Edgar Allan Poe

1
Edgar Allan Poe

• Elaine Chen, Penny Lu,
• Kate Lin and Josephine Liao

2
Edgar Allan Poe

• Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809
• His parents died before he was three, and shortly
  afterwards Poe was adopted by John Allan
• Poe Attended school in England during 1815-20,
  and entered the University of Virginia in 1826,
  but did not finish because of financial problems.
• Published his first book Tamerlane and Other
  Poems

3
Edgar Allan Poe (2)

• Broke off the engagement to Sarah Royster
• His supportive friends published Poems for him.
• Poe was also an assistant editor of Southern
  Literary Messenger, who moved to Richmond, and
  secretly married Virginia in 1835
• Poe had also published the short story The
  Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and then moved to
  NY

4
Edgar Allan Poe (3)

• Poe moved to Philadelphia in 1838, became the
  co-editor of Burtons Gentlemans Magazine, and
  published The Fall of the House of Usher in 1839.
• His poem, The Raven, had made him a principal
  reviewer of the Broadway Journal.
• His beloved wife, who is his cousin, Virginia
  died in 1847.
• Poe died of congestion of the brain on October 7,
  1849, perhaps due to his constant drinking and
  opium taking.

5
Poes Works

• Poems The Raven, To Helen, Annabel Lee
• Articles Criticism
• Short Stories The Tell-Tale Heart
• Detective The Murders in the Rue Morgue
• Horror The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the
  House of Usher

6
Features of Poes Works

• The atmosphere in the work of Poe is rather dark
  and strange
• The characters in his tales include those
  aristocratic madam, self-tormented murderers,
  neurasthenic necrophiliacs and other deviant
  types (700, B 1509-10)
• Poetry was a passion, and not a purpose
  (700, B 1510)

7
To Helen

• Sarah Helen Whitman (1803-1878), for whom Poe
  wrote "To Helen
• The poem itself could be considered as a letter
  to Helen of Troy.
• Metaphors to present beauty of Helen

8
Metaphors in To Helen

• The warm and comfortable feelings Helen gives the
  narrator That gently, oer a perfumed sea/The
  weary, way-worn wandered bore to his own native
  shore
• Beauty of Helen her timeless face, hyacinth
  hair, nymphlike temperament and the pride of
  Greece
• Helen is also portrayed as the narrators
  mentorPsyche, the agate lamp

9
Annabel Lee

• The purpose of the poem was to be a
  representation of Poes wife, Virginia.
• The theme includes two parts, including perfect
  and true love
• In the poem, there are metaphors to show the
  perfect as well as selfish love between the
  narrator and Annabel Lee

10
MetaphorsPerfect Love and Selfish Love

• Mythical Setting It was many and many a year
  ago/In a kingdom by the sea (lines 1-2)
• Innocent Love I was a child and she was a child
  (lines 7-8)
• Pure Love
• We love with a love that was more than lovewith
  a love thatseraphscovet her and me (lines 8-11)
• But we loved with a love that was more than
  loveme and Annabel Lee (lines 8-9)
• Selfish Love This maiden she lived with no other
  thought/that to love and to be loved by me (lines
  5-6)

11
MetaphorsEternal Love

• The moon and the stars For the moon never
  beams, without bringing me dreams/ Of the
  beautiful Annabel Lee / And the stars never
  rise, but I feel the bright eyes/ Of the
  beautiful Annabel Lee. (lines 34-37)
• Annabel Lees tomb by the sounding sea And so,
  all the night tide, I lie down by the side/ Of my
  darling . . . / In her sepulchre there by the
  sea/In her tomb by the sounding sea. (lines
  38-40)

12
The Fall of the House of Usher
13
The Fall of the House of Usher

• The Fall of the House is widely acknowledged to
  be one of Poes finest and most representative
  tales, which is also an early and supreme example
  of the Gothic horror story.
• The story exhibits Poes concept of art for
  arts sake--this idea is that a story should be
  devoid of social, political, or moral teaching.
• Poes aim in his representation of horror in his
  tales was to create the sense of terror of the
  soul and mind.

14
Summary I
The story begins with the first-person
narrator riding on horseback toward the ancient
home of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher. In
the opening, the narrator has established an
overwhelming atmosphere of dread. The house seems
to have collected an evil and diseased atmosphere
from the decaying trees and murky ponds around
it. The narrator also notices that the structure
of the house is solid, and there is a fissure in
the front of the building from the roof to
ground.

