edgar allan poe sample essay

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The Essays, Sketches and Lectures of Edgar Allan Poe

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Sections:   The Collections and Books    The Essays, etc.    Related Material    Bibliography

The Collections and Books:

Editions Authorized by Poe:

Poe published only one of his lectures during his life. This was “The Universe,” published as Eureka , the “Prose Poem” by which he hoped most ernestly to be remembered. Other items were first collected in the posthumous collection edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, incorporating some additional manuscript changes and other material. These collections are listed chronologically.

• Eureka: A Prose Poem   (1848 — EUREKA — there are several copies with annotations by Poe)
• The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe , edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold   (1850, volume II: Poems and Miscellanies ; and 1856, volume IV: Pym, &c .  — WORKS )

Later Collected Editions:

After Griswold's death in 1857, there were several alternate attempts to collect Poe's works, including a number of the essays and Eureka . The most important of these were collections edited by John H. Ingram, also in four volumes (initially published in 1874-1875), the ten-volume set edited by Edmund C. Stedman and George E. Woodberry (initially published in 1894-1895), and the seventeen-volume set edited by James A. Harrison (published in 1902). (Although at least one of these editions bears the title of The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe , none of them are, in fact, actually complete. In some instances, they also contain works that have since been identified as not being by Poe.)

• The Works of Edgar Allan Poe , edited by John H. Ingram   (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1874-1875 — The essays are collected in volume 3)
• The Works of Edgar Allan Poe , edited by Edmund C. Stedman and George E. Woodberry   (Chicago: Stone and Kimball, 1894-1895 — The essays are collected in volume 7 and Eureka will be found in volume 9)
• The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe , edited by James A. Harrison   (New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1902 — The essays are collected in volume 14 and Eureka will be found in volume 16)

Modern Scholarly Editions:

The most widely recognized scholarly edition of Poe's tales and sketches, also including some of the essays, are the volumes edited by Thomas Ollive Mabbott, (published in 1978, nearly a decade after Mabbott's death), completed by his widow, Maureen Cobb Mabbott (and several assistants), with a few additional essays appearing in the volumes in the edition as continued by Burton R. Pollin. All of these volumes are thoroughly annotated, with introductory material, notes and variants. Two volumes originally prepared for this series, edited by Stuart and Susan Levine, were published separately by the University of Illinois Press.

• The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe , edited by Thomas Ollive Mabbott   (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978 — Volume 2: Tales and Sketches, 1831-1842 and Volume 3: Tales and Sketches, 1843-1849 )
• The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe , edited by Burton R. Pollin   (New York: Gordian Press, 1986 and 1997 — Volume 3: Writings in the Broadway Journal, Text , Volume 4: Writings in the Broadway Journal, Annotations , and Volume 35 Writings in the Southern Literary Messenger, Text and Annotations
• Eureka and Edgar Allan Poe: Critical Theory , edited by Stuart and Susan F. Levine   (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004 and 2009)

The Essays, Sketches and Lectures:

These items are arranged alphabetically by name. Within each name, entries are listed chronologically. Some of these items were not published under any specific title and most are, therefore, given here under a title deemed appropriately descriptive. The authorship of some items is a topic long researched and debated. Most of the items included here were signed, but for some, the attribution to Poe is necessarily the result of conjecture. A few prominent items that have been rejected are also listed, including a number of poems that were erroneously ascribed to Poe by T. O. Mabbott.

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• “ American Novel-Writing ”
• “ American Poetry ”
• “ American Poetry ”   (a lecture)
• “ Anastatic Printing ”
• “ Byron and Miss Chaworth ”
• “ The Capitol at Washington ”   (rejected)
• “ A Chapter in the History of Vivum-Ovo ”   (rejected)
• “ Cryptography ” (alternate title for “Secret Writing”)
• “ The Elk ”   (later title of “Morning on the Wissahiccon”)
• “ English Notes for Extensive Circulation ”   (rejected)
• “ Eureka ”
• “ Exordium [to Critical Notices] ”
• “ A Few Words on Etiquette ”   (rejected)
• “ Harpers Ferry ”   (rejected)
• “ House Furniture ” (alternate title for “The Philosophy of Furniture”)
• “ Instinct Versus Reason — A Black Cat ”
• “ Letter to B—— ”
• “ Maelzel's Chess-Player ”
• “ Magazine Writing — Peter Snook ” (alternate title of a review of “Peter Snook,” by James Dalton
• “ Morning on the Wissahiccon ”   (original title of “The Elk”)
• “ Notes Upon English Verse ”   (original title for “The Rationale of Verse”)
• “ An Opinion on Dreams ”    (rejected)
• “ Our Magazine Literature ”    (Possibly by Poe, but disputed)
• “ Old English Poetry ”    (Actually a later title assigned to Poe's review of Book of Gems by Samuel Carter Hall)
• “ Palaestine ”
• “ The Pay for American Authors ”
• The Philosophy of Animal Magnetism   (rejected)
• “ The Philosophy of Composition ”
• “ The Philosophy of Furniture ”
• “ The Poetic Principle ”
• “ Poets and Poetry of America ”   (a lecture, also called “American Poetry”)
• “ The Rationale of Verse ”
• “ Secret Writing ”
• “ Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House ”
• “ Some Account of Stonehenge ”
• “ Street-Paving ”

Related Material:

• A chronological index   (in preparation)
• “ The Canon of Poe's Essays, Sketches & Lectures

Bibliography:

• Brigham, Clarence S., Edgar Allan Poe's Contributions to Alexander's Weekly Messenger , Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society , April 1943. (Also reprinted separately.)
• Edsall, Thomas, ed., The Poe Catalogue , Baltimore: The 19th Century Shop, 1992. (This catalogue includes a few reprints of material which are not noted elsewhere.)
• Harrison, James A[lbert]., ed, The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe , 17 vols, New York: T. Crowell, 1902.
• Heartman, Charles F. and James R. Canny, A Bilbiography of First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe , Hattiesburg, MS: The Book Farm, 1943. (The best overall bibliography of Poe, although it does contain errors and is somewhat outdated.)
• Levine, Stuart and Susan F., eds., Eureka , Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004  (Poe's text, edited and with an introduction, notes and textual variants)
• Levine, Stuart and Susan F., eds., Edgar Allan Poe: Critical Theory , Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009 (Poe's texts, edited and with introductory material, notes and textual variants)
• Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed., The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe ; (Vols 2-3 Tales and Sketches ), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978. (Second printing 1979)
• Pollin, Burton R., ed., The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe ; Vols. III & IV - The Broadway Journal: Non-Fictional Prose , New York: Gordian Press, 1986; Vol. V - The Southern Literary Messenger: Non-Fictional Prose , New York: Gordian Press, 1997.
• Thompson, G. Richard, ed. , Essays and Reviews , New York: The Library of America, 1984. (A good basic collection.)
• Vines, Lois D., ed., Poe Abroad: Influence, Reputation, Affinities , Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999. (An extremely useful compendium of articles by various authors, divided by country or region.)
• Woodberry, George E[dward]. and Stedman, Edmund Clarence, The Works of Edgar Allan Poe , 10 vols, Chicago, 1894-1895. (Reprinted in 1903 and 1914.)

[S:1 - JAS] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - The Essays, Sketches and Lectures of Edgar Allan Poe

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Edgar Allan Poe Essay: Topics, Examples and Writing Guide

By: Max Malak

Edgar Allan Poe is considered the founder of detective fiction, author of acrostic poem "Elizabeth" and a prominent representative of American short stories. His works have been translated into many languages of the world, and the writer himself became an example to follow in the literary field. Both the writer's work and his biography are a huge field for research and interesting essays. We offer you to get acquainted with interesting ideas for an Edgar Allan Poe essay, and the example of such an essay.

Edgar Allan Poe Essay Topics

Edgar allan poe essay example: the mystery of a gloomy genius, how to write an edgar allan poe essay.

You can use the Write my essay service on any of these or other topics.

• Edgar Poe as a creator of horror stories.

Mysterious death, outspokenness, allusions to the incomprehensible, descriptions of madness, formidable strangers sowing terrible terror around them, exceptional maniacs - all these and many other methods of romanticism and gothic - give Poe's works a mysterious atmosphere.

• How the death of a loved one influenced the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Poe considered the death of a beautiful woman very poetic. One of the constant images of Poe's poems ("Lenore", "Annabel Lee", "The Raven", "Berenice") is undoubtedly connected with the fate of the writer himself: his beloved Virginia Clemm died prematurely.

• Not the writing hobbies of Edgar Allan Poe.

Poe was versed in mathematics, biology, psychology, physics, and philosophy, co-authored a book on shells, was familiar with game theory, aeronautics and navigation, and more. These diverse interests gave him the knack for discovering new topics and trends in literature. The American writer sought support for his fantasies in the study of logic, mathematics, and the natural sciences.

• The musicality of the poetic works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Poe put forward a new understanding of poetry as, so to speak, "mathematically measured musicality", which was then so admired by the representatives of symbolism (Eureka: a prose poem).

• Edgar Poe's theory of how to write short stories (exemplified by the Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat).

Poe argued that all elements of the poetics of the work - events, plot, language - should work to create a single emotional effect, which is the main purpose of the author. He believed that such an effect could be achieved only in short stories. The Tell-Tale Heart is considered one of the best examples of Gothic tales.

• Poe as a satirist and humorist.

His laughter is expressed in many shades - from witty and stinging irony and self-irony, parody and self-parody to pure humor. Often in the works capriciously mixed jokes and horror, resulting in a kind of "black humor".

• Edgar Poe and his weaknesses.

Due to his addiction to alcohol and frequent depression, he was fired several times from his post as editor-in-chief of major literary magazines and Broadway Journal in New York. According to one version, the binge interfered with his meeting with the son of President Tyler, who was supposed to get the writer to work. Po himself attributed this misunderstanding to his illness.

Mysterious and gloomy, they frighten and fascinate - such words often describe the works of American writer, poet, and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe. His papers - The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Philosophy of Composition - have had a great influence on the American literature and development of the genres of modern detective stories, science fiction, and psychological prose.

Poe's life seems to be a continuous list of troubles: orphanhood, tragic attachments, death of loved ones, poverty, alcoholism and illness haunted the writer. However, this did not prevent him from creating several new genres at once, skillfully writing both poetry and prose, and becoming so infinitely popular in a century.

Edgar showed an interest in writing in college, where special attention was paid to the study of English literature. The first book of poems by Edgar Allan Poe "Tamerlane" was published in June 1827 under the pseudonym "Boston".

