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Since Poe's review of Twice-Told Tales (1842) is not in our course textbook, we'll use this on-line form of the review: http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/poe/works/criticis/twice_to.html.

This was Hawthorne's first collection of short stories (tales), but the 1842 version was actually the second form of the collection.  Hawthorne had published some of the same tales in a slimmer volume with the same title in 1837.  Then in 1842 he added some tales and brought out a larger volume with the same title (you could call the 1837 collection Twice-Told Tales I and the 1842 version Twice-Told Tales II, I suppose).  But let's back up some more, before 1837.  It was (and still is) customary for authors to publish their stories first in magazines one by one, and Hawthorne had done that.  So the 1837 book was truly the second publication of the tales and the 1842 volume was their third publication.  (Poe makes a pun about this when he called them "thrice-told" tales at the beginning of his review.)

You'll probably want to print off a copy of this e-review, to read and mark up as you work through this page of highlights and study questions.  

Poe's review was first published in Graham's Magazine in May 1842.  He had  made a brief reference to Hawthorne's book in the previous issue of the magazine, and the first seven paragraphs of this on-line version constitute that reference.   The full review, the one in the May issue, begins after the extra-large space.  The first words of the first paragraph are "We said a few hurried words...."  When I refer to a paragraph in these study materials I'm referring to this May review, so I begin counting with this first paragraph.

Highlights:

► "Many of them are pure essays..." in paragraph 2
Poe dismisses several of Hawthorne's tales, saying that they are really "essays," not tales.  What marks the chief difference between Hawthorne's tales and what Poe calls his "essays"?

► "There is no attempt at effect" in paragraph 3
If you insert "heightened" before "effect," I think Poe's meaning is a little clearer.

► "A skilful literary artist..." in paragraph 6

This is a famous sentence in American literary history.  Because of what Poe says here, the whole paragraph is worth re-reading, and the paragraph before it, too, as well as several other places in the review that refer to this topic.  Poe said in a few places, like the brief mention about Hawthorne's book in the previous issue of Graham's Magazine (it's the short section at the beginning of the e-version, before the large break), that up to then America hadn't produced any really good literature.  But in talking about Hawthorne, Poe says that America at last has a first-rate author and the nation has become a literary culture.  Obviously, Poe is proud.

► "...tales of ratiocination" in paragraph 7
Poe is referring here to what we call detective stories, a kind of tale that requires a high use of the rational powers.  Poe is credited with having invented this kind of story.

► "...an Art subservient to genius of a very lofty order" in paragraph 9
Poe is referring to artistic techniques that are made to serve the artist's insight ("Truth") about human experience.

► Throughout this review, you should be noting extraordinary differences between what Poe says about art and "truth" and what Puritan poets said about those two topics.

Questions:

1.  What is the best way that "the highest genius" in paragraph 4 can employ itself in literature?  How is a prose composition (i.e., a "tale") superior to a poem?  Why is a "long poem" a paradox?

2.  "There must be the dropping of the water upon the rock" in paragraph 4: in this context, what does this old saying mean?

3.  What are the defining attributes of a tale that Poe thinks are so important and that Hawthorne's tales exemplify so well? You should be able to name at least four.

4.  "The moral put into the mouth..." in paragraph 13, on "The Minister's Black Veil": what is the "moral" most people will understand and take as the only truth in the tale?  And what "crime of dark dye" will only a few people perceive (those whose "minds [are] congenial with that of the author")?

5.  In the final paragraph of the review, what are the two "trivial exceptions" that Poe has to Hawthorne's tales?    Are they consistent with what Poe has said so far?  How?

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