21st CENTURY LITERATURE

Edgar Allan Poe

Date of Birth: January 19, 1809

Place of Birth: Boston, Massachusetts

Date of Death: October 7, 1849

Place of Death: Baltimore, Maryland

About him: an American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor who is famous for his cultivation
of mystery and the macabre. His tale “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841) initiated the
modern detective story, and the atmosphere in his tales of horror is unrivaled in American fiction.
His “The Raven” (1845) numbers among the best-known poems in the national literature.

His Life:

Poe was the son of the English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe, Jr., an actor
from Baltimore. After his mother died in Richmond, Virginia, in 1811, he was taken into the home
of John Allan, a Richmond merchant (presumably his godfather), and of his childless wife. He
was later taken to Scotland and England (1815–20), where he was given a
classical education that was continued in Richmond. For 11 months in 1826
he attended the University of Virginia, but his gambling losses at the university so incensed his
guardian that he refused to let him continue, and Poe returned to Richmond to find his
sweetheart, (Sarah) Elmira Royster, engaged. He went to Boston, where in 1827 he published a
pamphlet of youthful Byronic poems, Tamerlane, and Other Poems. Poverty forced him to join
the army under the name of Edgar A. Perry, but, on the death of Poe’s foster mother, John Allan
purchased his release from the army and helped him get an appointment to the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point. Before going, Poe published a new volume at Baltimore, Al Aaraaf,
Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829). He successfully sought expulsion from the academy, where
he was absent from all drills and classes for a week. He proceeded to New York City and
brought out a volume of Poems, containing several masterpieces, some showing the influence
of John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He then returned to Baltimore,
where he began to write stories. In 1833 his “MS. Found in a Bottle” won $50 from a Baltimore
weekly, and by 1835 he was in Richmond as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. There he
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made a name as a critical reviewer and married his young cousin Virginia Clemm, who was only
13. Poe seems to have been an affectionate husband and son-in-law.

Poe was dismissed from his job in Richmond, apparently for drinking, and went to New York City.
Drinking was in fact to be the bane of his life. To talk well in a large company he needed a slight
stimulant, but a glass of sherry might start him on a spree; and, although he rarely succumbed to
intoxication, he was often seen in public when he did. This gave rise to the conjecture that Poe
was a drug addict, but according to medical testimony he had a brain lesion. While in New York
City in 1838 he published a long prose narrative, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, combining
(as so often in his tales) much factual material with the wildest fancies. It is considered one
inspiration of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. In 1839 he became coeditor of Burton’s Gentleman’s
Magazine in Philadelphia. There a contract for a monthly feature stimulated him to write “William
Wilson” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” stories of supernatural horror. The latter contains a
study of a neurotic now known to have been an acquaintance of Poe, not Poe himself.

Later in 1839 Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque appeared (dated 1840). He resigned
from Burton’s about June 1840 but returned in 1841 to edit its successor, Graham’s Lady’s and
Gentleman’s Magazine, in which he printed “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”—the first
detective story. In 1843 his “The Gold Bug” won a prize of $100 from the Philadelphia Dollar
Newspaper, which gave him great publicity. In 1844 he returned to New York, wrote “The Balloon
Hoax” for the Sun, and became subeditor of the New York Mirror under N.P. Willis, thereafter a
lifelong friend. In the New York Mirror of January 29, 1845, appeared, from advance sheets of
the American Review, his most famous poem, “The Raven,” which gave him national fame at
once. Poe then became editor of the Broadway Journal, a short-lived weekly, in which he
republished most of his short stories, in 1845. During this last year the now-forgotten poet Frances
Sargent Locke Osgood pursued Poe. Virginia did not object, but “Fanny’s” indiscreet writings
about her literary love caused great scandal. His The Raven and Other Poems and a selection of
his Tales came out in 1845, and in 1846 Poe moved to a cottage at Fordham (now part of New
York City), where he wrote for Godey’s Lady’s Book (May–October 1846) “The Literati of New
York City”—gossipy sketches on personalities of the day, which led to a libel suit.