Time has shown that interest in the personality of Edgar Allan Poe and his works does not fade after many years. Film studios around the world continue to turn to the American writer's works, and his work has become a source of inspiration for many musicians and performers of various genres. The NFL Baltimore Ravens are named after The Raven, and the Detective Writers of America Association annually presents the Edgar Allan Poe Prize in Literature, Film, and Theater. In the United States, there are several organizations dedicated to the memory of Edgar Allan Poe, which are located in places that are somehow connected with the life of the writer.

If you are asked to write an essay about Edgar Allan Poe, you can use the professional homework help .

Preparation. Preparation for writing an essay about a writer should begin with a thorough acquaintance with the actual theoretical material. Think about what event (or events) you will be talking about, how interesting it is to readers . For example, one of the interesting facts about Edgar Allan Poe's is the event when his stepfather deprived him of his inheritance. You may explain why this happened in your essay.

Planning. Make a story plan and indicate the introduction, body, and ending; mentally "write" the future text.

Writing. The essay has nowhere to turn with introductory tirades, so it's best to start with situations that were important in the life of Edgar Allan Poe.

• Introduction is a very important element of the essay. The reader decides whether he should read your essay. Start with an interesting fact, or summarize the achievements of the writer:

"Edgar Allan Poe's stories have influenced the works of such famous American authors of the 19th century as Jules Verne, Lord Byron, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Howard Phillips Lovecraft. His stories were appreciated by both venerable critics and the public. However, the biography of the writer was sometimes not inferior to the stories written by Poe. We decided to tell you about the strangest and most mysterious American writer."

"Edgar Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts, in the family of actors Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and David Poe Jr. A year after Edgar's birth, his father left the family, and on December 8, 1811, his mother died of tuberculosis. Edgar and his sister moved into different families in Richmond, Virginia. Edgar was adopted by the family of a wealthy merchant, John Allan."

• Analyzing the life of a writer, do not try to "cover the incomprehensible", it is better to take a fragment of his biography, to consider it well, and to fulfill the task set before you. Here is a good example:

"After the death of his mother, the future writer grew up in the house of the Allan's, wealthy merchants from Richmond. The boy never needed anything. However, after entering the University of Virginia, where Poe became addicted to alcohol and cards, the relationship with his stepfather went wrong. After a series of major family scandals, John Allan deprived his adopted son of the inheritance."

• Final components - the last paragraphs (paragraph) should complete your thought and leave a bright mark in the reader's memory. Don't forget about essay editing .

"There is much more to be said about the work of Edgar Allan Poe and his personality, but one thing is certain: he has come a very difficult way, and only an amazing person could combine all personal tragedies with incredible creative achievements. An amazing artist who has been searching for beauty all his life, Edgar Allan Poe has forever remained in the history of world literature and in the hearts of millions of readers."

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Essay On The Raven By Edgar Allan Poe

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Literature , Beauty , Poem , Edgar Allan Poe , Death , Love , Poetry , Theater

Published: 01/16/2020

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This free full essay is the property of WowEssays and is meant to be used as an example only. 

The Raven is a dramatic monologue, a narrative poem and one of the most popular poems of Edgar Allan Poe. The poem shows different stages of the speaker’s mood which is pensive and sorrowful throughout as his beautiful beloved has died. Loneliness and alienation as well as beauty and death are the themes of the poem. The speaker is reminiscent of the beauty of his beloved, and also her untimely death. The speaker shouts out in the end, “Leave my loneliness unbroken!” because it also helps him reflect upon himself.

It is certainly a long poem of eighteen stanzas comprising of six lines each. The meter of the poem is trochaic octameter. The poem has a supernatural and grave tone, but a remarkable imagery. The repetition of words like “nothing more” and “nevermore” give the poem a musical lilt and emphasize the rhyming pattern. The setting of the poem seems very Gothic as the speaker lives in a lonely apartment, the fire is dying, and it’s a “bleak December” night. The use of a ‘devil bird’ such as raven also suggests this as it represents death and darkness. It’s a dreary night, the speaker is feeling “weak and weary” and is tormented by the loss of love. Poe creates a spooky and creepy atmosphere of horror and suspense. It’s dark, cold, late and bleak. The rustling sound of the curtains is also sad for him. The protagonist is grieving the loss of his love Lenore, whom he describes as "the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore”. He is visited by a mysterious bird that speaks, but only one word ‘Nevermore’. When he hears some tapping in the house he is startled and has “fantastic terrors never felt before”, but his “soul grew stronger” and he calls out to the visitor, thinking it is Lenore but it is unexpectedly a raven, an overbearing intruder so to say. He describes the raven as “Ghastly grim and ancient” which is an embodiment of grief. He wonders if the bird is a devil or a prophet who can tell whether he and his beloved will ever meet in heaven and if there is “balm in Gilead” meaning respite and hope in future. To this the bird replies ‘Nevermore’ which is the only word it knows. Every time the speaker asks or says something, the bird only responds by saying ‘Nevermore’. This word is used as a refrain at the end of each stanza, giving the lines a different meaning. The speaker assumes that the bird will go away like everyone else and leave him alone the next day. He is drowned in grief for his beloved who is no more and finds it difficult to overcome the loss. Throughout the poem we see the speaker’s depression and the melancholy side is emphasized by the darkness of the cold night of December. With the speakers growing tension revealed in his thoughts and questions, the stanzas become more and more dramatic. Gradually in the poem we observe that he becomes growingly agitated both mentally and physically, the ending of every stanza with “Nevermore” just adds to the despair of his soul. Some critics call the poem one of the bleakest poems written by Poe, because of the negative answers repeated throughout. The poet uses literary devices such as alliterations like ‘while’, ‘weak’ and ‘weary’ in the first line which produces an effect of unsteadiness. The symbol used in the poem is that of the raven itself that has a dark and gloomy countenance similar to the narrator’s mental turmoil. The Bust of Pallas is also symbolic of the goddess of Wisdom and the speaker’s beautiful chamber symbolizes the beauty of his beloved, Lenore. The narrator can’t avoid thinking of his beloved and her memories just add to his pain and sorrow. It’s interesting to see in the poem how the raven stimulates his nostalgia for Lenore and he expresses his grief through the medium of a creature that has no feelings or consciousness. The poet Edgar Allan Poe uses a number of folk and classical references such as the bust of Pallas, night’s Plutonian shore, Gilead, distant Aidenn, etc. The main theme of the poem as we can understand is undying love and devotion of the narrator towards his beloved Lenore, whom he desires to both forget and remember at the same time. He experiences a conflict here that simply adds to his grief. This suggests some ambiguity in the mental state of the narrator as it dwindles between forgetting and remembering. However, he wishes and hopes that one day he will be united with his beloved in heaven. But it’s strange to note that inspite of missing his beloved so intensely, the poet doesn’t describe Lenore in detail in the poem. The other themes in the poem are the death of the young beautiful woman and the helplessness and grief of the narrator. The poem tells of the poet’s remarkable imagination and deft command of the language which he uses so beautifully to bring out the larger meaning of the poem. He uses words such as weary, bleak, dying, mystery, stillness, grave, which contribute to the overall meaning and melancholic tone of the poem. It’s a dramatic poem possessing a tragic element and expressing deep human pain of the loss of love.

The Raven. 2012. ENotes. 6 December 2012. Poe’s Poetry Summary and Analysis. 2012. Gradesaver. 6 December 2012

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Raven — The Imagery in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”

The Imagery in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven"

• Categories: The Raven

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Published: Jun 14, 2024

Words: 730 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

The symbolism of the raven, the metaphorical descriptions, the descriptions of the setting, the broader implications of poe's imagery.

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Essay Sample: How Edgar Allan Poe’s Books Relate to His Life

05 March, 2020

14 minutes read

Author:  Richard Pircher

If you ever face the need to compose a research on the art and personality of Edgar Allan Poe, check out this comprehensive sample paper. Use it as a roadmap to composing your own unique piece for college.

Literature is a wonderful world where phantasy of the writer merges with the experience of his life, thoughts and emotions. Besides, it is not a secret that human psyche is shaping under the impact of particular events, relationship with other people and health conditions. Accordingly, psyche greatly impacts artworks of an artist or a writer as their works usually reflect their inner world. Edgar Allan Poe was not an exception. His wonderful poems and horror stories are the result of dramatic events of his life which will be further investigated.

It is important to admit that Walt Whitman in his essay “Edgar Poe’s Significance” outlined the relation of Poe’s books to his life.

Poe’s verses illustrate an intense faculty for technical and abstract beauty, with the rhyming art to excess, an incorrigible propensity toward nocturnal themes, a demoniac undertone behind every page. … There is an indescribable magnetism about the poet’s life and reminiscences, as well as the poems (p. 255).

Feel free to buy literature essay at our  custom essay writing service and secure yourself a high grade!

In fact, the life of Edgar Allan Poe is a stern path consisting of personal and professional turmoil. Then, American publishers refused to print works of a young poet as the copyright law of those times made reprinting British books more profitable business. However, his soldier spirit was strong enough not to give up.

It is worth mentioning that Poe’s military service also had a great impact on his literature works. For example, his first book of poems “Tamerlane, and Other Poems” revealed years devoted to army. The second volume called “Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems” attracted more attention of the readers in 1829. He could be a good officer, but because his foster father could not provide him with a financial support, Poe began to ignore his duties and violate regulations. Later, he left the Academy in view of dismission. His rebellious spirit later helped him create one’s own rules in literature and establish two new literature genres: horror novel and detective story.

The overwhelming majority of Poe’s writings are dark and measured in spite of the balanced death and beauty in their plots. People are the core of dramatic events shaped by inner darkness of human souls, their thought and intensions. These features usually make Poe’s stories unusual, where the philosophy of dramatic existence transforms into horror scenes of murders, vengeance, and cannibalism.

Indeed, his literature works are psychologically thrilling. His every poem, tale or short story reveals the depth of human psyche and behavior. The magnetism about the poet’s life was, however, a result of his psychological disease that has developed at the early age. Before Poe was three years old, his parents died.

This tragedy has determined the features of his further literature writing full of dark passionate sensibilities. The author has a specific neurotic obsession with violence and death. Moreover, he approves tragic mysteries of life as the only possible and acceptable life scenarios.

These ideas the author portrayed in his short novel “The Cask of Amontillado”. The readers see the act of vengeance which ends in murder, the murderer and his victim. The story’s narrator is a murderer who shares his thoughts 50 years after the committed crime. The neurotic obsession with violence and death dominate in the episode when Montresor buries Fortunato in the catacombs.

The accurate details of Fortunato’s agony before death, desperate attempts to ask for mercy, his wild anger and almost animal crying reveal how the author appreciates human sufferings and approves the act of terrible vengeance. Vengeance is a central theme in other Poe’s stories – “Vendetta” and “The Black Cat”, where his heroes find obsession in the idea of killing their enemies. Vengeance becomes a sense of their life, their only purpose.

