890 he wrote ten short stories.  This year was chosen as it contained the most short stories.  The day and month they were published and approximate date of initiation and completion are not included in the study.

Relations among the elements were analysed once placed into a concordancer and the top four frequently occurring terms were taken from this list.  The terms were then taken individually and the top six collocates were identified and their context was described; which was then represented graphically.  The listing in advance of tables is consistent with Miles, Huberman, and Saldana's (2014) account of first and second order coding, the basis of any qualitative data analysis (pages 70-93). 

Sample:

The chosen sample from Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories in 1890 is inclusive of all stories published in the year.  The chosen sample is based off of the information provided by the following website: https://poestories.com .  The sample consists of the list below. 

·       Eleonora

·       The Imp of the Perverse

·       The Island of the Fay

·       The Masque of the Red Death

·       Never Bet the Devil Your Hand

·       The Oval Portrait

·       The Pit and the Pendulum

·       The Premature Burial

·       Some Words with a Mummy

·       The Tell-Tale Heart 

Primary Coding Categories:

Once the raw textual data was placed into a concordancer important terms were chosen.  The terms with greatest betweenness centrality were chosen with the exclusion of proper nouns and words that do not repeat in three or more stories.  This exact coding was only applied to primary terms and not the collocates; the collocates excluded proper nouns.

Once the raw textual data was placed into a concordancer important terms were chosen.  The terms with greatest betweenness centrality were chosen with the exclusion of proper nouns and words that do not repeat in three or more stories; seen in FIG1.  This exact coding was only applied to primary terms and not the collocates; the collocates excluded proper nouns.

Betweenness centrality connected nodes with the highest rates on connectivity through edges.  If the important nodes were removed, such as the nodes later described, the entire network would be affected.  With this in mind it can explain the importance of a few nodes in the data.  These nodes become the basis of the claim in this report are based on this understanding and, I argue, are elements Ernst uses to control and influence the visual surface of the panels.

The secondary coding was derived from the primary coding and through taking the top six collocates of each of the four nodes; this is presented in FIG 2 to 5.

The occurrence and combination of occurrences of the terms indicate the intent, themes, and concepts Poe develops in the selected works; his ten short stories published in 1890 develop these. 

The development of themes and concepts is demonstrated in FIG7 below.

Brandes, U. (2001). A Faster Algorithm for Betweenness Centrality. Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 25(2), 163–177.

Hubbell, J. (1969). The Literary Apprenticeship of Edgar Allan Poe. The Southern Literary Journal, 2(1), 99-105. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20171685

Westfahl, G. (1992). "The Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe Type of Story": Hugo Gernsback's History of Science Fiction. Science Fiction Studies, 19(3), 340-353. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4240181

Unrue, D. (1995). Edgar Allan Poe: The Romantic as Classicist. International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 1(4), 112-119. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30221867