The reason the unnamed narrator rushes to
the house of Usher and stays there is that his
friend, Roderick, has written him a letter,
asking for the narrator's visit. Besides,
Roderick mentioned in his letter that he felt
bodily and emotionally ill.
15
Summary II

• The narrator also explains that the
  Usher family is an ancient clan that never
  flourished, and only one member of the Usher
  family survives from generation to generation.
  When the narrator walks in the house, he finds
  the inside of the house is as dreary as the
  outside. He also notes that his friend is paler
  and less energetic than he once was. Besides,
  Roderick suffers from nerves and fear because he
  was also afraid of his own house.

16
Summary III

• Later on, the narrator sees Rodericks
  sister, Madeline, who has taken ill with a
  mysterious illness. After few days, Madeline
  dies, and Roderick decides to bury his sister in
  the vaults in the house. When the narrator
  helps Roderick put the body in the tomb, he
  notices that Madeline has rosy cheeks as some do
  after death.
• Over next few days, Roderick becomes even
  more uneasy. One night, the narrator cannot sleep
  either, with Roderick knocking on his door,
  apparently hysterical. He leads the narrator to
  the window, from where they can see a
  bright-looking gas all around the house. However,
  the narrator has used a rational way to explain
  the phenomenon.

17
Summary IV

• In order to calm Roderick down, the narrator
  reads the Mad Trist to him. As he reads the
  story, he hears noises that correspond to the
  description in the book. Although the narrator
  tries to ignore it however, the noises becomes
  more distinct. Moreover, the narrator hears the
  murmuring of Roderick, and Roderick believes
  that they have buried his sister alive and she is
  trying to get out. Suddenly, Roderick yells that
  his sister is standing behind the door. The wind
  blows the door open, with his sister really
  standing in white robes bloodied from her
  struggle. She falls upon her brother, and
  Roderick dies of fear eventually. The narrator
  then flees from the house, and as he does so, the
  entire house cracks along the break in the
  frame, with everything crumpling to the ground.

18
The Setting of The House

• The house establishes an atmosphere of
  dreariness, melancholy, and decay.
• The room in which I found myself was very large
  and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and
  pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black
  oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from
  within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made
  their way through the trellised panes, and served
  to render sufficiently distinct the more
  prominent objects around the eye, however,
  struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of
  the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and
  fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the
  walls. The general furniture was profuse,
  comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books
  and musical instruments lay scattered about, but
  failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt
  that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air
  of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over
  and pervaded all. (720, B 1537)

19
The Setting of The House

• The house sets the scene for an eerie, diseased
  and black tale.
• It is a symbol for the Usher family, since the
  house was not only personified but that it was
  also just as crumpled as the family was.
• I looked upon the scene before meupon the mere
  house, and the simple landscape features of the
  domainupon the bleak walls upon the vacant
  eye-like windowsupon a few rank sedgesand upon
  a few white trunks of decayed treeswith an utter
  depression of soul which I can compare to no
  earthly sensation more properly than to the
  after-dream of the reveler upon opiumthe bitter
  lapse into everyday lifethe hideous dropping off
  of the veil.

20
The Setting of The House

• There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of
  the heart an unredeemed dreariness of thought
  which no goading of the imagination could torture
  into aught of the sublime. What was it I paused
  to thinkwhat was it that so unnerved me in the
  contemplation of the House of Usher? (718,
  B1534-35)
• It was this deficiency, I considered, while
  running over in thought the perfect keeping of
  the character of the premises with the accredited
  character of the people, and while speculating
  upon the possible influence which the one, in the
  long lapse of centuries, might have

21
The Setting of The House

• exercised upon the other . . . consequent
  undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of
  the patrimony with the name, which had, at
  length, so identified the two as to merge the
  original title of the estate in the quaint and
  equivocal appellation of the "House of Usher"an
  appellation which seemed to include, . . .
  both the family and the family mansion. (719,
  B1535-36)
• Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light,
  and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual
  could have issued for the vast house and its
  shadows were alone behind me. . . . While I
  gazed, this fissure rapidly widened there came a
  fierce breath of the whirlwindthe entire orb of
  the satellite burst at once upon my sightmy
  brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing
  asunderthere was a long tumultuous shouting
  sound like the voice of a thousand watersand the
  deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and
  silently over the fragments of the "House of
  Usher." (730, B 1541)

22
Characters

• Unnamed narrator first person POV, and
  considered to be rational
• He was enchained by certain superstitious
  impressions in regard to the dwelling which he
  tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had
  never ventured forthin regard to an influence
  whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms
  too shadowy here to be re-statedan influence
  which some peculiarities in the mere form and
  substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of
  long sufferance, he said, obtained over his
  spiritan effect which the physique of the gray
  walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which
  they all looked down, had, at length, brought
  about upon the morale of his existence. (721,
  B1538)