Poe’s wife, Virginia, died in January 1847. The following year he went to Providence, Rhode
Island, to woo Sarah Helen Whitman, a poet. There was a brief engagement. Poe had close
but platonic entanglements with Annie Richmond and with Sarah Anna Lewis, who helped him
financially. He composed poetic tributes to all of them. In 1848 he also published the lecture
“Eureka,” a transcendental “explanation” of the universe, which has been hailed as a
masterpiece by some critics and as nonsense by others. In 1849 he went south, had a wild spree
in Philadelphia, but got safely to Richmond, where he finally became engaged to Elmira Royster,
by then the widowed Mrs. Shelton, and spent a happy summer with only one or two relapses. He
enjoyed the companionship of childhood friends and an unromantic friendship with a young
poet, Susan Archer Talley.

Poe had some forebodings of death when he left Richmond for Baltimore late in September.
There he died, although whether from drinking, heart failure, or other causes was still uncertain in
the 21st century. He was buried in Westminster Presbyterian churchyard in Baltimore.

His Legacy:

Poe’s work owes much to the concern of Romanticism with the occult and the satanic. It owes
much also to his own feverish dreams, to which he applied a rare faculty of shaping plausible
fabrics out of impalpable materials. With an air of objectivity and spontaneity, his productions
 21st CENTURY LITERATURE
are closely dependent on his own powers of imagination and an elaborate technique. His keen
and sound judgment as an appraiser of contemporary literature, his idealism and musical gift as
a poet, his dramatic art as a storyteller, considerably appreciated in his lifetime, secured him a
prominent place among universally known men of letters.

The outstanding fact in Poe’s character is a strange duality. The wide divergence of
contemporary judgments on the man seems almost to point to the coexistence of two persons
in him. With those he loved he was gentle and devoted. Others, who were the butt of his
sharp criticism, found him irritable and self-centred and went so far as to accuse him of lack of
principle. Was it, it has been asked, a double of the man rising from harrowing nightmares or
from the haggard inner vision of dark crimes or from appalling graveyard fantasies that loomed
in Poe’s unstable being?

Much of Poe’s best work is concerned with terror and sadness, but in ordinary circumstances the
poet was a pleasant companion. He talked brilliantly, chiefly of literature, and read his
own poetry and that of others in a voice of surpassing beauty. He
admired Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. He had a sense of humour, apologizing to a visitor
for not keeping a pet raven. If the mind of Poe is considered, the duality is still more striking. On
one side, he was an idealist and a visionary. His yearning for the ideal was both of the heart and
of the imagination. His sensitivity to the beauty and sweetness of women inspired his most
touching lyrics (“To Helen,” “Annabel Lee,” “Eulalie,” “To One in Paradise”) and the full-toned
prose hymns to beauty and love in “Ligeia” and “Eleonora.” In “Israfel” his imagination carried
him away from the material world into a dreamland. This Pythian mood was
especially characteristic of the later years of his life.

Poe, Edgar Allan: “The Pit and the Pendulum”

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Depiction of a scene from “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe. (more)

More generally, in such verses as “The Valley of Unrest,” “Lenore,” “The Raven,” “For Annie,”
and “Ulalume” and in his prose tales, his familiar mode of evasion from the universe of common
experience was through eerie thoughts, impulses, or fears. From these materials he drew the
startling effects of his tales of death (“The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Masque of the Red
Death,” “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” “The Premature Burial,” “The Oval Portrait,”
“Shadow”), his tales of wickedness and crime (“Berenice,” “The Black Cat,” “William Wilson,”
“The Imp of the Perverse,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Tell-Tale Heart”), his tales of survival
after dissolution (“Ligeia,” “Morella,” “Metzengerstein”), and his tales of fatality (“The
Assignation,” “The Man of the Crowd”). Even when he does not hurl his characters into the
clutch of mysterious forces or onto the untrodden paths of the beyond, he uses the anguish
of imminent death as the means of causing the nerves to quiver (“The Pit and the Pendulum”),
and his grotesque invention deals with corpses and decay in an uncanny play with the
aftermath of death.

On the other side, Poe is conspicuous for a close observation of minute details, as in the long
narratives and in many of the descriptions that introduce the tales or constitute their settings.
Closely connected with this is his power of ratiocination. He prided himself on his logic and
carefully handled this real accomplishment so as to impress the public with his possessing still
more of it than he had; hence the would-be feats of thought reading, problem unraveling,
and cryptography that he attributed to his characters William Legrand and C. Auguste Dupin.
This suggested to him the analytical tales, which created the detective story, and his science
fiction tales.

