The only complete novel ever written by Edgar Allan Poe, the most world-reknown Dark Romanticist of his time. The story starts with a young man named Arthur Gordon Pym as the title infers. He is living on a whaling ship named the Grampus. He goes through various misadventures, including cannabalism and shipwreck. Arthur and his fellow crew member Dirk Peters continute the journey, in which they come across hostile natives and the novel ends with them heading towards the South Pole. The novel has been criticized up and down, left and right. Most people have listed it as the number one book on their list of Worst Novels of All Time. The story line is confusing and extremely hard to follow. Poe had always had trouble writing full length novels. However, in July 1838, he published the first complete copy of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. I guess he should just stick to poetry and small tales.
- Why do you think Poe's novel was written so poorly and criticized to the extent it was?
- Do you think Poe would have continued with his publication of full length novels if he had lived longer?
2 comments:
1. I think it was written poorly maybe because he was used to writing short stories. I see full novels and short stories very different from each other. Perhaps he was a person that could get to his point in little words and trying to draw it out longer into a novel just made it sloppy and confusing. I believe it was criticized because of how poorly it was written and because it was most likely being compared with his short story works.
2. I believe he would have perhaps tried again but maybe not have published it or get very far with it. No one is to know for certain. There is also the possibility that he just would have given up on it and just continued with the short stories.
1) I feel like Poe might have written this story to prove a point. I don't know much about him as an author except for the stories I have read, but I feel that he was famous for his scary and supenseful short stories. He may have been criticized though for never writing a long story, and maybe some people felt that he was not a real author because of this. Therefore, this story could just be to show why he only writes short stories. It is what he is good at and people enjoy them, so why should he do anything else?
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