In "The Fall of the House of Usher," Edgar Allan Poe takes the Gothic setting, with all its machinery and décor, and the preposterous Gothic hero, and transforms them into the material of serious literary art. “Commentary on Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher,” from The House of Fiction, edited by Caroline Gordon and [...]
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 visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door — Only [...]
There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes—die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed. Now [...]
In his lifetime, Edgar Allan Poe’s renown lay primarily in his reputation as the foremost critic of the day. As a critic, he complained that four or five cliques controlled American literature by controlling the larger portion of the critical journals. Edgar Allan Poe secured a permanent place among world authors as father of the [...]
Between ingenuity and the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater, indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of a character very strictly analogous. It will found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic. What song the Syrens sang, or what name [...]
Edgar Allan Poe vigorously denounced the Jeffersonian ideal of democracy. He had no sympathy with abstract political notions such as those which had produced liberal republican theory in America and elsewhere. Like Edmund Burke, Poe was highly suspicious of the “well-constructed Republic.” The opinion has been often stated that Edgar Allan Poe was bizarre and [...]
Son cœur est un luth suspendu; Sitôt qu’on le touche il rèsonne. De Béranger. DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at [...]
The name Edgar Allan Poe conjures images of the macabre, murder, insanity, and self-destruction, but is this the real Edgar Poe? BUT for the cruel aspersions upon the character and life of America’s poetic genius, EDGAR ALLAN POE, this volume would have remained unwritten. EDGAR ALLAN POE has been more misunderstood than any other poet [...]
“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” is thematically applicable to much of Poe’s work—the struggle to see the light of truth and justice that shines at the end of a dark tunnel of violence and horror. Edgar Allan Poe was missing. The year was 1849. There had been no trace of Mr. Poe for six [...]
At the same time that writers were bringing depth of character to the gothic setting in the 19th century, Edgar Allan Poe revitalized the genre in mid-century America. Suddenly Tales of Horror had a distinctly American flair and a surprising psychological depth. This nuance captivated readers then and still does today. Two hundred and fifty [...]
And now, amid all my infinite miseries, came sweetly the cherub Hope—for I thought of my precautions. I writhed, and made spasmodic exertions to force open the lid: it would not move. I felt my wrists for the bell-rope: it was not to be found. And now the Comforter fled for ever, and a still [...]
This cat followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly—let me confess it at once—by absolute dread of [...]
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled—but the very definitiveness [...]
True! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in [...]