title: Studies in Short Fiction Series - Edgar Allan Poe
author: May
description: <span>Unique in that while others have examined the characteristics and achievements of Poe's fiction, his aim is <span></span>also to demonstrate how these characteristics have shaped the American short story as a genre.... Clear and thoughtful...for beginning students of Poe, this volume is exactly the tool for the task." --Matthew David Fisher, <i>Studies in Short Fiction.</i></span><br /> <span>A significant contribution to the field because of its effective employment of theoretical approaches and the clarity of its language and organization... May's book is helpful to all, especially to undergraduates."<span> </span>--T. Bonner, <i>Choice</i></span>
zlib_text:  Style and Rhetoric of Short 
  Narrative Fiction 
   In many ﬁ ctional narratives, the progression of the plot exists in tension with a very 
  different and powerful dynamic that runs, at a hidden and deeper level, throughout 
  the text. In this book, Dan Shen systematically investigates how stylistic analysis is 
  indispensable for uncovering this covert progression through rhetorical narrative 
  criticism. The book brings to light the covert progressions in works by the American 
  writers Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen Crane, and Kate Chopin, and the British writer 
  Katherine Mansﬁ eld. The analysis shows that to miss the covert progression is to 
  get only a partial or false picture of the thematics, the characters, and the aesthetic 
  values of the narrative. 
   “This important contribution to the stylistics of short fiction and poetics of 
  narrative both enriches the theory of the short story and provides new interpre-
  tations of a range of major British and American stories. It is very relevant b