The same duality is evinced in his art. He was capable of writing angelic or weird poetry, with a
supreme sense of rhythm and word appeal, or prose of sumptuous beauty and suggestiveness,
with the apparent abandon of compelling inspiration; yet he would write down a problem of
morbid psychology or the outlines of an unrelenting plot in a hard and dry style. In Poe’s
masterpieces the double contents of his temper, of his mind, and of his art are fused into a
oneness of tone, structure, and movement, the more effective, perhaps, as it is compounded of
various elements.

As a critic, Poe laid great stress upon correctness of language, metre, and structure. He
formulated rules for the short story, in which he sought the ancient unities: i.e., the short story
should relate a complete action and take place within one day in one place. To these unities he
added that of mood or effect. He was not extreme in these views, however. He praised longer
works and sometimes thought allegories and morals admirable if not crudely presented. Poe
admired originality, often in work very different from his own, and was sometimes an
unexpectedly generous critic of decidedly minor writers.

Poe’s genius was early recognized abroad. No one did more to persuade the world and, in the
long run, the United States, of Poe’s greatness than the French poets Charles
Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé. Indeed his role in French literature was that of a poetic
master model and guide to criticism. French Symbolism relied on his “The Philosophy of
Composition,” borrowed from his imagery, and used his examples to generate the theory
of pure poetry.

Source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edgar-Allan-Poe
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Why did Edgar Allan Poe write “The Tell-Tale Heart”?

➢ There are many possible reasons why Edgar Allan Poe wrote “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
Perhaps he was exploring the dark side of human nature, or maybe he was trying to
understand what motivates someone to commit murder. It is also possible that Poe was
simply trying to create a scary, suspenseful story that would keep readers on the edge of
their seats. Whatever the reason, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a classic piece of short fiction
that has captivated readers for generations.
➢ There are several reasons why Edgar Allan Poe may have written “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
Perhaps he was inspired by a real-life event, or maybe he was simply trying to create a
suspenseful, scary story. It is also possible that Poe was using the story to explore some of
his own fears and anxieties. Whatever the reason, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a classic
example of Poe’s ability to create a chilling, atmospheric tale.

Why is “The Raven” important and why did Poe write it?

➢ Edgar Allan Poe was extraordinarily concerned with the technical aspects of writing. In
addition to his poems, stories, and novels, Poe wrote several essays about the art and
craft of writing. “The Raven” occupies a central place in his theorizing.

➢ Highly concerned with the aesthetic aspects of literary creation, Poe elaborated these
ideas in his essay, “The Philosophy of Composition.” Recommending that the ending be
revealed at the outset so the poet could show the causes that led up to it, Poe
emphasizes the aura of inevitability that the poet should create. His preferred method
was to establish a notable “effect” at the outset; from there, he would work out how best
to support that creative goal. He then uses “The Raven” to explain how he works out
these theories; along with the intended effect is his assertion that a poem should be
short, claiming that he had arbitrarily chosen 100 lines before he began to write. (It
turned out to be 108 lines.) For the effect in this case, sound was the primary quality, and
“nevermore” has the tones he wanted so he repeated it.

➢ “The Raven” fit well into the popular sensibilities of his day. Following its 1845 publication,
it was very well received and even called the best American poem of all time. Critic
John M. Daniel, apparently understanding Poe’s goal, called it a work of “pure art” and
compared it to a Beethoven overture.
➢ "The Raven" is generally not considered by critics to be one of Poe's best poems, but it is
a very popular poem. Readers of poetry are engaged by its musical nature,
vivid imagery, and dramatic story with supernatural elements. The narrator is compelling
in his grief as he responds to the ebony bird who comes into his dark study at midnight.
The atmosphere of the poem pulls the reader into the mystery of the raven. The dark
night, dying fire, shadowy room, and rustling curtains contribute to this atmosphere,
creating also a tone of sadness and suspense.

➢ We cannot know what was in Poe's mind specifically when he wrote the poem, but we
do know that in writing his short stories, Poe strove to create a single emotional effect
within the reader. Since "The Raven" is a dramatic narrative poem, it seems reasonable
that he was attempting to do the same thing. The single emotional effect in "The Raven"
is despair.