23
Characters

• Roderick--- is ill bodily and emotionally, as
  well as superstitious
• Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on
  which he had been lying at full length, and
  greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much
  in it, I at first thought, of an overdone
  cordialityof the constrained effort of the
  ennuyé man of the world. . . . A
  cadaverousness of complexion an eye large,
  liquid, and luminous beyond comparison lips
  somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a
  surpassingly beautiful curve a nose of a
  delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of
  nostril unusual in similar formations a finely
  molded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence,
  of a want of moral energy hair of a more than
  web-like softness and tenuity these features,
  with an inordinate expansion above the regions of
  the temple, made up altogether a

24
Characters

• countenance not easily to be forgotten. The
  silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all
  unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture,
  it floated rather than fell about the face, I
  could not, even with effort, connect its
  Arabesque expression with any idea of simple
  humanity. (720, B1537)
• The conditions of the sentience had been here, he
  imagined, fulfilled in the method of collocation
  of these stones . . . , and in its
  reduplication in the still waters of the tarn.
  Its evidence --the evidence of the sentience was
  to be seen, he said, . . . in the gradual yet
  certain condensation of an atmosphere of their
  own about the waters and the walls. The result
  was discoverable, . . . ,and which made him
  what I now saw himwhat he was. (725, B1541-42)

25
Characters

• Madeline has unknown disease, which is
  mysterious
• The disease of the lady Madeline had long
  baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled
  apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and
  frequent although transient affections of a
  partially cataleptical character, were the
  unusual diagnosis. (722, B1539)
• Narrator represents science
• Roderick Usher superstition
• Madeline represents the mystery and the cause of
  the collapse of the house.

26
Other Themes in the Story

• Dream Poe entices readers to view the narrators
  experience as a dream, which include iterative
  images of water, sleep and descent as well as its
  repetition. (718,719, 722/ B1534-35, 1536,
  1538-39)
• Evil Poe creates an evil atmosphere through
  the narrators description of the Usher family
  home and Roderick and Madeline.
• A glance, however, at his countenance, convinced
  me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down and for
  some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon
  him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe.
  Surely, man had never before so terribly altered,
  in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! .
  . . . And now in the mere exaggeration of the
  prevailing character of these features, and of
  the expression they were wont to convey, lay so
  much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke.
  (720, B1537)

27
Other Themes in the Story

• TerrorPoe intends to arouse a sense of unearthly
  terror that spring from a vague, hinted and
  mysterious source in the story. ? His aim is to
  create tales of terror
• Madeline is only seen briefly before she dies,
  stirring up the feeling of dread.
• As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance
  . . . then, with a low moaning cry, fell
  heavily inward upon the person of her brother,
  and in her horrible and now final death-agonies,
  bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to
  the terrors he had dreaded. (730, B1547)

28
Other Themes in the Story

• Roderick has a ghastly look of the pale skin he
  has on his body, which creates an eerie feeling
  for the audience.
• Upon my entrance, . . . The now ghastly
  pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous luster
  of the eye, above all things startled and even
  awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered
  to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild
  gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell
  about the face, I could not, even with effort,
  connect its arabesque expression with any idea of
  simple humanity. (720, B 1537)

29
Poes Short Stories

• Gothic literature
• a. A tone that is gloomy, dark and
  threatening.
• b. Events take place must be strange,
• melodramatic or evil.
• c. Two categories
• (1) The grotesque refers to more
  realistic
• stories with
  human interaction.
• (2) The arabesque involves very few
  people but many ideas, and are frequently in
  abstract location.

30
Important Themes in Poes Works

• Doubling The paralleled scenes or characters
  closely mimic each other. e.g. The Fall of the
  House of Usher
• At the termination of this sentence I started,
  and for a moment, paused for it appeared to me
  . . . it appeared to me that, from some very
  remote portion of the mansion, there came,
  indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been,
  in its exact similarity of character, the echo
  . . . . of the very cracking and ripping sound
  which Sir Launcelot had so particularly
  described. (728, B1545)

31
Important Themes in Poes Works

• Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a
  feeling of wild amazementfor there could be no
  doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did
  actually hear (although from what direction it
  proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and
  apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and
  most unusual screaming or grating soundthe exact
  counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured
  up for the dragon's unnatural shriek as described
  by the romancer. (729, B 1546)

32
Important Themes in Poes Works

• Kinds of horrorPsychological Physical
• The Cask of Amontillado
• The Fall of the House of Usher
• Conflicts e.g. science and superstition
• Revenge e.g. The Cask of Amontillado

33
The Tell-Tale Heart

• True!nervousvery, very dreadfully nervous I
  had been and am but will you say that I am mad?

34
Characters and Setting

• The characters in this story include the
  narrator, the old man (someone the narrator that
  intended to kill), and the police
• The setting is in the house, in the old mans
  room, where the old man is killed on the bed.

