Essays on Edgar Allan Poe

This paper is aimed to give a brief outline of Edgar Poe’s life and a short analysis of one of his famous poems ‘Annabel Lee’ to trace the main peculiarities of the author’s style.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most prominent figures in the American romantic literature of the second half of the 19th century. Apart from being a critic, an editor and a poet, he is considered to be a founder of the short story in its modern form. Edgar Poe came from the family of professional actors, who died three years after the Continue reading...

English

Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart can be described as a short story that hovers around the theme of crime and murder, and the short movie also justifies the duration of the story. The movie is more of a narrative; the protagonist is seen continuously describing his mind and moves directly to the camera. The movie can be categorized as being quantitative because of the attitude of the protagonist right through the movie. He says that he has no personal hatred for the old man, but it’s his vulture’s eyes that seem to make him go cold inside. Continue reading...

Summary

The Epigraph to Poe's “Berenice” by Michael Beard addresses an issue of a Latin epigraph “Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas,” originally written by an Arab. Alterton and Craig have best translated the following quotation as: “My companion said to me, if I would visit the grave of my friend, I might somewhat alleviate my worries” (Beard 611). Michael Beard assumes that this Latin phrase is not rooted in Arabic literature, however, such a trope is frequently seen in Arabic poetry as an evocative opening line, or a preface.
If we look at Continue reading...

Essay

English

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) – an American writer, poet, literary critic and editor, a representative of American Romanticism. He has received the greatest popularity for his "dark" stories. He is a creator of the forms of modern detective. Poe's creativity contributed to the emergence of the genre of science fiction.
"Mask of the Red Death" is the story of Edgar Allan Poe, written and published in 1842. The story begins with description of a terrible disease called the Red Death, devastating the country. Prince Prospero did not want to die from the disease; Continue reading...

The Gothic genre of literature is a fascinating one, ostensibly drawing upon the fears of its era (mostly Victorian England) to tell tales of the grotesque and the supernatural. These tales in particular often focus on unconventional protagonists, the role of gender in relationships, and the violence that comes from crime, isolation, and alienation. There are many subgenres of Gothic fiction, one of the most prominent being Southern Gothic – Gothic tales that take place entirely in the American South. While both genres enjoy similar styles and concerns, their overall themes and applications deal with anxieties specific to their period; Continue reading...

English

Edgar Allen Poe can best be described as a writer who was seriously influenced by neo-Gothic interests. A great American writer, Poe was attracted and influenced by the neo-Gothic writers much before his time because of which, most of his work is on horror. Poe was also witness to a period of uncertainty in society as deceit, murder for gain, revenge and arson was quite common. While courts played an important role in trying to curb this menace, cases were manipulated to benefit the guilty. This had a profound impact on Poe who used certain themes of court matters Continue reading...

Introduction

The short film we had chosen was an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, The Tell-Tales Heart. This short story was published in 1843. Just as Edgar Poe divulges, the short story is a narration by an unnamed author who recounts a murder he had committed on an old man who had pale vulture-eyes. The group acting and filming the narration comprises my mate Jake and me (Poe, 16).

The film is only 6 minutes long and this makes the film both a success and a failure. One of the aspects of successes we realized was the Continue reading...

One of the main characteristics of Edgar Allan Poe’s works are an artistic disclosure and analysis of the human psyche and the research of how human psychology determines people’s actions. The author considered the human personality not in the aspects of its morality, neither of its philosophical views, nor of the activity of political consciousness, but in the most difficult aspect – psychology. The prose heritage of Poe is mostly represented by his “scary” short stories, which include such tales as “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Oval Portrait”, “Ligeia”, “The Masque of the Red Death”, Continue reading...

Violence of colors in “The Raven” and “Lenore”

In the poems “The Raven”, “Lenore” Poe inquires the loss of ideal beauty and the difficulty in getting it back. These two poems are narrated by a young man crying over the untimely death of his beloved. 
In “The Raven,” Poe successfully unites his philosophical and aesthetic ideals. In this piece, a young scholar who is emotionally exhausted of the phrase “Nevermore” repeated by a raven in answer to his question about the probability of an afterlife with his deceased lover.
“Lenore” shows different ways in which the dead are best remembered, either by mourning or celebrating life beyond Continue reading...

The U.S. Indian Wars
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Man That Was Used Up and a painting by John Vanderlyn the Murder of Jane McCrea primarily bases this essay on relationship between Native American and white dominating culture relating to racism journey. Racism in the United States existed since the founding of the state (Vanderlyn n.p.). White people differ in their national and religious grounds, they are very different in their attitude towards other groups and the main victims of their racism have become non-white indigenous people (Indians). White has repeatedly incited the Indians scalp and of their opponents. Continue reading...

