Edgar Alan Poe was an American writer, known as a poet and most famous as the
first master of the short story, especially tales of the mysterious and macabre.
The literary merits of Poe's writings have been debated since his death, but his
works have remained popular and many major American and European writers have
professed their artistic debt to him. Born in Boston Massachusetts, Poe was
orphaned in his early child hood. Raised by John Adam, A successful businessman
of Richmond, Virginia. Taken by the Allan Family to England, at the age of six,
Poe was placed in a private school upon returning to the US in 1820, he
continued to study in private school. He attended the university of Virginia for
a year but in 1827 his foster father displeased by the young man’s drinking
and gambling he refused to pay his debts and forced him to work as a clerk. Poe,
disliking his new duties intensely, quit the job, and went to Boston. Published
his first book in 1827, “Tamerland and Other Poems,” in 1827, the book was
published anonymously. Shortly afterward Poe enlisted in the U.S. Army and
served a two-year term. In 1829 his second volume of verse, Al Aaraaf, was
published, and he effected reconciliation with Allan, who secured him an
appointment to the U.S. Military Academy. After only a few months at the academy
Poe was dismissed for neglect of duty, and his foster father disowned him
permanently. Poe's third book, Poems, appeared in 1831, and the following year
he moved to Baltimore, where he lived with his aunt and her 11year old daughter,
Virginia Clemm. The following year his tale "A MS. Found in a Bottle"
won a contest sponsored by the Baltimore Saturday Visitor. From 1835 to 1837 Poe
was an editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. In 1836 he married his young
cousin. Throughout the next decade, much of which was marred by his wife's long
illness, Poe worked as an editor for various periodicals in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, and in New York City. In 1847 Virginia died and Poe himself became
ill; his disastrous addiction to liquor and his alleged use of drugs, may have
contributed to his early death. The story a Tell-Tale Heart, by Edger Allan Poe
is about a crazy man who has an obsession on another person’s eye. The man is
crazy, but thinks that his sickness has sharpened his senses. He claims he can
hear everything from heaven and earth and also many things in Hell. With all
these self proclaim heightened senses the man wonders why is he considered mad.
The crazy man lived with an elderly man. They were somewhat roommates. A
specific characteristic of the elderly man drove the man he lived with crazy. It
wasn't bad habits or anything that you would think that would bring bickering
between roommate. It was something that even the elderly man had no idea of. It
was the elderly man's eye. His eye was kind of deformed, but to the roommate it
was the sign of evil. He has been disgusted of the eye for the longest of time,
but has never done anything that will harm the man. After time, the disturbed
man plotted against his elderly roommate. During the week that action was going
to take place the roommate was being extremely kind to the elderly man. His
objective was to get rid the evil eye from his life. In a swift instent, in the
bedroom of the old man, the disturbed roommate killed the man and rid himself of
his "evil eye". His covering up of the incident was, in his opinion,
true generous. The body was dismembered by every part and there was no mess. In
the killers mind he wondered how a person who devised such a plan and cover up
his tracks so well could be branded crazy. The next afternoon police came to the
house. A shriek was heard and foul play was a suspicion. As before the man
covered his tracks with virtually no flaw. No evidence of a violent disturbance
was seen and an excuse for the absence of the elderly man was made. The man was
very confident that his innocence would not be questioned in their mind. In the
beginning of the story the man talked of how his sickness sharpened his senses.
This might have proven to be right because while the investigation was going all
right the man heard the beating of the elderly man heart under the floor and it
drove him mad. The confession came out. Edgar Alan Poe has cast a long shadow.
He has probably had a greater influence than any other American writer. Although
Poe's tales and poems range from masterful to ludicrous, Poe exerted his most
significant influence as a man who understood the temper of his times, and
foreshadowed so much of the future of literature. His wide-ranging tales and his
broad criticism sought a method for American literature where none had
prevailed. Poe deliberately sought great variety in his tales. A review of his
more than seventy pieces of fiction testifies not merely to his range, but also
to the significant popular genres he created or made his own which today form
the staples of American fiction. Poe's greatest influence comes about in the
murder mystery. Although murders in fiction existed before Poe, his
preoccupation with the ingenious solution of the crime established in his tales
of ratiocination (the process of exact thinking) changed the emphasis from the
acts to getting the facts. Poe's cerebral and eccentric detective Dupin
("the ingenious are always fanciful and the truly imaginative never
otherwise than analytic") Because of the power of Poe's narrative voice,
many a tale is indelible. Poe's imaginative sociology in "The Man of the
Crowd" will tell you more about loneliness in the crowd than David Riesman
did. The psychological analysis in "William Wilson" is an excellent
and frightening exploration of split personality two generations before Freud.
One would think that Poe would be best remembered for his powerful tales, but
much of his international reputation rests on his critical acumen that pointed
in equally new directions. Poe was among the first to discern the tendency of
the age toward "the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily
diffused" In a famous critical piece, Poe recognized Hawthorne as one of
our "few men of indisputable genius;" he went on to formulate his
famous conception of the short story, which must be designed for "a single
effect" and every word of which must be made to count. Poe's method leads
to the symbolist poetry of Mallarme and to Rimbaud and the dream inspired
surrealists Poe's brooding heroes and symbolic houses lead to the decadent
heroes, new Roderick Ushers with their concern for the artificial detail of
their shut-in paradise, reflected earlier in such Poe tales as "The Mask of
the Red Death" and "The Philosophy of Furniture". Poe is returned
to America through French symbolism, and so made digestible to such important
American poets as T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens. In opposition to the romantic
stress on the expression of personality, Poe insisted on the importance not of
the artist, but of the created work of art. He stands as one of the few great
innovators in American literature that took his place in international culture
as an original creative force. I disagree with the author that wrote that
criticism. One thing is writing is imagination and not fears. Poe has many great
tales and poems, in the stories that we read in class did not have to do
anything with his fears. Poe’s life or any ones life would not influence their
writing. The stories he wrote are incredibly creative and he has wide
imaginations. I like his stories and I look forward to read more stories that he
wrote.