El culto del detalle en los cuentos de Edgar Allan Poe

Abstract

In his short stories, the American writer Edgar Allan Poe showed a real cult of detail. In this article we shall pose the question about the role of compositive detail in Poe’s narrative work, and its relationships with his own theory of short story. We will first consider some examples which are detailed and privileged at the same time. Finally, we shall analyze how the compositive detail, although it reaffirms Poe’s narrative theory in a certain way, it also saves this theory from the dangers that implies such a remarkably rational and mechanistic construction.