The majority of the narrator’s in Edgar Allan Poe’s stories have at least a little bit wrong with them. Even in “Pit and the Pendulum,” while the narrator appears to be an innocent victim of the Spanish Inquisition, his time below ground has certainly pushed his perspective toward the breaking point. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator is convinced that he is not insane, and he is bent on convincing the reader that he is not insane. However, the fact that he waits until his murder victim’s eyes are open at night (and that the correct Continue reading...

Problem Solving

Today, societies are more global than they have ever been in human history. Currently, there is a major exchange of knowledge and culture among various different groups of people. Sometimes problems may arise which can cause problems for a certain group or groups of people. A problem such as the color of a person's skin can lead to racism and cause a split in society. Oftentimes, the solution to these problems can be found when different groups, both large and small, come together in order to exchange ideas on problem solving. In their essay, James Surowiecki's "Committees, Juries, and Continue reading...

Edgar Allan Poe is a writer who dies in the gutter but left behind a rich legacy. He was born poor and he dies poor, but he filled the years of his life with literary richness. “Edgar Allan Poe has always been a paradox in American literary history. Although he is probably the most widely read of all American writers, he is commonly believed to have been no more than an alcoholic,” ( May, p ix, 1991). He had thousand of readers when he lived, but no friends. Poe was a writer who added value to English literature during his Continue reading...

The Raven a 1935 film directed by Lew Landers is an American horror film. Derived from Edgar Allan Poe famous poem, the film has received much criticism both positive and negative for focusing on telling a story that had already been written in form of a poem. Some critiques argue that the film convey the same message that conveyed in the poem by Poe. In the poem, we see a different storyline from how the poem was executed. Even though there are several scenes where the choice of action resembles what the poem the raven was all about, it Continue reading...

This week study focused on Allan Poe’s short story, The Purloined Letter. Allan Poe is acknowledged for his Gothic and American Romantic poems and short stories (Poe, Edgar, 4) Taking into consideration all the work done by Allan Poe, this is regarded the finest. This because the story does not have any gothic elements. From the letter, it is clear that the major theme focuses on the displacement and positioning of power. The two characters Lucan and Derrida are depicted with different levels of irony on the ownership of the letter. The struggle of power is re-enacted between Continue reading...

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most mysterious and remarkable writers of the 19th century, whose artistic heritage has always been readers’ and critics’ concern. Being a representative of the American Romanticism, Poe is also well known as an innovator of new genres of literature (detective-fiction and science fiction genres) and as successful practitioner of the short story. His literature style is considered to be macabre and anxious, and the theme of a death is presented in the most of his short stories, and every time it is inextricably linked with psychological conditions of the heroes. “The Masque Continue reading...

Edgar Allan Poe is a prominent American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, whose works are popular with the readers all over the globe. The timeless themes of Poe’s stories and the struggles of his characters are indeed remain relevant nowadays. His cocktail of death, love and suffer is of an undying combination. His short stories and poems are sodden with darkness, agony, mystery and obsession of inevitable death, they thrill and excite. The Pit And The Pendulum, The Black Cat, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Fall Of The House of Usher are only a few Continue reading...

Fiction Analysis

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In his Gothic tales of horror, Edgar Allan Poe focuses on the literal and figurative elements of death. This may have to do with him watching his mother suffer with tuberculosis. From the fear of the descending pendulum of the Spanish Inquisition or the metaphorical aspects of the plague from the Red? Black Death, the end of life is a topic that thrills Poe, and it is used throughout his stories. One of the main features of Poe’s fiction is that his settings are revolved around the fantasticthe fantastic, severed from practical reality. By combining Continue reading...

There can be no doubt that Edgar Allan Poe is one of the best writers in the history of American literature. One of his most well-known short-stories, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a classic that has endured decades of critical research and analysis. Throughout this lengthy scholarship, it immediately becomes apparent that Poe is one of the premier gothic writers of his generation, with his ability to tell a story as if he was his own demented protagonists. Critics and scholars also conclude that Poe has mastered the writing style of the first-person narrator (Ronald 2). In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Continue reading...

Literary Comparison

Introduction
Edgar Allan Poe ‘s poems are best known for their deep meaning and distinct presentation of particular elements that make up the overall concept of what reality is all about. In a way, the creative process of thinking that Poe has basically imposed in most of his works transcends a distinct pillar of his being, as if sharing not only his thoughts but his individuality to his readers. Practically, this approach has made Poe’s poems to be among the most read and most analyzed ones. Among the themes used by Poe in presenting his poems to the Continue reading...

