One thing has always bothered me whenever a discussion turns to an argument about who is the top of the line amongst American writers. That is, the guy I consider the best of the best is hardly ever listed as such. Certainly, he gets a mention, somewhere in the top 10 typically, occasionally top 5, but those are often a rarity. I think his exclusion is usually due to two long-standing biases against writers: one, he didn’t write novels and, two, his primary excellence was in writing horror.
I’m talking, of course, about Edgar Allan Poe. Poe’s use of language is unmatched, in my opinion, in American literature. No one could convey as palpable a sense of atmosphere in a simple sentence like he could. Read a little Poe, and you can literally feel the chill in the air or smell the decay from a damp crypt.
Poe was an expert in conveying emotions in subtle, indirect ways. His use of language is nearly Shakespearean in scope and tone. A short story of his is like a symphony in words. To be sure, the emotions he chose to convey were almost uniformly dark, the atmospheres he created almost always dreary but, to me, that is what is best in Poe. He never shied away from the shadows that creep over life, from the struggles and the hardships, the sometimes anguished loss and occasional bouts of madness that can consume us all. His tales are exaggerations, often tinged with the supernatural, but underneath, I believe his words have more effectively spoken to those darker aspects of the human condition better than any American writer before or since.
Who really cares that he never wrote novels? Novels are, in an historical sense, a pretty overrated medium and very often over-long, anyway. And why should his primary focus on horror be an issue? It’s a genre like any other, and often more effective at making larger points than any other. Besides, one of Poe’s other great contributions to literature the world over, not just in America, is that he essentially invented the detective tale. His sleuth, C. Auguste Dupin, is the forerunner of an entire class of literature populated by the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe and infinite others. How impressive was this accomplishment alone? Dupin first appeared in a story in 1841, about a decade before the term “detective” even came into popular use.
Please, let’s also not forget that he was also a world-class poet. The Raven, The Bells and Annabel Lee alone can attest to his skills within that particular discipline.
So who is his competition for this mythical honor of Greatest American Writer? To be sure, there are many others who have been exquisite practitioners of the craft, and many more who have produced transcendent works.
There’s Hemingway, of course, always a popular number one choice. But at this point, I think that may be more on reputation than actual skill. Hemingway’s the best because a lot of people just assume he is. Steinbeck is another popular choice but I’ve always found his prose so dry I needed a glass of water after each chapter. Fitzgerald certainly left a masterwork in The Great Gatsby, probably even more topical these days as history seems to be repeating itself, but how many people can name anything else he wrote? Hawthorne gave us the immortal Scarlet Letter, but his work is aging badly, unlike Poe’s which holds a certain timelessness.
The only other American writer I could reasonably make a case for above Poe is Mark Twain. Twain has had a similar vast, lasting cultural impact, and produced a prodigious body of work. I still have Poe higher because of craftsmanship alone. Say what you want about their collective greatness, and both are undoubtedly among the best to ever put pen to paper, Poe was a better pure writer than Twain. Twain may have been better at knowing his audience and communicating with them at their level, but Poe possessed more skill and style, I believe.
Poe defined horror, was equally artful at both prose and poetry, created detective fiction and provided a lasting, deep, affecting style of writing that hasn’t been matched in American literature since. He is, in my opinion, quite simply the best of all American writers. But don’t just take my word for it. Here are some of my favorite Poe efforts, complete with links to the full stories.
For more scares and your otherwise generally creepy reading pleasure, check out my new short story collection Devil’s Dozen. And if that’s not enough for you, try my earlier collection, Bad Timing.
Click below for more fright-filled stuff. And come back tomorrow for even more of my favorite time of year as The 13 Days of Halloween continues…
The 13 Days of Halloween
Day 1: Scary Movies to Spend a Cold, Dark Night With
Day 2: The Ghosts of St. Mary’s County
Day 3: Vincent Price–The Last of the Great Horror Icons
Day 3: A Few of My Favorite Vincent Price Films
Day 4: Some Fiction For The Season–One Step Ahead
Day 5: Horror Literature–A Truly Unappreciated Art Form
Day 6: Hauntings of the High Seas
Day 7: A Few of My Favorite Horror Books
Day 8: More Fiction For the Season–The Trail
Day 10: Horror Anthologies on Film and Television
Day 11: Halloween Rituals and How They Originated
Day 12: Alfred Hitchcock Presents Horror
Day 13: My Favorite Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Happy Halloween: Even More Fiction for the Season–This Old House
The Watershed Chronicle 
I think among his peers, Poe’s scathing literary criticism may have dug a hole for his reputation to climb out of…and since so much of literary opinion is based on what “they” tell us to think, maybe that was a bigger obstacle than it should have been. Either way, I can’t think of anyone else who is as adept at telling a COMPLETE short-story, which is much harder than it looks.
Interesting post. I have to agree with you that Poe is a brilliant writer and poet, both syntactically and thematically, and I also have to agree with you that I would put him in my top 5 favorite American writers. However, the number one seat, I might be a bit hesitant about. I’m not sure it is fair to say Fitzgerald is only known for “The Great Gatsby”. He too was an incredibly diverse writer, with a plethora of published short stories and poems, and many other nearly-perfect novels. And I believe Hawthorne’s work is as ageless as Poe’s, for though his diction is a bit archaic to the typical modern reader, his themes are universal. I mean come on, “The Scarlet Letter” is the touchstone for any ill-fated love affair. Nonetheless, it is nice to see other people thinking about these things!
Thanks for inspiring my 2 posts today! Poe stuck in my mind after this tribute. 🙂