It is assumed that author’s passionate sensibility to vengeance takes its origin from his life experience when he lost his beloved women: his mother, Jane Stanard, his childhood friend and Virginia Clem, his cousin who became his wife at the age of 13. He was seeking for vengeance to the life itself as it took the sense of his existence. Also, he was maniacally afraid of tuberculosis as this disease took lives of his mother and his wife. Therefore, he felt envy to happy people around him and expresses his maniac feelings in his depressive short stories.

It is important to admit that the loss of his beloved women greatly influenced his poetry. Basically, many of his poems are centered on a beautiful woman who embodies features of all three beloved women from author’s life.  In particular, “Annabel Lee” reveals his mad obsessive love to his wife Virginia Clem. Today’s morality would not accept this marriage as they were cousins when he was twenty six and she was only thirteen. However, their love was an exception from all rules.   “We loved with a love that was more than love,” he stated in “Annabel Lee” (Poetryfoundation.org, 2014).

Still, the tragedy of his mother is recognized the most in such poems as “Ulalume,” “The Raven” where she called Lenore, and even “To Helen”. At the mean time a woman character in these poems also has traits of his fragile and sensitive Virginia. Both of them died for a similar reason. Therefore, the pain of losing a beloved person is the central theme in “The Raven”:

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted – nevermore! (tau.ac.il, 2014).

The theme of loss is disclosed in Poe’s short stories. His famous “The Masque of the Red Death” reveals a country that is suddenly attacked by a deadly plague. The Read Death quickly spreads over the country and kills the nation in the shortest time. The interesting fact of the narration is that the symptoms of the horrible disease are similar to tuberculosis symptoms: dizziness, sharp pain and seeping blood. The disease has a symbolic meaning in this story: like Read Death killed all the people and left the country totally empty, so tuberculosis killed Poe’s mother, foster mother and his wife, and made his life totally empty.

Poe’s poems and stories differ from writings of any other essay writer not because of his life experience, but also because of his personal opinion on nature and purpose of writing. He did not recognize poetry as a superior genre over other genres. Truth was important both in poetry and prose and truth is traced in every line of his writings despite their depressive plots and obscure ideas. He believed that poetry should have shed a light on a beautiful atmosphere. For this reason, even the most dramatic poems like “To Helen”, “The Raven” convey the fragile beauty of romantic characters with tragic destiny.

The obsession of woman’s death is Poe’s psychological problem and the central theme of his short stories. His life experience has shaped a particular perception of reality, i.e. all young beautiful women have to die even if they are loved and cherished before. “The Black Cat” is a bright example of such belief because a young woman from the story unexpectedly dies as her loving husband turns against her when she tries to protect a cat. 

Probably, his sufferings because of Virginia’s death were the most painful as some of his works are combined by a common theme of innocent young women dying in horrible ways. For instance, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “Annabel Lee,” “The Oval Portrait,” reveal how beautiful, smart and self-sufficient women die under different circumstances. Like the characters of these works, Poe’s young wife was also as beautiful, and she eventually died in an unusual and unexpected way.

It is worth mentioning that death of three women in Poe’s life greatly influenced his mental health. The consequences of a huge stress revealed soon after Virginia’s death. He suffered from depressions and thus turned to alcohol.

However, drinking has considerably worsened his health as he became insane while being drunk. Alcoholism has impacted his literature work, as since then alcoholic characters appeared in his stories. One can find the features of a heavy alcoholism in “The Black Cat” written in 1844:

“One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him… The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer… I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!” (Giordano, 2014).

Till this time, the demon of alcohol totally overcame Edgar Allan Poe. Later on, he started consuming opium that led to maniac depression disorder and heavy hallucinations. He was afraid of darkness and loneliness. His psychological condition at that time was similar to a condition depicted in “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1840): “…un utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream on the reveler upon opium” (p. 49).

Moreover, another episode of alcoholism is depicted in “The Cask of Amontillado” mentioned above. Fortunato is obsessed by the opportunity to get drunk. His alcohol intoxication allows Montresor to take him to catacombs and trap him alive. One can assume that Fortunato embodies Edgar Allan Poe whose life was limited by chains of tuberculosis and finally destroyed by alcohol.

It is obvious that till that time, his personality has been totally destroyed by alcohol, drugs and mental diseases. Even his two attempts to get married failed. His first fiancée refused to be his wife after she witnessed his mental problems. The second marriage failed as Poe got heavily drunk and was taken to a hospital being totally insane.

Notably, the personal tragedy of being alcoholic Edgar Allan Poe depicted in details not occasionally. Alcoholism destroyed his mental health, spoiled two attempts to get married and build new happy life. Finally, alcoholism killed him like an ordinary beggar and not as a famous respected person. Probably, the author foresaw his tragic end and tried to reveal his readers how alcohol and drugs can turn a person into a beast that cannot control one’s thought and deeds and smash one’s life in one moment.

“The Black Cat” themes also included a theme of illogical and irrational behavior and its consequences on human life. Poe revealed what type of thinking can alter human points of view and attitude to other people. Making parallels between Poe’s biography facts and the characters of his stories, one can see that writer is a person who does not divide fantasy from reality. Any of his poem or a story is a reflection of one’s thoughts and experience. Hence, writing is Poe’s soul, a mirror that reflected his tragic life.

It is important to admit that as the master of horror stories, Edgar Allan Poe also had satirical writings characterized by a balanced understanding of his readers and perception of reality. For instance, he wrote “The Balloon Hoax” as a newspaper article in order to attract attention to a new hot air balloon technology. Later on, the story entered the world as science-fiction writing.

To crown it all, Edgar Allan Poe had a dramatic and tragic life. He reflected every episode of his life and mental condition in his poems and short stories. Tragic love to women, pain of loss, alcoholism, insanity, and desperate existence are a few themes that Poe experienced in his life and tried to display in his works. Ultimately, the tragedy of his life led to invention of new literature genres: horror novels and detective stories.

References:

• Giordano, R. (2014).  The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe – Poestories.com .  Poestories . Retrieved 13 November 2014, from https://poestories.com/read/blackcat  
• Master E.L. (1968). Whitman. New York: Biblo & Tannen Publishers.
• Poe, E. A. (1965) Tales of grotesque and arabesque. Gloucester, Mass.: P.Smith
• Poe, E.A. (2014) The raven . Retrieved 13 November 2014, from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48860/the-raven  
• Poetryfoundation.org. (2014).  Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe: The Poetry Foundation . Retrieved 13 November 2014, from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44885/annabel-lee

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“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe: Poem Analysis Essay

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The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe tells a story of maddening grief and the inability to cope with losing a loved one. The poem’s protagonist, who remains unnamed, is gripped by reading, trying to distract himself from the death of the woman he loved, Lenore. On a dreary December night, he hears knocking on a door and goes to open it, expecting a late visitor.

There is no one behind the door, only the echo of the speaker’s own utterance. The knocking continues immediately on the window. Expecting the sound to be caused by the wind, the speaker opens the window, through which a raven flies into the room. Relieved, the host jokingly asks the bird for its name. The raven replies: “Nevermore.” The speaker is in shock, trying to converse with the creature. His attempts at the communication end in futility, and he banishes the raven into the night. Poe’s paramount poem excels due to its ominous tone, unique composition, stark imagery, and rich figurative language.

The poem is riddled with mystery, thrill, grief, and slight inclusions of horror. The subject matter largely determines the tone of the text. Poe pictures a character consumed by grief, which is evident in the second stanza: “From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore” (19). Opening the door and finding no one knocking, he whispers the woman’s name into the darkness of wintery midnight. The speaker’s madness seeps onto the pages, made apparent by the constant line repetition. Additionally, the author describes the occurrence as a mystery in the sixth stanza (Poe et al. 20). The poem’s mystery and thrill are progressive, growing as the conversation between the speaker and the raven continues.

The poem’s unique rhythm adds to the never-ending sense of grief. The rhyme usually falls on the sound -or, as seen in the repeating words “Lenore,” “Nevermore,” and “forevermore” (Poe et al. 19-23). The author utilizes the trochaic octameter, a compositional pattern that alternates the stress every sixteen syllables. However, this composition does not dictate the entirety of the poem’s rhythm. In fact, each stanza ends abruptly on a stressed sound -or. By mixing the approach to composition, Poe achieves an effective way to reflect the perpetuating feeling of sorrow through literary composition.

The poem uses stark imagery to convey the tone and theme of grief further. The text has three primary images: the raven, the chamber, and the bust of Athena. The raven represents the finality of Lenore’s existence. By constantly repeating “Nevermore,” the raven communicates that the speaker’s love is forever gone, breaking his inner desire for Lenore’s return from the underworld. The connection to the underworld is also apparent through the words “Night’s Plutonian shore,” as Pluto is the ancient Roman god of the said realm (Poe et al. 21). The image of Athena’s bust strengthens the link to the mythological inspiration behind the text. The bird sits on the wisdom goddess’s statue, representing how grief poisons the speaker’s rational mind. Finally, the chamber represents the mental prison grief that drove the protagonist to. He is trapped externally, locked off in the chamber, and internally, never letting go of the lament.

Figurative Language

The poem’s imagery is inseparable from its figurative language. The poem’s primary figurative vehicle is symbolism, as the major images of the poem signify something beyond themselves (Syafitri and Marlinton 48). For example, the raven is a manifestation of the protagonist’s grief, whereas the bust of Athena symbolizes his rationality and clarity of mind. These symbols, however, can refer to numerous meanings beyond themselves due to their complexity. For instance, the chamber can be interpreted as a prison or a shelter that shields the protagonist from the reality of death. Conversely, it can be argued that it signifies the speaker’s rationality, much like the goddess’s bust.

Additionally, the author employs multiple allusions to Greek, Roman, and Christian mythology. As discussed above, the image of Athena and the raven’s connection to Pluto clearly refer to the mythos outside the poem’s realm. The link to Christianity is observed in the depiction of Lenore’s afterlife and allusions to the Garden of Eden: “Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn/ It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore” (Poe et al. 23). References to Christianity also include the mention of Gilead, a place in Palestine significant to the biblical story.

In conclusion, The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe is a masterfully crafted story about never-ending grief for a death of a loved one. The author employs dark and mysterious images to convey the overflowing sorrow of the protagonist. The raven, the bust of Athena, and the speaker’s chamber are the focal symbols of the poem, representing a perpetual struggle to escape anguish. The poem’s ominous, mysterious, and slightly nightmarish tone is emphasized by its language and structure. Stuck in the everlasting cycle of sorrow, the protagonist never stops lamenting, thus he remains haunted by the raven.

Poe, Edgar Allan, et al. The Raven . Harper & Brothers, 1884. Web.