Recently, the news has featured many stories about Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman who recently chose to end her life because she had terminal brain cancer. In April 2014, she received a prognosis that gave her six months left in her life. In the meantime, her doctors recommended full radiation to the brain, which would singe her hair off and cover her scalp with first-degree burns. Also, there was no guarantee that the radiation would kill the tumor. The fact that her body was healthy and young meant that she was likely to survive physically long after her cancer Continue reading...

“The Cask of Amontillado” is a story of revenge told in the first-person point of view. Montresor, the killer, narrates in detail the crime he committed fifty years ago against Fortunato for “insulting” him. It was apparent that Fortunato invested a great amount of time in plotting his revenge, but it was unclear why after fifty years, he was finally telling the story that no one ever found out. This is the first hint to the complexities of the character of Montresor which, as the story progresses, contradicted then interestingly intertwined with that of Fortunato’s that in the Continue reading...

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1) The article was written in the first person point of view. The narrator is the character speaking for his self.
2) In the story by Edgar Allan Poe, the tension primarily lies on how the character narrated how he killed the old man and how he was unable to hide his guilt in the end. Readers always want something good to happen in a story, and leading the story into murder and lies creates tension. It is similar in the Tell-Tale Heart. The tension began when the character confessed his plan to kill the old Continue reading...

In his Gothic tales of horror, Edgar Allan Poe focuses on the literal and figurative elements of death. This may have to do with the fact that one of his earliest memories was sitting and watching his mother cough her life away, a victim of tuberculosis. Whether it is the fear of the descending pendulum that was one of the creative torture devices of the Spanish Inquisition or the more metaphorical aspects of the Red Death, the end of life is a topic that fascinates Poe, and it infuses almost all of the elements in his stories. The connection Continue reading...

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most celebrated poets in the history of English literature. His poem, The Raven, is one of the most famous literary works in the world of arts and aesthetics.
The very first line of the poem evokes a melancholy mood as the poet writes, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary.” (Poe 1) The poem shows the speaker sulking inside a room longing to be with his lover, Lenore. Hearing a knock at the door, he opens it, only to find no one there. When he opens the window Continue reading...

Edgar Alan Poe is an American author, poet, essayist, literary critic and editor. He is considered to be one of the representatives of the American Romanticism, the inventor of the detective fiction genre. His works contributed to the emergence of the genre of science fiction. Edgar Poe is best known for his spine-tingling and mysterious horror stories and poems.
The Pit and the Pendulum is one of Poe’s famous short stories that was published in 1842. The narrator of the story is a survivor of the torture and torment in the condemned cell at Toledo – the Spanish Inquisition Continue reading...

The issue of the deeper meaning of life in the world of a book or story can easily be gleaned through a story’s tone. In the case of some works of Gothic horror, tone is an excellent way to indicate the helplessness and inexorable darkness at the heart of life. William Wordsworth’s “The World is Too Much With Us,” Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein all create dark, sinister tones in their works in different ways, evincing a distinct heaviness and sense of terror lying at the Continue reading...

The extract titled Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio. – Seneca by Edgar Allan Poe comes from a story titled The Purloined Letter, which Poe published in 1845. The section from which the paragraph comes from is the opening paragraph of the story. Poe’s detective story features some secrets about murders and the characters act as if they are suspicious of each other and they seek to maintain secrecy.
The narrator of the story narrates under a mysterious name or identity. The character does not mention their name or role in reference to the incidence occurring in the passage. He Continue reading...

“Instructor’s name’

‘Subject’
“The Birth-Mark” and “The Cask of Amontillado” – A comparative study
Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne are two important contributors of the nineteenth-century American literature. Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most celebrated authors, posthumously though, of the past century. Some of his stories are almost autobiographical, and though he lived in a previous era, his ideas were far ahead of his time. Nathaniel Hawthorne is an author, whose works are even today cited for seeking ethical guidance. His stories urge the reader to analyze his moral confusions. This essay is an attempt to compare and contrast Continue reading...

Examine the way in which the narrator of Poe’s The Raven tells the story. What does the narrator’s style of manner of narrating tell or reveal about the narrator himself?
The Raven is one of the first and most popular poems that famous American writer Edgar Allen Poe wrote. For a brief background about the poem, it is one that focuses on a conversation between a man and a raven. The poem starts by depicting a scenario wherein the man is sitting in chair in front of an open window, lamenting the loss of his love named Continue reading...