35
The Tell-Tale Heart

• This grisly story was first published in a
  magazine called The Pioneer, 1843. It was
  reprinted twice in Poes lifetime but never as
  part of the collections of his fiction in book
  form.
• It has been adapted for stage, radio, movies,
  and television. Its combination of action,
  confessional commentary, and accompanying sounds
  make it especially suitable for the radio.

36
The Tell-Tale Heart

• The story reflects the wretchedness, sense of
  pain, and psychological malaise that Poe was
  undergoing toward the end of 1842, when he left
  Grahams, and his wife Virginia became gravely
  sick.
• The story The Tell-Tale Heart is very dramatic
  and has separate segments which conform to the
  five parts of traditional drama.

37
The Tell-Tale Heart

• First, the narrator introduces himself and his
  victim, and denies himself as sane, of acute
  senses, and committed to a murderous course.
• Second, suspense mounts as he enters the old
  mans room, time after time.
• Third, he returns a final time to consummate the
  deed.
• Fourth, his clean-up activities constitute
  falling action, leading to the end.
• And fifth, the catastrophic entrance of the
  police officers and the revelation by the killer
  of his deed and his victims body.

38
The Old Man

• It has been said that the old man, whom the
  narrator feels obliged to murder may be an
  authoritarian figure, perhaps Poes foster
  father, John Allan, or other members of the
  literary and publishing establishment which Poe
  could not conquer, and that he felt a sense of
  relief, while vicariously destroying them all.

39
The Conscience

• In this story, the narrator takes great pain to
  conceal the body, but the imperceptive police
  still attempts to search the old man.
• The narrator confesses the repulsive unmotivated
  murder of the harmless roommate, driven by
  remorse of conscience he gives himself away when
  he hearsor fancies he hearsthe beating of the
  dead mans heart.
• The beating could be viewed as the narrators
  conscience-stimulated tell-tale heart that beats
  louder and louder, then eventually reveals the
  murder.

40
The Moral

• The moral has to do with the perverse compulsion
  of the guilty to unmask themselves.
• The narrator here surely could have gotten away
  with the act of murder but for his inner beings
  urge to come out into the open.

41
The Raven

• The narrator moves through a sequence of changing
  moods. When first awakened by the raven, he is
  gloomy. Terror quickly follows, then curiosity
  as he seeks a simple explanation for the tapping.
  The entrance of the bird makes him smile. But
  soon the uncanny aptness of the same, cruel
  answer causes bitter self-questioning, sad
  memory, near hysteria, and finally permanent
  hopelessness. The raven in the end never flits,
  still sitting there, with devil eyes, its shadow
  falling on the floor and the mans soul is in
  that shadow, forever.
• The subject of the poem deals with the death of a
  beautiful woman, which could be Virginia or
  others whom the Poe speaker loves, and the sorrow
  of a lover whose beautiful lady has been taken
  from him by death.

42
The Raven

• This poem was first printed on January 29, 1845,
  in the New York Evening Mirror and was soon
  reprinted in the February issue of the American
  Review.
• Poe received 10 for it but also with world-wide
  fame.
• The Philosophy of Composition had explanatory
  notes step by step on the creative process Poe
  went through in fashioning the poem.
• The poem exists in 16 different versions, which
  suggests that Poe had built it up over a period
  of years (1841-1844).

43
The Symbol

• The next-to-last stanza describes the end of
  action, since the raven refuses to leave, and
  what follows is the unending feeling of stark
  wretchedness, symbolized by the immobile raven,
  with its evil dreaming eyes and its engulfing
  shadow.
• The raven is revealed as a symbolnot of death,
  but in Poes memorable phrase, of Mournful and
  Never-ending Remembrance.

44
The Philosophy of Composition

• This piece of work was written in 1846, as an
  essay on the creation of The Raven.
• Poe describes that composing a poem is a
  mathematical problem ?? by a species of fine
  frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would
  positively shudder at letting the public take a
  peep behind the scenes. (753, B1599)
• Poe expresses that a piece of work must have a
  single effect which could be read at one sitting
  ? Length 100 Lines/poem, and The Raven has
  108 Lines (754, B1599-1600)

45
The Philosophy of Composition

• In addition, The Raven is written backwards.
• Effect ? Plot ? The piece of work
• Beauty Deaththe death of a beautiful woman
• Melancholy
• Subject and Tone
• Nevermore
• After the climax ?no meaning for the narrator the
  search the moral of Nevermore
• "Mournful and never-ending remembrance."

46
Works Cited

• Who was E.A. Poe? Edgar Allen Poe.
• lthttp//bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/poe/gt.
• Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1949)
• lthttp//www.kirjasto.sci.fi/eapoe.htmgt