Syafitri, Dewi, and Melisa Marlinton. “An analysis of figurative language used in Edgar Allan Poe’s poems.” Linguistic, English Education and Art Journal 2.1, 2018: 43-59.

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The Life of Edgar Allan Poe

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Poems & Poets

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe’s stature as a major figure in world literature is primarily based on his ingenious and profound short stories, poems, and critical theories, which established a highly influential rationale for the short form in both poetry and fiction. Regarded in literary histories and handbooks as the architect of the modern short story, Poe was also the principal forerunner of the “art for art’s sake” movement in 19th-century European literature. Whereas earlier critics predominantly concerned themselves with moral or ideological generalities, Poe focused his criticism on the specifics of style and construction that contributed to a work’s effectiveness or failure. In his own work, he demonstrated a brilliant command of language and technique as well as an inspired and original imagination. Poe’s poetry and short stories greatly influenced the French Symbolists of the late 19th century, who in turn altered the direction of modern literature.

Poe’s father and mother were professional actors. At the time of his birth in 1809, they were members of a repertory company in Boston. Before Poe was three years old both of his parents died, and he was raised in the home of John Allan, a prosperous exporter from Richmond, Virginia, who never legally adopted his foster son. As a boy, Poe attended the best schools available, and was admitted to the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1825. While there he distinguished himself academically but was forced to leave after less than a year because of bad debts and inadequate financial support from Allan. Poe’s relationship with Allan disintegrated upon his return to Richmond in 1827, and soon after Poe left for Boston, where he enlisted in the army and also published his first poetry collection,  Tamerlane, and Other Poems.  The volume went unnoticed by readers and reviewers, and a second collection,  Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems,  received only slightly more attention when it appeared in 1829. That same year Poe was honorably discharged from the army, having attained the rank of regimental sergeant major, and was then admitted to the United States Military Academy at West Point. However, because Allan would neither provide his foster son with sufficient funds to maintain himself as a cadet nor give the consent necessary to resign from the Academy, Poe gained a dismissal by ignoring his duties and violating regulations. He subsequently went to New York City, where  Poems,  his third collection of verse, was published in 1831, and then to Baltimore, where he lived at the home of his aunt, Mrs. Maria Clemm.

Over the next few years Poe’s first short stories appeared in the Philadelphia  Saturday Courier  and his “MS. Found in a Bottle” won a cash prize for best story in the Baltimore  Saturday Visitor.  Nevertheless, Poe was still not earning enough to live independently, nor did Allan’s death in 1834 provide him with an inheritance. The following year, however, his financial problems were temporarily alleviated when he accepted an editorship at  The Southern Literary Messenger  in Richmond, bringing with him his aunt and his 12-year-old cousin Virginia, whom he married in 1836.  The Southern Literary Messenger  was the first of several journals Poe would direct over the next 10 years and through which he rose to prominence as a leading man of letters in America. Poe made himself known not only as a superlative author of poetry and fiction, but also as a literary critic whose level of imagination and insight had hitherto been unapproached in American literature. While Poe’s writings gained attention in the late 1830s and early 1840s, the profits from his work remained meager, and he supported himself by editing  Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine  and  Graham’s Magazine  in Philadelphia and the  Broadway Journal  in New York City. After his wife’s death from tuberculosis in 1847, Poe became involved in a number of romantic affairs. It was while he prepared for his second marriage that Poe, for reasons unknown, arrived in Baltimore in late September of 1849. On October 3, he was discovered in a state of semi-consciousness; he died four days later without regaining the necessary lucidity to explain what had happened during the last days of his life.

Poe’s most conspicuous contribution to world literature derives from the analytical method he practiced both as a creative author and as a critic of the works of his contemporaries. His self-declared intention was to formulate strictly artistic ideals in a milieu that he thought overly concerned with the utilitarian value of literature, a tendency he termed the “heresy of the Didactic.” While Poe’s position includes the chief requisites of pure aestheticism, his emphasis on literary formalism was directly linked to his philosophical ideals: through the calculated use of language one may express, though always imperfectly, a vision of truth and the essential condition of human existence. Poe’s theory of literary creation is noted for two central points: first, a work must create a unity of effect on the reader to be considered successful; second, the production of this single effect should not be left to the hazards of accident or inspiration, but should to the minutest detail of style and subject be the result of rational deliberation on the part of the author. In poetry, this single effect must arouse the reader’s sense of beauty, an ideal that Poe closely associated with sadness, strangeness, and loss; in prose, the effect should be one revelatory of some truth, as in “tales of ratiocination” or works evoking “terror, or passion, or horror.”

Aside from a common theoretical basis, there is a psychological intensity that is characteristic of Poe’s writings, especially the tales of horror that comprise his best and best-known works. These stories—which include “The Black Cat,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”—are often told by a first-person narrator, and through this voice Poe probes the workings of a character’s psyche. This technique foreshadows the psychological explorations of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the school of psychological realism. In his Gothic tales, Poe also employed an essentially symbolic, almost allegorical method which gives such works as “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “Ligeia” an enigmatic quality that accounts for their enduring interest and links them with the symbolical works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and  Herman Melville . The influence of Poe’s tales may be seen in the work of later writers, including Ambrose Bierce and H.P. Lovecraft, who belong to a distinct tradition of horror literature initiated by Poe. In addition to his achievement as creator of the modern horror tale, Poe is also credited with parenting two other popular genres: science fiction and the detective story. In such works as “The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaall” and “Von Kempelen and His Discovery,” Poe took advantage of the fascination for science and technology that emerged in the early 19th century to produce speculative and fantastic narratives which anticipate a type of literature that did not become widely practiced until the 20th century. Similarly, Poe’s three tales of ratiocination—“The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Purloined Letter,” and “The Mystery of Marie Roget”—are recognized as the models which established the major characters and literary conventions of detective fiction, specifically the amateur sleuth who solves a crime that has confounded the authorities and whose feats of deductive reasoning are documented by an admiring associate. Just as Poe influenced many succeeding authors and is regarded as an ancestor of such major literary movements as Symbolism and Surrealism, he was also influenced by earlier literary figures and movements. In his use of the demonic and the grotesque, Poe evidenced the impact of the stories of E.T.A. Hoffman and the Gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe, while the despair and melancholy in much of his writing reflects an affinity with the Romantic movement of the early 19th century. It was Poe’s particular genius that in his work he gave consummate artistic form both to his personal obsessions and those of previous literary generations, at the same time creating new forms which provided a means of expression for future artists.

While Poe is most often remembered for his short fiction, his first love as a writer was poetry, which he began writing during his adolescence. His early verse reflects the influence of such English romantics as  Lord Byron ,  John Keats , and  Percy Bysshe Shelley , yet foreshadows his later poetry which demonstrates a subjective outlook and surreal, mystic vision. “Tamerlane” and “Al Aaraaf” exemplify Poe’s evolution from the portrayal of Byronic heroes to the depiction of journeys within his own imagination and subconscious. The former piece, reminiscent of Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” recounts the life and adventures of a 14th-century Mongol conqueror; the latter poem portrays a dreamworld where neither good nor evil permanently reside and where absolute beauty can be directly discerned. In other poems—“ To Helen ,” “Lenore,” and “ The Raven ” in particular—Poe investigates the loss of ideal beauty and the difficulty in regaining it. These pieces are usually narrated by a young man who laments the untimely death of his beloved.  “ To Helen” is a three stanza lyric that has been called one of the most beautiful love poems in the English language. The subject of the work is a woman who becomes, in the eyes of the narrator, a personification of the classical beauty of ancient Greece and Rome. “Lenore” presents ways in which the dead are best remembered, either by mourning or celebrating life beyond earthly boundaries. In “The Raven,” Poe successfully unites his philosophical and aesthetic ideals. In this psychological piece, a young scholar is emotionally tormented by a raven’s ominous repetition of “Nevermore” in answer to his question about the probability of an afterlife with his deceased lover.  Charles Baudelaire  noted in his introduction to the French edition of “The Raven” : “It is indeed the poem of the sleeplessness of despair; it lacks nothing: neither the fever of ideas, nor the violence of colors, nor sickly reasoning, nor drivelling terror, nor even the bizarre gaiety of suffering which makes it more terrible.” Poe also wrote poems that were intended to be read aloud. Experimenting with combinations of sound and rhythm, he employed such technical devices as repetition, parallelism, internal rhyme, alliteration, and assonance to produce works that are unique in American poetry for their haunting, musical quality. In “The Bells,” for example, the repetition of the word “bells” in various structures accentuates the unique tonality of the different types of bells described in the poem.

While his works were not conspicuously acclaimed during his lifetime, Poe did earn due respect as a gifted fiction writer, poet, and man of letters, and occasionally he achieved a measure of popular success, especially following the appearance of “ The Raven .” After his death, however, the history of his critical reception becomes one of dramatically uneven judgments and interpretations. This state of affairs was initiated by Poe’s one-time friend and literary executor R.W. Griswold, who, in a libelous obituary notice in the  New York Tribune  bearing the byline “Ludwig,” attributed the depravity and psychological aberrations of many of the characters in Poe’s fiction to Poe himself. In retrospect, Griswold’s vilifications seem ultimately to have elicited as much sympathy as censure with respect to Poe and his work, leading subsequent biographers of the late 19th century to defend, sometimes too devotedly, Poe’s name. It was not until the 1941 biography by A.H. Quinn that a balanced view was provided of Poe, his work, and the relationship between the author’s life and his imagination. Nevertheless, the identification of Poe with the murderers and madmen of his works survived and flourished in the 20th century, most prominently in the form of psychoanalytical studies such as those of Marie Bonaparte and Joseph Wood Krutch. Added to the controversy over the sanity, or at best the maturity of Poe (Paul Elmer More called him “the poet of unripe boys and unsound men”), was the question of the value of Poe’s works as serious literature. At the forefront of Poe’s detractors were such eminent figures as Henry James, Aldous Huxley, and T.S. Eliot, who dismissed Poe’s works as juvenile, vulgar, and artistically debased; in contrast, these same works have been judged to be of the highest literary merit by such writers as Bernard Shaw and  William Carlos Williams . Complementing Poe’s erratic reputation among English and American critics is the more stable, and generally more elevated opinion of critics elsewhere in the world, particularly in France. Following the extensive translations and commentaries of Charles Baudelaire in the 1850s, Poe’s works were received with a peculiar esteem by French writers, most profoundly those associated with the late 19th-century movement of Symbolism, who admired Poe’s transcendent aspirations as a poet; the 20th-century movement of Surrealism, which valued Poe’s bizarre and apparently unruled imagination; and such figures as Paul Valéry, who found in Poe’s theories and thought an ideal of supreme rationalism. In other countries, Poe’s works have enjoyed a similar regard, and numerous studies have been written tracing the influence of the American author on the international literary scene, especially in Russia, Japan, Scandinavia, and Latin America. Today, Poe is recognized as one of the foremost progenitors of modern literature, both in its popular forms, such as horror and detective fiction, and in its more complex and self-conscious forms, which represent the essential artistic manner of the 20th century. In contrast to earlier critics who viewed the man and his works as one, criticism of the past 25 years has developed a view of Poe as a detached artist who was more concerned with displaying his virtuosity than with expressing his soul, and who maintained an ironic rather than an autobiographical relationship to his writings. While at one time critics such as  Yvor Winters  wished to remove Poe from literary history, his works remain integral to any conception of modernism in world literature. Herbert Marshall McLuhan wrote in an essay entitled “Edgar Poe’s Tradition”: “While the New England dons primly turned the pages of Plato and Buddha beside a tea-cozy, and while Browning and Tennyson were creating a parochial fog for the English mind to relax in, Poe never lost contact with the terrible pathos of his time. Coevally with Baudelaire, and long before Conrad and Eliot, he explored the heart of darkness.”

