Note (return) — Chapter XI · THE STRUCTURE OF THE SHORT-STORY
Reading edition
If we learn through and through how a single perfect story is constructed, we shall have gone far toward understanding the technic of story-building as a whole. Let us therefore analyze one of Poe's short-stories,—following in the main the method which he himself pursued in his analysis of "The Raven,"—in order to learn the successive steps by which any excellent short-story may be developed from its theme. Let us choose "Ligeia" for the subject of this study, because it is very widely known, and because Poe himself considered it the greatest of his tales. Let us see how, starting with the theme of the story, Poe developed step by step the structure of his finished fabric; and how, granted his pre-established design, the progress of his plan was in every step inevitable.1