Explain what separates Poe’s works from Irving’s, which were labeled by Irving as “sketches,” not complete stories. In what way are Poe’s works short stories rather than sketches?
Poe and Irving depict men who are not on the same page when it comes to literature writing. The two do not have anything in common in terms of their works in relation to short stories and poetry. The first difference is based on the ancient English writing merit in literature. This involves the use of self-respect and roundedness of diction in the short stories. Irving adopts this trait in his writings of the short stories, thus making him to relay his messages to his readers. Due to lack of these traits in writing by Poe in his works, Irving usually considers his work as shoddy hence the term sketches. Another difference on the works by the two undisputed writers is based on the psychological and symbolic illustrations as expressed in their writings. The expressions applied by Irving in his writings on symbolic and psychological area is far much better compared to any writer under the same field of study. This clearly illustrates the difference on the quality of work done by the two writers.
Poe’s works are short stories rather than sketches in the sense that the stories are thoughtful, properly developed based on characters and plot setting. The stories are also related to the themes they try to relay to the readers. The short stories are based on tales rather than plain essays thus qualify as short stories. Poe uses various stylistic writing techniques such as irony and satire in his writings of the short stories thus his work is more than sketches as presumed by Irving Washington. For example, in the short story entitled the Gold bug, Poe develops characters in the play and relates all the themes to the topic/title of the work. This is shown by revolving everything under the topic in context that is Gold bug.
One view of Frost is that he is a “storyteller” in his poems (or at least most of them). Using the poems that you’ve read here as examples, explain why Frost would choose to tell these “stories” as poems rather than traditional prose. What does poetry “add” to the work?
Frost is undisputed poet in American literature. In his works of poetry, he adopts the story telling approach to develop rhythms and images in the poem. This is evident in most of his poetry works such as In White, a Brook in the City, a Minor Bird and a Prayer in spring. The story telling technique provides the required description of the scenario or the event in place. This allows the reader to have the picture of the event on his/her mind as he/she reads the poem. Unlike the traditional prose, the story telling technique is much easier to understand by the readers thus an effective technique used in the poem. It is believed that stories capture the attention of the readers more than the traditional prose that requires critical review and interpretation to gage the meaning of the poem. The stories keep the reader occupied thus allowing room for full concentration in the grasping of the whole idea of the poem.
Poetry adds quality to the works by Frost. Through poetry, the plot of the story is developed. The stylistic characters such as rhyming words in the poem and image development enhance the development of plot. From this perspective, it is beneficial to the story telling work applied by Frost. The poetry applied to the work enables the reader to enjoy the story, have the intended picture of events in question and read the poem freely. Frost’s work is simple when required to apply the poetry work to his stories. This is based on his character trait as being a good storyteller. The poetry also makes the story short and straight to the point. The poet tries to be on the right track in order to reduce cases of boredom during reading process.