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Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

The narrator of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” plagued by acute nervousness, tries to explain his sanity while relating a frightening story of obsession and murder. The story develops in the dead of night, steeped in darkness and mystery, against a strange and terrifying home. The unreliable narrator, mysterious old guy, and insane atmosphere add to infatuation, guilt, and paranoia. Poe expertly uses tone, sarcasm, and symbolism to draw readers into the narrator’s lunacy and frightening repercussions.

The story’s central figure is an unidentified narrator whose mental instability becomes increasingly apparent as the story progresses. Ironically, the narrator’s insistence on his rationality highlights his craziness. Readers see the older man’s vulture-like ocular fixation via the narrator’s eyes. This irrational fixation shows the narrator’s mental decline. To seem rational, the narrative style blurs the borders between reality and the narrator’s warped view.

The story centers on the mysterious elderly guy with his pale blue vulture-like eye. While the old man’s persona is not extensively developed, his eye is a metaphor for the narrator’s illogical obsessions and craziness. The narrator’s disordered mind is reflected in the house’s darkness. The narrator purposefully chooses midnight for his nightly activities, adding to the creepy mood and feeling of impending doom.

Obsession, guilt, and paranoia are pervasive, driving the plot forward. The narrator’s obsession with the older man’s eye leads to a grisly murder. This baseless and illogical fixation shows the reader the damaging results of unbridled craziness. The narrator’s auditory hallucination—the older man’s heartbeat—torments him and shows his mental fragility after the murder. As he attempts to cover up his crime, paranoia becomes a pervasive force, driving the narrator to more erratic conduct.

Poe’s tone creates a terrifying, tense atmosphere that immerses the reader in the subject’s distress. The narrative’s word choice and phrase rhythm create gloom. The story’s dreadful tone mimics the narrator’s mental breakdown, amplifying its effect. Irony is essential, especially when the narrator tries to establish his sanity yet acts and thinks otherwise. Being aware of the narrator’s spiral into lunacy, the reader becomes a silent witness to the unfolding tragedy.

Symbolism enriches “The Tell-Tale Heart” story. Vulture-like eyes symbolize the narrator’s distorted perception and irrational fixation. The old man’s beating heart symbolizes the narrator’s guilt and inevitable repercussions. Through these symbols, Poe constructs a psychological tapestry that heightens the story’s impact and leaves the reader with a lasting impression.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” explores lunacy, obsession, and the dangers of unrestrained guilt, captivating and unsettling readers. Poe’s masterful use of narrative components transports the reader to the unreliable narrator’s unsettling world, producing a timeless story with deep psychological depth and literary skill.

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” narrator is multifaceted, revealing his mental condition with each syllable. Poe crafts a narrator whose mental faculties are far from steady, creating uncertainty and fear. The narrator desperately tries to prove his sanity, but the narration shows his mental frailty. Through a meticulous exam of the narrator’s mental condition and his obsessive fixation on the old man’s eye, the reader is dragged into the disturbing depths of a deteriorating psyche.

Poe expertly uses the first-person point of view to reveal the narrator’s mental condition, which is crucial to the story. The narrator’s nervousness suggests mental instability. His continuous insistence on his sanity and mood swings highlight his emotional turmoil. The narrator’s warped reality becomes apparent as the story progresses, showing a mind on the brink of lunacy (Yousef, p259).

His fixation with the old man’s eye drives him insane. The vulture-like eye symbolizes the narrator’s unreasonable anxieties and illusions. The obsessive nature of the fixation is seen in the precise planning and execution of the murder. The narrator’s eye becomes a metaphor for his dissolving sanity.

The reliability of the narrator is vital to the story’s development. Poe creates a figure with a shaky mental condition, forcing the reader to navigate the murky waters of truth and delusion. The story’s irregular actions and obsessive thoughts indicate the narrator’s craziness (Yousef 259). His deliberate precision in planning the murder and his overconfidence in his ability to prove his sanity show his separation from reality.

The narrator’s viewpoint transforms the story into a psychological thriller. The first-person perspective immerses the reader in the narrator’s subjective experience, blurring the lines between reality and his warped lens. As the reader struggles with whether the events reported are actual or just manifestations of a damaged mind, the unreliable nature of the narrator provides an element of suspense. The reader unwittingly aids the narrator’s psychosis, increasing narrative tension.

In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe develops characters that help reveal lunacy and obsession. Despite his limited character, the old man drives and symbolizes the narrator’s craziness. The appearance of the police officers heightens the tension, culminating in a climactic moment that reveals the actual nature of the narrator’s activities.

The old man is crucial to the story’s development, although he is not extensively fleshed out. His limited characterization emphasizes his symbolic significance in the narrator’s mental decline. His obsessive worries and obsessions, especially the vulture-like stare, are projected onto the old man. The eye is a significant symbol in the story, described as pale blue with a film covering it. Beyond its materiality, it symbolizes the narrator’s emotional struggle and madness (Yousef 259). The limited details about the old man add to the disturbing atmosphere, as readers must figure out who becomes the narrator’s mental fixation target.

The later-introduced police officers are vital to the story. Their arrival injects an element of external scrutiny into the narrator’s psychosis. Poe heightens the tension by cleverly introducing the police officers as apparently innocent law enforcement officials. Against the narrator’s increasingly erratic conduct, the police show the lunacy under the surface. The story’s climax is the narrator’s confrontation with the police, which reveals his craziness (Yousef 259). As the narrator’s carefully constructed facade begins to unravel, the cops’ inadvertent involvement in the play sets the setting for a horrifying reveal.

Police personnel plays many roles in the climax. They seem like outsiders in the narrator’s meticulously regulated universe. Their presence increases the narrator’s fear and paranoia. As the police chat, tension rises, and the narrator’s struggle becomes apparent. When the narrator, overcome by remorse and paranoia, confesses to the murder, revealing the dark truth concealed beneath the floorboards, the climax reaches its height (Yousef 259). The police, originally unaware of the atrocity, unknowingly reveal the narrator’s psychosis.

The setting of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” is crucial to the story’s creepy and suspenseful mood. The old man’s gloomy, quiet abode is the primary setting. The narrator painstakingly plans and murders at night, emphasizing the ancient house’s terrible quiet. The shutters are securely closed, creating pitch-black darkness within, suggesting the narrator’s secrecy and evil plans. The painstaking attention to setting details heightens psychological strain, facilitating the narrator’s madness.

The psychological setting also features nighttime, a period of weird and unexplained events. The narrator’s nighttime visits to the old man’s chamber add suspense. The witching hour heightens the story’s otherworldliness and discomfort. The setting becomes a metaphor for the human mind as the narrator painstakingly executes his plan in darkness (Yousef, p255). The night’s symbolism and stifling quiet add tension and cold to the story.

Poe vividly describes the setting, giving it a gloomy feel. The setting’s “dark as midnight,” “dreadful silence,” and “dead hour of the night” create a gloomy mood that matches the story’s themes of madness and obsession (Poe, para 14). Poe’s meticulous setting modification shows his ability to create a narrative-impacting atmosphere.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” explores the dark reaches of the human brain, investigating themes of mental fragility and unbridled obsessions. The narrator planning and executing the old man’s murder is the story’s theme. The chilling forethought and cold-blooded nature of the conduct show the narrator’s criminality. The narrator fiercely argues for his sanity, setting the scene for the murder.

Obsession becomes a recurrent theme, especially with the old man’s eye. The vulture-like eye’s apparent malice drives the narrator to madness. This preoccupation leads to the murder, showing how fixations on little things may be harmful (Amir, p5). “I think it was his eye!” shows the narrator’s obsession. This was it! One eye was light blue with a coating, like a vulture’s”(Poe, para 2). The exclamation highlights the eye’s role in the narrator’s mental breakdown.

Mortality is another theme in the story. Considering killing the old man shows the narrator’s unsettling acceptance of mortality. The painstaking disassembly and hiding of the corpse shows a morbid fascination with death. The story explores mortality beyond killing by exploring the narrator’s psychological effect on himself.

Guilt is a theme intertwined with the crime. As the old man’s vital energy, the narrator’s remorse is heard in his beating heart. Mental anguish builds to the narrator’s frantic confession while the heart beats relentlessly. “Villains!” the narrator admits guiltily. I shouted, “Stop disintegrating!” I confess! — break apart the timbers! — his horrible heartbeats here!” (Poe, para 18), the outburst emphasizes the narrator’s terrible remorse, which unravels him.

Madness permeates the story, blurring the lines between fact and hallucination. The narrator’s insistence on his sanity and the crime’s precise preparation generates troubling narrative tension (Amir, p5). “Hearken! and observe how healthily — how calmly I can tell you the whole story,” the narrator says, clarifying the theme of madness (Poe, para 1). The narrator’s claims of sanity and the story’s chaotic course underscore the fragile nature of the human mind and the narrow boundary between reason and madness.

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” masterfully creates a spooky, suspenseful atmosphere that initially captures readers. A narrative tension permeates Poe’s planned and evocative prose. The word choice, phrase flow, and painstaking attention to detail create a scary and fascinating tone.

Poe creates a spooky atmosphere that builds up the psychological thriller. The narrator’s nervousness establishes the tone, giving the reader a sense of dread. The opening words, “True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am,” set the stage for a psychologically troubled story (Poe, para 1). Repeating “nervous” accentuates the narrator’s heightened feelings, suggesting the psychological turmoil that would follow. This purposeful phrasing creates an eerie tone throughout the story.

