Du jour au lendemain (6/5)Renovator of the short story, inventor of crime fiction, herald of psychoanalysis, Edgar Allan Poe was the spritual brother of Baudelaire, the proclaimed master of Valéry and Mallarmé. In 1894, the latter concluded that he was "an absolute literary event." Years of familiarity with the work of this American writer convinced Henri Justin of the accuracy of this strange phrase.
Noting that Poe is hardly perceived as anything but a master of fantasy and a writer for young adults, the author takes it upon himself to restore the original shine to these stories and to reestablish the logic of the whole. He brings to Poe's oeuvre all that Poe himself brought to western literary consciousness: an esthetic that serves the text itself, and which helps think literature.
Without jargon, passionate, captivating, the book opens with the life and work of Poe before delving into an exploration of his imaginary space, moving in stages, with stops and detours. Henri Justin has labored with Poe, and when he takes the reader into his work, he is a guide who knows the good spots and who knows how to provide a taste, using the best examples, of writing at work.
