Found it – it’s called “No Spot of Ground,” by Walter John Williams.
… No. Kinkade is a genius in marketing (although he was once quite skilled at painting too). Poe was not: he was and is known for his exceptional works of horror, mystery, and atmosphere. in multiple styles and genres.
The fact that people still recite The Raven (and the Simpsons did it on the FIRST Treehouse of Horror) proves that Poe had something.
If he had only written that poem, people would still know him.
Hm… you really think so?
I read it (the critique) from time to time when I need a good laugh, and it is certainly full of jokes. But I’m not sure he was really kidding about thinking Cooper was pretty hackish.
I’m willing to be convinced.
Twain wrote two suvchh critiques of Cooper. They’re both worth reading. It wasn’t a joke, although Twain handled it with a light touch. Twain’s rules were ones he lived by, and which he saw Cooper violating.
As I’ve written before, I think the problem isn’t with Cooper, or with Twain, realy. Twain lived at a time when the popular style had changed from the long-winded wordy style that Cooper used to a swifter, more coloquial style. Cooper is still read – I have no problem fuinding his stuff in the bookstore. Furthermore, Poe is just as old-fashioned. I realized this when I listened to a reading of The Gold Bug that I tried to interest my daughter in. She thought it was un-listenable. As I listened to it, I could mentally follow Twain if he were to blue-pencil it*. There were just too many words used in the descriptions. And they were words that Twain would have considered “not quite the right one”. Worse, the recording was of an already abridged version, so it was even less wordy than the text is.
*How’s that for a mixed metaphor?
I vote genius.
I’ve loved Poe since somebody did a dramatic reading of Hopfrog to my third grade class. I adore The Raven. It actually gets scarier as you grow older and understand it more.
Genius. My favorite:
The last stanza is sublime.
Genuine genius and a reminder of what I shall read at Halloween this year.
Was Edgar Allen Poe a genius?
How to vote, how to vote?
Oh! I know! Detective fiction’s Edgar Award, is that named for him or Edgar Guest?
Check out Ray Bradbury’s “Usher II” and “The Exiles” for two wonderfully sly homages to Poe.
An now was acknowledged the prescence of the Red Death.
He had come like a thief in the night, and one by one dropped revelers in the blood bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.
And the life of the ebony clock went out with the last of the gay, and the flames of the tripods expired.
And darkness and decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.