Poe, Edar Allen. (1809 - 1849).

L i f e

- son of wandering actors: his mother died when he was young, his father disappeared, adopted by the childless Richmond merchant John Allen

- lived with his aunt Mrs Clemm in Baltimore, and married her daughter Virginia when she was 14 years old

- worked as an editor for a Richmond magazine x but: dismissed for drinking; then worked with several magazines in Philadelphia; and unsuccessfully attempted to start a magazine of his own

- enjoyed a popular impact of his editorial writings, critical reviews, poems, and short stories

- the death of his wife of TBC (when she was 25), his excessive drinking, and his over-extension resulted in his death

W o r k

- in the tradition of Romanticism and Gothicism, anticipated Symbolism

- exploited the unconscious, the dark corners of human mind, mental illnesses, and the border states between sleeping and being awake

- interested in beauty combined with terror, unreasonable violence, and other deviations of nature

- interested primarily in the effect of the symbol x not the meaning: a symbol should not be transparent x but: the referent should be obscure

F i c t i o n :

- aims at truth = ‘the satisfaction of the intellect’, demands precision and the objects

- passion = ‘the excitement of the heart’, demands homeliness

=> therefore both Truth and Passion are antagonistic to Beauty and the Soul (“Philosophy of Composition”, 1846)

- preoccupied with the psychological aspect of a sick mind

- wrote horror tales, mystery tales, and detective stories (developed mystery of a closed room, a slower and a wise detective to explain the mystery, police on a wrong trace, etc.)

Genres:

(1) Arabesque: “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839)

(2) Grotesque

(3) Ratiocinative: stories of rational analysis

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1938):

- his only complete novel

- first published as a hoax in the Richmond magazine he co-edited

Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1839):

- a ratiocinative

Tales by Edgar A. Poe (1845)

“MS Found in a Bottle” (1833):

- won him the first prize in a story contest in a Baltimore paper

“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841):

- a detective story

“Gold-Bug” (1843):

- won him fame and the top prize in a Philadelphia newspaper

P o e t r y :

- aims at Beauty = an ‘intense and pure elevation of soul--not of intellect, or of heart’

=> poetry should appeal only to the sense of beauty x not truth  (“Philosophy of Composition”)

- rejects didactic poetry, and realistic details in poetry: poetry should evoke mood rather than meaning

- emphasises forethought

(a) early poetry: typically Romantic in form and content

(b) mature poetry: little progress beyond the Romantic Gothicism in subject x but: remarkable in technique (“The Raven”, “Ulalume”, and “The Bells”)

Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827):

- his first collection, published on his own expense

Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829)

The Raven and Other Poems (1845)

- published by a prestigious publishing house

Eureka (1848):

- a long prose poem explaining the nature of the universe

C r i t i c i s m :

- introduced a new criticism avoiding moralising, comments upon art, generalisation, and boasting off