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In 1969, Robert D. Jacobs broke new ground with Poe: Journalist and Critic, the first truly inclusive study of the critical writings that Edgar Allan Poe produced throughout his career. According to Jacobs, those texts could not be understood apart from the journalistic world in which Poe wrote them and without reference to the principles on which he relied while evaluating literary works. Those laws derived from Common Sense philosophy, and of particular importance to Poe, Jacobs argued, was the notion that three faculties—the reason, the moral sense, and the taste—directed mental life. Responsive to pleasure, the taste allowed a person to appreciate art, so Poe's insistence on unity was tied to the belief that all the elements within in a work of literature would please if they had a single, focused effect on the reader. Enlightenment-era psychology was, in short, central to Poe's critical practice, the development of which Jacobs mapped throughout Poe: Journalist and Critic—a work that has become a classic in the field. Attending to Poe's work as a writer for magazines, Jacobs not only stimulated scholarly interest in Poe's critical reviews but also encouraged the examination of his writings as products of nineteenth-century print culture. Seminal in Poe studies, Poe: Journalist and Critic remains useful for anyone who wants to know Poe as he was in life rather than legend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the recognition of Susan Levine with an Honorary Membership by the Poe Studies Association (PSA). Topics include her distinguished career in Latin American literature and administration at the University of Kansas, her wide-ranging intellectual pursuits such as creative writing and art collecting, and her significant contributions to Poe scholarship through her collaborative editions of Poe's writings with her late husband Stuart.

Critics have variously read “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” a tale about the death of a legal copyist and putative Dead Letter Office worker, as Melville’s statement about failed attempts at communication, the lack of an audience for the American literary artist, and his own increasingly futile search for readers. As he penned “Bartleby,” Melville probably had in mind another author of serious and significant literature compelled to eke out a living by writing for magazines. That author was Edgar Allan Poe, who, from late 1844 to early 1845, labored at hackwork a mere seven blocks away from Wall Street to support himself and his family. Drawing on the recollections of friends, acquaintances, and business associates who knew the ill-fated writer, Melville describes his scrivener in terms that recall contemporary accounts of Poe during his New York years, and he includes in “Bartleby” allusions to “Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House” and “The Cask of Amontillado.” Undoubtedly aware that Poe’s dreams for sustained editorial and artistic independence had failed to materialize, Melville created a narrative about a man whose skills cannot secure for him the life he desires—a story about a thwarted writer, a figure whom Melville, in 1853, very likely feared he had become. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fusion of Gothic and Eastern details, which one encounters in these stories, is obviously not original to Poe. William Beckford's Vathek, Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya, and Byron's Eastern tales contain similar blends, but in 'Metzengerstein', 'The Visionary', and 'Berenice' Oriental and Gothic devices, especially the former, serve unique purposes. With these motifs, Poe continues his investigation of authorship, a theme animating his Poems (1831), in which Oriental devices also appear with surprising frequency. Published shortly before Poe wrote 'Metzengerstein' this volume showcases verse dealing with the craft of writing and the nature of inspiration, and in several poems from this collection, 'East' and 'West' operate as metaphorical shorthand, with 'East' representing poetic genius and 'West' suggesting unimaginativeness. Middle-Eastern devices serve related purposes in 'Metzengerstein', 'The Visionary', and 'Berenice', stories sharing thematic correspondences with the poems that preceded them. In particular, these tales evince Poe's anxieties about authorship, its demands, and its pitfalls. Throughout the narratives, Oriental machinery constitutes a network of symbols, collapsing complex ideas into compact metaphors, and with these devices, Poe imaginatively investigates the life of writing in nineteenth-century America, where professional writers struggled to satisfy a mass audience while following their own aesthetic inclinations. Such experiences no doubt proved 'Gothic' for these authors working in a society transformed by industrialization, a space where commercial trends impinged on creativity and threatened artistic freedom. Gothic fiction offered a proper vehicle for Poe's own anguished response to the challenges he and others faced while negotiating their conflicting roles as artists and professionals. For Poe, preserving the sanctity of the imagination, figuratively associated with the Middle East, was paramount, and 'Metzengerstein', 'The Visionary', and 'Berenice', all of which employ Gothic and Oriental devices, dramatize artistic failure, the betrayal of genius resulting in imaginative decay or death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents literary criticism of the book "The Story of My Life" by Helen Keller. It highlights the pattern used by the author, portraying herself as a self-made individual who defeated personal hardship and became national celebrity. It examines the family genealogy of Keller and emphasizes that she wants to be considered as a representative American and a child of the South.

This article examines the influence of philosopher William James on the novelist Willa Cather, specifically his essay "The Moral Equivalent of War." Originally a lecture, James advocated the establishment of institutions and organizations that might harness the benefits of martial energy while avoiding war. Cather was exposed to James's thoughts through her editorship at "McClure's" magazine. The author examines how the essay may have impacted the treatment of war in Cather's novel "One of Ours."