Edgar Allan Poe Essay, Research Paper
Whitman, Dickinson, Crane, Frost, Cummings, and Longfellow. All
examples of prominent and reputable men and women of the past who had one
thing in common: a love for poetry. They wrote on the dignity of man,
nature, war, politics, theology and of nursery rhymes. Yet there was one
poet who was prominent but not reputable or well liked. He was known as
Edgar Allan Poe. Due to his drinking, reviewers have made him sound like
the town drunk who staggers around writing stories of death and horror.
“With the aid of his psychological stories, critics have proclaimed him
necrophilic, dipsomanic, paranoid, impotent, neurotic, oversexed, a
habitual taker of drugs, until all that is left in the public eye is an
unstable creature sitting gloomily in a dim room, the raven over the
door, the bottle on the table, the opium in the pipe, scribbling mad
verses” (Bittner http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/poe/alumnews/poe-all.html).
Poe was criticized by many because his life was marred by infrequent but
intense drinking bouts that gave him a bad reputation and although he
was said to be a “habitual taker of drugs” and insane, he was none of
these and in fact virtually created the detective story and perfected the
psychological thriller – a testament to his brilliance and sanity.
“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” is, if not the first of its kind, the
first work of fiction in which a crime is solved by extensive analysis.
Poe attributes the popularity of this story to being “something in a
new key . . . people think they are more ingenious than they are–on
account of their method and air of method. In the ‘Murders in the Rue
Morgue,’ for instance, where is the ingenuity of unraveling a web which you
yourself (the author) have woven for the express purpose of
unraveling?”(Poe http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/poe/alumnews/poe-all.html). Poe
expressed the detective in the story, C. Auguste Dupin, as being abstract;
wandering around at night and having a sort of sleepy quality to his
voice and eyes but Dupin used this to his advantage because his opponents
would underestimate him. Overall, however, Dupin’s success resulted
from close inquiry and diligent observation as well as thoughtful
insights. This portrayal of a detective not only pays tribute to the brilliance
of Edgar Allan Poe, but it obliterates all of the rumors surrounding
his life and writings.
“The Tell-Tale Heart,” a dramatic monologue, is marked yet again by the
narrator telling his story to show the reader how smart he is. An
aspect of the story that is especially brilliant is the hallucinative
“tell-tale” heartbeats which drive the speaker, who has murdered an elderly
man, to confess his crime. Also effective are the other, remarkable,
ele
mortal terror” the narrator hears coming from the old man: “I knew the sound
well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has
welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the
terrors that distracted me.” Subsequently the wording that Poe integrates
into this story is not wording used by the insane but diction thought
of by extremely sound mind.
Ever since Poe’s short stories first began to appear in the 1830s
readers have been intrigued by the nature of the man or the mind that
produced them. Was he as demonic or demented as the characters of his horror
tales, and as logical or intuitive as the heroes of his detective and
mystery stories? Contrary to popular legend, Poe was neither an
alcoholic nor a drug addict, though he did struggle during much of his adult
life against a inclination to drink during times of grief or despair. Poe
had many a reason that could excuse his alcoholic tendencies
considering so many people that were close to him died of consumption or
tuberculosis. It would seem as if his mind went through cycles of destruction
having a “really good day” and then seemingly out of nowhere doing
something stupid (i.e.: trying to sell magazine advertisements to the
president).
Many people criticized Edgar Allan Poe since his life was marked with
periodic drinking stretches that impressed a bad reputation upon himself
and while being labeled as a druggie and lunatic, he was none of these
and in fact set many a precedent concerning fictional thrillers and
detective stories, “Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the
breath of life into it?” (Doyle http://www.astin-poe.com/poe.html).
Poe, while not well liked in his time, is a phenomenal person who is
one of the most recognized poets and writers ever to touch pen to paper.
?How did he(Poe) live there(America), this finest of fine artists, this
born aristocrat of letters? Alas! he did not live there: he died there,
and was duly explained away as a drunkard and a failure… He was the
greatest journalistic critic of his time… His poetry is exquisitely
refined… In his stories of mystery and imagination Poe created a world
record for the English language: perhaps for all languages…
unparalleled and unapproached… Poe constantly and inevitably produced magic
where his greatest contemporaries produced only beauty… There is really
nothing to be said about it; we others simply take off our hats and let
Mr. Poe go first? (Shaw http://www.astin-poe.com/quotes.html).
“By wine some vow Poe’s wit inspired to be,
And say that they can prove his verses show it;
More likely, I should fancy, it was tea,
For clearly it is t turns Poe to poet”