Poe’s wording skillfully builds suspense. In defense of his sanity, the narrator’s detailed retelling of the events heightens the tension as readers enter his disordered psyche. The words’ repetitive cadence suggests gloom, mirroring the heartbeat—a pattern that becomes important as the story progresses. The narrator’s description of the old man’s eye as “a pale blue eye, with a film over it” lends a vivid but unpleasant picture to the exam, contributing to the overall tone of unease and tension (Poe, para 2).

The language used to describe the setting adds to the spooky vibe. The dark, quiet home becomes a character, adding to the sensation of isolation and captivity. Shutting the shutters, the dense darkness and the focus on midnight create a setting where reality and the narrator’s warped view blend. The atmosphere echoes the narrator’s mental darkness.

Poe uses repetition to build tension. A paradoxical impact results from the narrator’s repeated stress on his sanity and denial that he is insane. The reader doubts the narrator’s sanity as he argues. The repetition creates tension as the reader struggles to reconcile the narrator’s words and actions. This dissonance emphasizes ambiguity and anxiety, putting the reader on edge.

As the narrator’s inner conflict is revealed, Poe’s language soars at the climax. After uncovering the beating heart under the floorboards, the narrative tension peaks. The language grows increasingly frantic as the narrator’s emotions rise. Irony enhances tension by juxtaposing the narrator’s emotional anguish with the police officers’ ostensibly calm discourse.

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe is steeped in dramatic irony, a literary technique that uses the reader’s knowledge of facts that the characters are unaware of. The reader’s understanding of the narrator’s madness contrasts with his determined efforts to establish his sanity, creating the major irony. Irony permeates the story, adding tension and emphasizing the narrator’s vision against reality.

The story establishes the narrator’s madness from the start. As he struggles to prove his sanity, the narrator shows his mental instability. As the reader sees the evidence, his frequent claims that he is not insane become comical. The precise planning and execution of the murder, prompted by the irrational dread of the old man’s eye, are early signs of the narrator’s deteriorating mental state. The narrator accidentally betrays his mental issues to the reader, producing dramatic irony.

The irony is further compounded by the narrator’s efforts to defend and show his mental soundness. The reader may see the narrator’s inconsistencies as he meticulously recounts events as a clear and rational justification. The narrator’s methodical descriptions of his meetings with the old man and the murder clash with his impulsive impulses. The reader sees the narrator’s disordered psyche, intensifying the dramatic irony as he tries to seem sensible.

One notable example of dramatic irony is the narrator saying, “madmen know nothing” (Poe, para 3). Knowing the narrator’s madness, the reader sees the stark contradiction between his self-perception and illogical behavior, making this assertion heartbreaking. As the narrator tries to persuade the reader of his sanity, the dramatic irony develops, producing anxiety and tension as the story races to its horrific climax.

Dramatic irony peaks at the story’s climax when the reader contrasts the narrator’s fantasies with his deeds. The dramatic reveal takes place during a casual chat with the police officers, who are unaware of the tragedy concealed beneath the floorboards. The reader’s knowledge of the beating heart under the floorboards, symbolizing the narrator’s guilt and madness, makes the climax painfully ironic. The cops’ casual banter and the narrator’s emotional conflict create a terrifying irony as the reader observes the imminent disclosure the narrator urgently attempts to hide.

Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” uses symbols like the vulture’s eye and beating heart to convey deep significance. The terrifying vulture’s eye symbolizes the narrator’s madness and irrational fears. The beating heart also becomes a potent metaphor for the narrator’s guilt and internal turmoil.

The faint blue tint and film over the vulture’s eye symbolize the source of the narrator’s madness. The eye transcends its physical form to represent the narrator’s irrational fears and obsessions, driving the story. Vulture iconography suggests death and decay. While banal, the vulture eye symbolizes the narrator’s fall into madness. It depicts the narrator’s irrational fears that lead to murder (Omar et al. 116). The Vulture Eye emphasizes Poe’s investigation of the devastating nature of unrestrained obsessions and the narrow boundary between sanity and madness.

Beyond its physiological purpose, the beating heart concealed beneath the floorboards has symbolic meaning. It is a palpable manifestation of the narrator’s remorse and reminds him of his sin. The contradictory emblem of the narrator’s descent into moral and psychological decay is the heart, which is associated with life and vitality. In an auditory hallucination, the pounding echoes the narrator’s internal turmoil and guilty conscience (Omar et al., 116). Due to the narrator’s choices’ actual effects, the heart symbolism lends a visceral and haunting dimension to the story.

The story revolves around the beating heart and remorse. The heart’s incessant beat symbolizes the narrator’s guilt. The narrator’s guilt makes the beating heart louder, symbolizing the crime. In contrast to the narrator’s placid exterior, the beating heart represents interior turbulence (Omar et al. 116). The narrator’s heart anchors him to his crime and exposes his mental veneer. Poe’s exploration of the psychological effects of guilt and the unavoidable nature of moral accountability is highlighted by the heart’s symbolism.

The heart’s relationship with the story’s climax is one notable example of its symbolic importance. The beating heart approaches a fever pitch as the police officers engage in casual conversation, unaware of the tragedy under the floors. The climax is a profound epiphany that ultimately realizes heart symbolism. A disturbing contrast between the cops’ indifference and the narrator’s internal turmoil emphasizes the heart’s metaphorical weight when guilt is revealed (Omar et al. 116). This climax concludes the heart’s metaphorical journey and emphasizes morality.

  Conclusion

In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe uses narrative themes to create a psychological tapestry that captivates readers. The story’s lasting impression comes from the narrator’s madness, the vulture eye and beating heart, the spooky tone, dramatic irony, and the masterfully designed setting. The vulture eye symbolizes the narrator’s irrational fears, while the beating heart symbolizes remorse, providing depth to the story. Poe’s dramatic irony makes the reader aware of the narrator’s madness even as he denies it, creating a tense mood.

Poe’s perfect integration of narrative elements creates a tale that transcends fear. First-person narration gives readers a view of the narrator’s disordered psyche, heightening psychological tension. The vulture eye and beating heart provide importance to ordinary elements, making them potent metaphors. Dramatic irony and a spooky tone immerse the reader in a realm where reality and madness blend. Poe’s detailed setting enhances the psychological drama and the story’s effect. The narrative pieces come together to form a story that stays with the reader, demonstrating Poe’s unmatched ability to write stories that stay with them.

Works Cited

Amir, Shamaila. “Analysis of the Short Story “the Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe.”  Papers.ssrn.com , 9 Mar. 2020, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551267.

Omar, Shumaila, et al.  “CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS of the TELL-TALE HEART in the CONTEXT of PAKISTAN.” New Horizons 16.2 (2022): 111-126.  2022.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Tell-Tale Heart.”  The Poe Museum , 2 July 2021, poemuseum.org/the-tell-tale-heart/.

Yousef, Mohamed Abdrhaman Ahamed. “State of Being Sane and Insane -Stylistic Analysis of the Short Story “the Tell-Tale Heart.””  International Journal of Language and Literary Studies , vol. 4, no. 2, 4 June 2022, pp. 254–264, https://doi.org/10.36892/ijlls.v4i2.886.

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Life of Edgar Allen Poe

This essay will delve into the life of Edgar Allan Poe, exploring his literary contributions, personal tragedies, and the lasting impact of his macabre and gothic style on literature and popular culture. You can also find more related free essay samples at PapersOwl about Edgar Allan Poe.

How it works

The life of a man in which his life was corrupted with evil and malevolent thoughts. For his life wasn’t the same as any other typical childhood. His name was Edgar Allen Poe. Edgar Allen Poe was born on January 19, 1809. Living in Boston, Massachusetts, his parents Eliza Poe and David Poe Jr. were both professional actors in their time. His mother Eliza Poe, was a very well known actress within her community as she was seen as a celebrity herself.

The family was poor. By 1811, his father had abandoned the family, leaving Eliza Poe alone with two year old Edgar, his older brother Henry, and his little sister Rosalie. With his mother being the only figure in the house, she had died of tuberculosis and very shortly their father who had abandoned them died of the same disease. With the death of their parents, the three Poe children were split. Henry went off to live with his grandparents. Rosalie was adopted by the Mackenzie family of Richmond. And Edgar was taken in by the family of John and Frances Allan, a couple unable to have children of their own. He later added his foster family’s name to his own, becoming Edgar Allan Poe.

As Edgar Allen Poe grew up his life had become better. He was surrounded by a loving and caring family that indeed took care about his well being. Through the years Edgar would grow up into the man we know today. He was first enrolled into a college which he was successful with his studies but they couldn’t afford the debt as they were over $2,000 in debt. In those times $2,000 was severely bad especially for a poor family like themselves.

Growing up Edgar never had the satisfaction of knowing what truly can come from the good in life as he wasn’t one to experience it. As Poe was attending the University of Virginia, they removed Poe as his foster father could not pay for his college due to gambling debt as well. You can tell from this experience that his foster father had a gambling issue as well which adds onto the saddened fact that his father doesn’t care about Poe as he had really expected him to.

In 1827, he had moved back to Boston and enlisted in the United States Army to fight for his country. Once leaving the Army he was accepted into the U.S Military Academy but he was removed from the academy once the finances became an issue again. The reoccurring issue with finances in his life shows how his family really had always stayed stable through the little money they had. The Allan family didn’t have money to use on Poe and his education as priorities had come before his own education. Once his education wasn’t working out for him, in 1835, he became the editor of the southern literary messenger in Richmond where he lived with his aunt and cousin, Maria and Virginia Clemm. Which in a few years he actually marries his cousin Virginia Clemm which was 13 at the time.

When Virginia was 24 years old she had passed away from tuberculosis. This disease has impacted Poe so much as almost his whole family has passed away from this sickness which is bizarre due to the fact that it’s the same age and type of disease for everyone involved. Poe was overcome with grief especially with his wife’s death as he began to crash. He will now be struggling financially and with his poor health for the rest of his life.

As Edgar Allan Poe continued his life he was met finally with death himself. It was on October 7th, 1849 where we had passed away in a hospital. Edgar Allan Poe was originally found in an ally way distraught but his death is found as a mystery on what caused his death. His final words were I would say a summary of what he went through his whole life. His last words were, “Lord, Help my poor soul”. With all that occurred in his life I believe this was his way of summing up his life and how he felt for years now.

During Edgar Allen Poe’s life, he created amazing stories and short stories that impact our world today. His work is studied all over the world as the impact he has put into lives is inspiring. With his hard and dreadful life, he was able to convert it all into poems and novels where he expressed the outcome he experienced when it came to his difficulties. Every story he has written has a powerful message folded within his texts.

One main story I find to be the most successful was “The cask of Amontillado”. “The Cask of Amontillado” was first published in the November 1846. It was set in an unnamed Italian city at carnival time in an unspecified year and it is about a man taking fatal revenge on a friend who, he believes, has insulted him.

