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Poe’s detective stories explore the complex relationship between human reasoning and empirical reality, while his aesthetic philosophy writings greatly influenced France’s nineteenth-century symbolist movement.
The Story
Poe’s short stories explore the intricate yet often confusing relationship between human reasoning and empirical reality, most notably through “The Black Cat,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Using first-person narrators like Fyodor Dostoyevsky, popularized in the psychological realism school of thought, to probe characters’ psyches through first-person narrative, Poe examines their minds.
Poe’s poems, such as “To Helen,” “Lenore,” and “The Raven,” explore themes of beauty, death and immortality. Poe displayed masterful control of language techniques and an original imagination in these works, greatly influencing French Symbolists of the late 19th century and shaping modern literature.
Poe’s literary career was beset with financial difficulties. He published his debut poetry collection, Tamerlane and Other Poems 1827, but it failed to find commercial success. Subsequently, he attempted to join the military at West Point but left early due to lack of funds and his relationship with Allan becoming increasingly tenuous. Finally, in 1835, he moved to Richmond, where he worked as an editor at Southern Literary Messenger while living with his aunt’s 12-year-old daughter, Virginia, as they lived with their aunt who raised him.
The Characters
As you craft your stories, you must consider each character’s role. This is especially important about your main protagonist (or protagonist). Their decisions and desires will drive the plot from crisis to crisis until its ultimate resolution.
Edgar Allan Poe is perhaps best known for his short stories. Most were published during his lifetime and often feature extreme horror or mystery elements; for example, “The Tell-Tale Heart” describes an attempt by a young man to steal a purse from an elderly woman but eventually meets with dire results; “The Purloined Letter” follows Roger Hughes who seeks to impress Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones by giving lavish gifts from her but eventually gets caught by police for this action.
Poe’s stories had an indelible mark on detective fiction; many consider him the father of modern crime stories. Other scholars believe him the precursor of contemporary criticism; his writings on aesthetic principles helped establish psychological realism as an artistic movement. Unfortunately, Poe was plagued with financial difficulties due to alcohol abuse, leading him downhill quickly before passing away in Baltimore in 1849.
The Setting
Poe’s story “The Premature Burial” revolves around a protagonist with a medical condition that causes seizures. These seizures leave him in a comatose-like state for short periods, leading doctors to mistake him for dead, prompting fears of premature burial – an all too real possibility during the 19th century when doctors would need to wait until their patients decayed before knowing whether someone died.
LuElla D’Amico noticed her students were mainly engaged during Edgar Allan Poe readings and discussions in her Early American Literature Survey course last semester, so she hosted an Edgar Allan Poe Celebration to encourage students to embrace their strengths as learners and focus on what was morally acceptable at that particular period. An author such as Poe – with topics including death, insanity, and illicit romance being part of his literary canon – provided an ideal platform.
Poe is widely revered and influential today despite facing intense criticism from his contemporaries (Henry James especially). He is widely credited with inventing modern detective stories, while his writings about philosophical principles versus artistic styles informed aesthetic theories held by artists such as Charles Baudelaire and Stephane Mallarme.
The Theme
Poe could never break into mainstream literary circles, yet still enormously affected modern writers. His horror tales, including “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” laid the groundwork for contemporary detective stories, while his in-depth character studies laid down psychological realism’s foundations. His critical writings, including an essay on philosophical principles versus artistic style, greatly influenced notable French symbolist writers like Charles Baudelaire and Stephane Mallarme, who co-founded their movement.
At UIW, class sizes are small enough for professors to tailor each learning experience specifically to each student, evident Thursday night when Dr. D’Amico’s Scandalous Nineteenth Century course hosted an Edgar Allan Poe Celebration featuring readings, activities, and games for its students.
“Scandal means causing moral outrage to accepted ideas and norms,” explained D’Amico. She noted that Poe’s discussions of topics such as death and insanity fit well with the class discussions of what is considered morally acceptable or inappropriate behavior within society, as well as being effective ways of communicating ideas that have an impact on others – Inspired Learning’s Crimson Jewel that grants one Modifier every time you defeat a Rare enemy was the perfect addition for this event.