English

In dissecting Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, The Tell-Tale Heart, there are a few pointers that are give-aways. Gothic expressions are delivered in a bundle of narrations, which is sadistically evil and obvious. The narrator seems to justify his position by saying that he was sane. What was the need for this? In trying to do so, he was only contradicting himself. This perhaps, was the way; court cases took shape during the nineteenth century.
At this point, it would be appropriate to study the social life of the people of America during the period between 1838 and Continue reading...

It is worth to record, without fear of retribution from the public opinion that Edgar Allan Poe was one of the founder writers of detective series. In the inaugural work The Murders in the Rue Morgue he author introduces the detective C. Auguste Dupin, who did a marvellous job in trying to put matters into perspective to unravel the mysteries around the murder that occurred. Later on, Sir Arthur Canon Doyle followed in the footsteps of Edgar Allan Poe, in terms of thematic and literary approach (Doyle, 3). A practical instance is in the book titled Conan Doyle's text Continue reading...

Edgar Allen Poe once said, “Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” There have been so many breathtaking stories, but none of them has influenced literature the way The Tell Tale Heart did with its insane character. The Tell Tale Heart is a short story published in 1843 and written by Edgar Allen Poe. Edgar Allen Poe was born in Boston in 1809. He was the son of impoverished actors, Elizabeth and David Allen Poe. He became an orphan at the age of three whereby he lost his father by desertion Continue reading...

Compare and Contrast

The poem “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe and “The Blessed Damozel” written by Gabriel Rossetti are both about love. However, they deal with this in a different ways. The poem by Rossetti deals with eternal love between two people while Poe’s work is about mental anguish and the struggle that this person undergoes (Kickerbocker 471). Rossetti’s poem is about eternal love and loss, the title itself speaks of being blessed, meaning being with God or ascending to heaven. Poe’s poem is a bit more ambiguous in terms of the title. The reader will have to Continue reading...

Analysis of Poe’s Short Stories

Reading Edgar Allan Poe’s short story - “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Tell- Tale Heart” and “The Oval Portrait” – is indeed very gripping and thrilling. With every sentence that one reads more interest and curiosity builds up to know what will happen next in the story. Each of these stories is about horror, death and killing, with a great element of suspense. The Gothic element therefore is very strong in all the three short stories.
Joanne Harris (Edgar Allan Poe, p.42) stated in The Telegraph that Poe is a master of horror and one of his strongholds is Continue reading...

"Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of King Tching-thang to this effect: "Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again." I can understand that. Morning brings back the heroic ages. I was as much Continue reading...

‘Instructor’s name’

Short fiction is one of the oldest forms of literature and has been there throughout most part of the human civilization in the form of fairy tales, parables and myths. The current model of short literature took form sometimes during the early nineteenth century in North America, and was popularized by the periodical journals. All through the history of art many forms of literature were famous during a given era, like the drama in the sixteenth century and essays in the eighteenth century. But throughout most of the nineteenth century, novels and short stories were the most popular forms Continue reading...

Introduction:

Edgar Allen Poe was a great storyteller and one of the most important fiction horror story writers of his age. He was also credited with inventing the detective story when he came out with his Auguste Lupin character that was based in Paris and is rather a forerunner of Sherlock Holmes. In fact three of the classic Dupin cases; ‘The Purloined Letter’, ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’and ‘The Mystery of Marie Roget depict three classic situations which continue to affirm the point that Poe was the father of the detective novel. However this makes us observe the clarity Continue reading...

“Annabel Lee” is a sad and spooky poem that deals with the death of a beautiful young woman, which is not surprising, since that happens to be one of Edgar Allan Poe’s favorite subjects. The poem is about a beautiful memory that is also painful at the same time. Poe is recalling his memory Annabel Lee, who is his long-lost love, who meant more than just some teenage crush to him. Despite being children at the time, the two were madly and serious in love with each other. Their love was so strong that it was noticed even Continue reading...

Montresor planned Fortunato’s revenge masterfully. He knew that Fortunato loved wine and he planned his revenge to coincide with a time when Fortunato could be drunk and to take advantage of the carnival. Montresor specifically planned to murder Fortunato when drunk during a carnival. Montresor states, “He accosted me with excessive warmth for he had been drinking much” (Poe) He (Montresor) tricked Fortunato that he had obtained a pipe of Amontillado-a kind of wine. He urged Fortunato to help him identify the authenticity of the Amontillado but Fortunato was doubtful that Montresor could receive a pipe (about 500 Continue reading...