In the beginning in the story it allows the audience to engage on how Fortunato is seeking his revenge. I believe this story plays a connection with Edgar Allen Poe’s life because it shows the revenge that Poe has been wanting his whole life as everything has been taken away from him one way or another. For example, the disease tuberculosis took away almost half of his family and the loss of money took away his chances of education at a university or academy just like how he was accepted into the University of Virginia but soon removed. Within the text it allows you to see the methods that Fortunato uses to attract Amontillado into his trap.

Fortunato used Amontillado’s disadvantage was intoxication to his own use and lured him to his trap using alcohol and persuasion. When someone is under the influence of alcohol they are easily tricked or convinced as their mind is not thinking straight. Out of all the texts I have read of Edgar Allen Poe this text is truly the message that comes across the clearest. From the small details of how Amontillado begins to scream for help, Fortunato begins to scream as well to send a message to Amontillado that no one can hear you in the tombs calling and yelling for help and mercy. This is a way to show Amontillado that there is no more begging for mercy as the harm has been done.

The way this trap was set up puts a perspective on what we need to think about Edgar Allen Poe himself as he is the creative mind behind these books. From the smallest of crimes to the biggest master mines in the text he is also able to hide it within very mature and impressive writing as the normal eye can not catch his direct message. I have always been one to connect his writings to Shakespeare in the sense of writing and the translation of his writing. The writing Poe portrays is very complex and hidden within anything that I have seen other then the writings of Shakespeare which I can easily see a connection with. When Edgar Allan Poe wrote this story the very popular topic of the time was revenge and prosperity for all that has been done. Edgar Allan Poe was a huge fan with revenge as his whole life he has wanted a little part of revenge to justify his whole past life. The life of Edgar Allan Poe can be told through many different ways and in each of his stories he has written they can be mirrored into his actual life. From his top novel “The Raven” all through this novel “The Cask of Amontillado”, He connects his own life which is a very successful and inspiring activity to do as an author. Poe also connected his stories to real life actions in which he aspired to influence his community with an impact of how we should take todays tasks. As controversial Poe can be he brings out and sets a new path for writing and creators everywhere. With horrifying texts, comical texts, romantic texts, and Informal texts, this man created it all with only one mind which was his own.

Today, history looks at Edgar Allan Poe as a role model for future writings that our generations will read and analyze. From reading one book of Poe you can get the insight view of his life and what he had gone through in the times he was alive. From all the deaths in his family to all the interesting facts that occurred in his life it was all laid out in the things he loved. Being an author didn’t give him riches and it only gave him a bit of fame but it was the drive and inspiration that gave him the motives to keep writing and to keep living his life no matter how horrible and secluded it was in his times of need. From the ups and downs of his life I can relate to one of his most famous quote which is, “The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true” (Edgar Allan Poe).

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Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer of primarily poetry and short stories that explored themes of death, regret, and lost love. Read the overview below to gain an understanding of the author and his work and explore the previews of analysis and criticism that invite further interpretation.

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Edgar allan poe topic overview.

"Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849), An Introduction to." Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism Volume 211, Gale, 2009.

Known for his keen intellect and vivid, often macabre imagination, Edgar Allan Poe is regarded by many scholars as one of the most groundbreaking authors of early-nineteenth-century America. Although Poe is remembered by most readers as the author of such stories as "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Fall of the House of Usher," critics recognize him for the versatility and range of his talents.

A number of commentators have credited Poe with inventing the modem detective story; indeed, many of his principal techniques, particularly his use of deductive reasoning to elucidate the complexities of criminal behavior, form the foundation of the crime genre. At the same time, Poe's in-depth explorations of the interior lives of his characters helped pave the way for psychological realism, inspiring a number of later fiction writers, among them Fyodor Dostoevsky. Poe's critical writings, notably those on the relationship between philosophical principles and artistic style, also influenced the aesthetic theories of Charles Baudelaire, Stephane Mallarme, and other members of the French symbolist movement.

In spite of his far-reaching impact, Poe has also had his share of detractors over the years: Henry James was intensely critical of Poe's work, while T. S. Eliot famously dismissed his writings as "pre-adolescent." The second half of the twentieth century witnessed a reevaluation of Poe's legacy, however, as modem critics and theorists began to recognize his profound effect on modem literature and thought.

Biographical Information

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809, the second son of David Poe Jr. and Elizabeth Arnold Poe, both stage actors. The family lived in abject poverty and moved frequently during Poe's first years, during which time his parents pursued acting engagements in New York, Maryland, and Virginia. Poe's father abandoned the family when Poe was still a small child, and his mother died in Richmond, Virginia, in December 1811. Shortly after his mother's death, Poe was adopted by John Allan, a wealthy Richmond merchant, and his wife, Frances. In 1815 the young boy went with the Allans to Great Britain, living in Scotland and London for the next five years. After returning to Richmond in 1820, Poe attended private schools, where he excelled in literature, classics, and oratory; he also began to write poetry.

In spite of his academic accomplishments, Poe remained relatively isolated. Scholar Eric W. Carlson has argued that Poe's humble origins remained a source of shame throughout his life and that because of his background he never gained acceptance among Richmond's social elite. In 1826, Poe became a student at the University of Virginia, studying classical and modern languages. Although his adoptive father paid Poe's tuition and lodging, he refused him additional funds for books and other basic expenses. To cover his living costs, Poe turned to gambling, incurring massive debts that forced him to withdraw from the university. Unable to repair his fractured relationship with Allan, Poe moved to Boston and enlisted in the army. He published his first book of verse, Tamerlane and Other Poems: By a Bostonian (1827), around this time. A second poetry collection, Al Aaraaf Tamerlane, and Minor Poems , was published in 1829. A year later Poe, intent on launching a military career, enrolled at the United States Military Academy at West Point; financial difficulties continued to plague him, however, and he abandoned his training after only six months. His third collection of verse, Poems, By Edgar A. Poe , came out in 1831.

After living briefly in New York City, Poe settled in Baltimore, where he moved in with his aunt, Maria Clemm. In Baltimore, Poe began writing short stories, publishing several of them in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier in 1832. In 1833, his story "MS. Found in a Bottle" won first prize in a contest promoted by the Baltimore Saturday Visitor . Although the prize earned Poe $50, it ultimately did little to alleviate his financial struggles, and John Allan's death in 1834 failed to provide Poe with an adequate inheritance. Desperate for a steady income, Poe accepted an offer to become a staff writer and editor for the Southern Literary Messenger , a new magazine based in Richmond. In 1835 he moved to Richmond with his aunt and her 12-year-old daughter, Virginia Clemm. Poe married Virginia a year later, shortly before her 14th birthday.

According to most biographical accounts, Poe thrived during his tenure at the Messenger ; he published more than 80 essays, poems, and reviews in the periodical, while gradually attracting a sizeable readership. In 1837, he resigned from his editorship, although he continued to contribute fiction and criticism to the magazine. For the next year Poe lived with his family in New York before relocating to Philadelphia in early 1838. During this period he published his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), as well as several important short stories, including "Ligeia" (1838) and "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839). In 1839 he took a position as the editor and principal literary critic of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine ; he was fired a year later, however, after attempting to launch his own rival magazine.

Poe's first book of short fiction, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque , was published in 1840. Over the next few years Poe published two additional story collections, The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe, No. 1. Containing the Murders in the Rue Morgue, and The Man That Was Used Up (1843) and Tales by Edgar A. Poe (1845), as well as his most significant book of poetry, The Raven and Other Poems (1845). Virginia contracted tuberculosis during this time; she died in January 1847. Poe's own health began to deteriorate, his condition exacerbated by heavy alcohol abuse.

In the remaining two years of his life, Poe was romantically involved with a series of women and was briefly engaged to the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, but their relationship ended abruptly in late 1848. That year saw the publication of Eureka: A Prose Poem , the final work published in Poe's lifetime. His struggle to earn a living and refrain from drinking continued to take its toll. He managed to place essays, stories, and poems in various magazines and delivered lectures on poetry. Poe died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849. Although biographers speculate that his death was alcohol related, the exact cause remains unknown. A posthumous collection of prose writings, The Literati . . . Together with Marginalia, Suggestions, and Essays (1850), was published a year after his death.

Major Works

To modern commentators Poe remains best known for his short stories, almost all of which were collected in three volumes published during his lifetime: Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque , The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe , and Tales by Edgar A. Poe . Many scholars divide Poe's short fiction into two categories: horror tales and detective stories. Poe's horror tales typically revolve around characters who have reached states of extreme alienation, terror, and madness and often contain elements of the supernatural. In "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843), a murderer is plagued by the persistent echo of his victim's heartbeat, compelling him to confess his crime; "The Black Cat" (1843) features a protagonist who becomes obsessed with killing his beloved pet cat; the narrator of "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846), tormented by the "thousand injuries" inflicted upon him by an old rival, achieves his long-awaited vengeance by burying his victim alive in a brick tomb. The sense of menace in other stories is far more subtle. In "Some Words with a Mummy" (1845), a revivified Egyptian mummy, speaking to a group of modern scientists, offers an ominous indictment of nineteenth-century democracy. The narrator of "Ligeia" (1838), distressed by the death of his first wife, imagines her soul's resurrection in the body of his second wife. "Ligeia" is also noteworthy in that it contains the poem "The Conqueror Worm," a dark vision of the power and inevitability of death.

Poe's detective stories concern the complex, sometimes misleading relationship between human reasoning and empirical reality. Characterized by Poe himself as tales of "ratiocination," these stories revolve around crimes so strange and inexplicable that they prove nearly impossible to solve. The best known of these works include "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), "The Mystery of Marie Roget" (1842), and "The Purloined Letter" (1845). These three stories feature the character C. Auguste Dupin, an amateur sleuth whose powers of imagination and deductive reasoning enable him to recognize crucial details that elude more conventional police inspectors. A number of scholars have asserted that Dupin became the prototype of the modem fictional detective and served as the model for such characters as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

In addition to his fiction, Poe authored a number of important poems over the course of his career. Although his poems are not widely read today, several are still familiar to modem readers; among the most famous are "To Helen" (1831), "Lenore" (1843), and "The Raven" (1845). Poe's critical writings, in particular his review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's story collction Twice-Told Tales , also remain noteworthy among scholars. The commentary, first published in April 1842, has played a pivotal role in the field of Hawthorne criticism. In the 1846 essay "The Philosophy of Composition," Poe undertakes an in-depth analysis of his own artistic methods. "The Poetic Principle," first delivered as a lecture in 1848 and later included in the posthumous volume The Literati, offers an invaluable exposition of Poe's aesthetic philosophy, notably the idea that the ultimate aim of art is art itself, independent of social or political contexts. This idea influenced European aesthetic theories of the late nineteenth century and became the foundation of the French symbolist movement.

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The Best Edgar Allan Poe Poems Everyone Should Read

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) was a pioneer of the short story form, but he was also an accomplished poet. Below, we’ve selected ten of Poe’s very best poems and offered a short introduction to each of them.

‘ The Raven ’.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. ‘’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, ‘tapping at my chamber door— Only this and nothing more.’

This poem had to head the list of a selection of Edgar Allan Poe’s best poems, really. It is the only literary work to inspire the name of a sporting team (the American Football team the Baltimore Ravens).

According to Poe himself, in a later work of literary analysis, if he hadn’t had a change of heart we might well be reading a poem called, not ‘The Raven’, but ‘ The Parrot ’ (although he may have been pulling his readers’ legs there).

The unnamed narrator sits up late one dreary winter night, mourning the loss of his beloved, Lenore, when a raven appears at the window and speaks the repeated single word, ‘Nevermore’. The narrator starts to view the raven as some sort of prophet. Follow the link above to read the poem in full and learn more about it.

‘ To Helen ’.

Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicéan barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore.

This early poem was first published in 1831 in Poems of Edgar A. Poe , which appeared when Poe was still in his early twenties, although Poe made a few tweaks to the poem in 1845.

Poe addresses Helen of Troy, reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the classical world. But as well as such universal resonances, ‘To Helen’ also has more personal links to Edgar Allan Poe’s own life, and indeed the poem has been analysed in terms of its biographical associations.

Jane Stanard, the mother of one of Poe’s childhood friends, had been the first person to encourage Poe in his writing ambitions, at a time when Poe’s foster-father thought he should be doing other things.

‘To Helen’ was one of the first poems Poe wrote, and he wrote it for her. Poe was most likely only a teenager when he wrote ‘To Helen’. If only we could all be so deft with a pen at such a young age! Follow the link above to read the poem in full and learn more about it.

‘ Ulalume ’.

Subtitled ‘A Ballad’, this longer poem shares, with ‘The Raven’, a narrator who has lost his loved one. The brooding narrator wanders the moors one October night, unaware that he is meandering in the direction of the tomb of his lost beloved.

Although criticised for privileging stylish sound-effects over richness of content (by Aldous Huxley among others, who called it, in something of a mixed review, ‘a carapace of jewelled sound’), the poem is a great one for reading aloud during the Halloween season and makes our pick of the best Halloween poems .

‘ A Dream within a Dream ’.

Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.

How can we separate reality from illusion? What if, to quote from Poe’s poem, ‘All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream’? One of Poe’s more famous poems, ‘A Dream within a Dream’ muses on the fragility and fleetingness of everything, and asks whether anything we do has any lasting or real effect: ‘ All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream.’ See the link above to read this dreamy poem in full.

‘ The Bells ’.

Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells – From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

This poem earns its place on this list not least because it gave us the delightful word ‘tintinnabulation’, to describe the ringing of bells. If ‘Ulalume’ was a carapace of jewelled sound, ‘The Bells’ is another such sonic carapace, a masterpiece of onomatopoeia…

‘ Sonnet—To Science ’.

Poe was greatly interested in science, and among his literary achievements is a long prose-poem-cum-essay, Eureka , which is subtitled in some edition of Poe’s work ‘An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe’.

In this shorter poem, a sonnet following the Shakespearean or English rhyme scheme , Poe calls science ‘true daughter of Old Time’ which ‘alterest all things with thy peering eyes’. But although ‘Sonnet – To Science’ may appear to be a hymn to the importance of scientific endeavour and discovery, there’s a little more going on in this poem.

This sonnet was written when Poe was a young Romantic poet, and it bears the influence of John Keats, who had attacked science, in his poem ‘Lamia’, for destroying the sense of mystery and awe in the world

‘ Eldorado ’.

A knight goes in search of Eldorado, that golden paradise, in this short poem. But the knight grows old without ever finding that fabled city. And then he meets a shade which tells him where he can find Eldorado. Follow the link above to read the full poem.

‘ The Haunted Palace ’.

The palace of this poem is a palace of the mind, found in ‘the monarch Thought’s dominion’. This is a haunted palace because, whilst it is beautiful, it is also inhabited by ‘evil things, in robes of sorrow’ which ‘assailed the monarch’s high estate’. This poem may well have had its origins in Poe’s own troubled life, his battle with alcoholism, and his bouts of depression.

‘ The City in the Sea ’.

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest.

This is another Poe poem which was originally written when he was still in his early twenties, in 1831, but was rewritten for publication in 1845.

Part Gothic poem and part fantasy, this poem tells of an underwater city ruled by Death himself: ‘Death has reared himself a throne / In a strange city lying alone / Far down within the dim West, / Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best / Have gone to their eternal rest…’

‘ Annabel Lee ’.

This seems like a fitting poem to conclude this list of Poe’s greatest poems, since it was the last poem he completed before his untimely death in 1849.

Precisely who the inspiration for the character of ‘Annabel Lee’ was remains a mystery, although Poe’s cousin, whom he fell in love with when she was thirteen, is the leading candidate. The narrator fell in love with Annabel Lee when they were both young and his love for her continues even after her death. Follow the link above to read the whole sorry tale.

Continue to explore the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe with our celebration of his contribution to literature , our pick of his best short stories , and our exploration of his use of the short story form .

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4 thoughts on “The Best Edgar Allan Poe Poems Everyone Should Read”

Great post. :) Poe was my first favorite literary author. I think I came upon his work when I was in middle school and beginning my angsty teenage years, so his moroseness was easy to relate to :)

Thank you! Poe is one of those writers, isn’t he, who really make a mark during our teenage years. I had a similar thing with A. E. Housman, and I think Plath is another one.

170 years after poor old Poe’s death his poems remain celebrated and permanently in print. Sniffy critics like Harold Bloom are wrong and deserve to be walled up with Fortunato and a cask of amontillado

Edgar Alan Poe, the favorite poem creator of all times for my late Husband, Charles Harold Smith Jr.

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Edgar Allan Poe Essay | Essay on Edgar Allan Poe for Students and Children in English

February 13, 2024 by Prasanna

Edgar Allan Poe Essay:  The central figure of romanticism, Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, literary critic, and editor. Short stories and poetry formed his best works. He was one of the early practitioners of short story writing in America.

He used to earn a living through his writing career. He faced difficulties in his career. He was very well known for his detective genre in writing.

You can also find more  Essay Writing  articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Long and Short Essays on Edgar Allan Poe for Students and Kids in English

We are providing the students with essay samples of a long essay of 500 words in English and a short essay of 150 words in English for reference.

Long Essay on Edgar Allan Poe 500 Words in English

Long Essay on Edgar Allan Poe is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Edgar Alan Poe was born in Boston and one of the most influential American writers of the 19th century. He was the first author in the world who tried to make a living by his writing skills. He lived a life filled with tragedy. He was considered as part of the Romantic Movement, mainly in the sub-genre of Dark-Romanticism.

He was a very well-known writer but struggled financially and struggled with depression and madness. He was one of the early writers to focus on short stories in America. He was the inventor of the detective fiction genre. A few of his great works on short stories included The Pit and the Pendulum, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Purloined Letter. Poe’s first work, an anonymous collection of poems known as “Tamerlane and Other Poems,” was published in 1827.

He changed his writing focus to prose, and after writing years of periodicals and journals, he became famous for his style of literary criticism. He was considered an American gothic writer for his epic story “The Fall of the House of Usher.” This story reveals the ultimate tragedy of Roderick Usher, who suffered from a variety of mental health problems.

He was born in Boston in the year 1809 on January 19th. When he was three years old, both his birth parents died. He was then taken by a wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan, and his wife, Francis Allan. They were his foster parents. Poe was sent to one of the best boarding schools and later to the University of Virginia. He excelled in his studies academically.

Edgar Allan Poe was into gambling; thus, he had to leave his university when John Allan refused to pay his gambling debts. He moved to Boston and started writing poems. Not receiving any attention for his first collection of poems, he wrote his second collection of poems, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. He took admission to the United States Military Academy but had to leave the university midway for lack of financial support.

He finally moved home to his aunt and her daughter Virginia, in Baltimore, Maryland. After selling short stories to magazines, in 1835, he became the Southern Literary Messenger editor. In the year 1836, he married Virginia, who was thirteen years old. He spent a large portion of his life editing several literary journals like Gentleman’s Magazine, Graham’s Magazine, and the Broadway Journal in different places.

During his days as editors, he established himself as a poet and a short story writer. Another set of his best works include The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Raven, and The Tell-Tale Heart. His wife, Virginia, died in the year 1847 due to tuberculosis. As a result of which Edgar Allan Poe’s depression worsened. His work had an immense impact on American and international literature. He was one of the originators of horror as well as detective fiction. Many call him the “architect” of the modern version of short stories.

Short Essay on Edgar Allan Poe 150 Words in English

Short Essay on Edgar Allan Poe is usually given to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Edgar Allan Poe took birth in Boston, but within three years, his parents died, and he was looked after by his foster family John Allan and his wife. He had a unique and dark way of writing. His mysterious styles appeal to drama and deeply knit emotions. His themes of short stories are mostly based on love, lost love, death, or both.

He struggled in his career. The lack of international copyright law hampered him. He has been a conspicuous contributor in the world of literature as he was well versed both as a creative author and a critic in the world of contemporary writers.

He is mostly remembered for his short fiction. His early works reflect the influence of English romantics like Lord Byron, John Keats, and P.B Shelly. His life ended when he was 40 years old. He took his last breath on October 7th, in the year 1849. He is still remembered for being a pioneer in writing short stories.

10 Lines on Edgar Allan Poe in English

• He had died a mysterious death in 1849.
• Though he was born in Boston, he grew up in Richmond.
• His short story, “The Gold Bug,” was one of his most successful works.
• “The Raven” and its publication made him internationally famous.
• He had attended the University of Virginia for 11 years.
• In 1844 he wrote “The Balloon Hoax” and became the subeditor of the New York Mirror.
• In 1848, he published the lecture named “Eureka,” which was a transcendental elucidation of the universe.
• He was buried in Westminster Presbyterian churchyard in Baltimore.
• His character had a touch of a strange duality.
• As a person, he was believed to be gentle and devoted to his loved ones and his love for writings.

FAQ’s on Edgar Allan Poe Essay

Question 1.  What inspired Edgar Allan Poe to write?

Answer: Real-life murder incidents were his inspirations to write.

Question 2.  Why did Edgar Allan Poe marry his cousin?

Answer:  He married his cousin because Virginia was his first cousin because his mother and father were brothers and sisters.

Question 3. Did Edgar Allan Poe die of rabies?

Answer: The Maryland Medical Centre believed that he died of rabies and not due to complications of being an alcoholic or heart-related issue.

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