Edgar Allan Poe

1
Edgar Allan Poe

• From childhood's hour I have not been as others
  were
• (Humanities 4)

2
Edgar Allan Poe

• 1809-1849
• Poet, critic, journalist
• Gothic, science fiction, inventor of detective
  genre
• Among first Americans to attempt to live solely
  as a writer
• Married 13 year old cousin Virginia Clemm in 1835
• Viriginia died of tuberculosis, 1847
• Mysterious death 1849

3
Alone

• From childhood's hour I have not been
• As others were I have not seen
• As others saw I could not bring
• My passions from a common spring.
• From the same source I have not taken
• My sorrow I could not awaken
• My heart to joy at the same tone
• And all I loved, I loved alone.

4
Alone

• Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
• Of a most stormy life- was drawn
• From every depth of good and ill
• The mystery which binds me still
• From the torrent, or the fountain,
• From the red cliff of the mountain,
• From the sun that round me rolled
• In its autumn tint of gold,
• From the lightning in the sky
• As it passed me flying by,
• From the thunder and the storm,
• And the cloud that took the form
• (When the rest of Heaven was blue)
• Of a demon in my view.

5
The Haunted Palace

• Once a fair and stately palace
• Radiant palacereared its head.
• In the monarch Thought's dominion
• ...
• Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
• On its roof did float and flow
• (Thisall thiswas in the olden
• Time long ago)
• ...
• Wanderers in that happy valley
• Through two luminous windows saw
• Spirits moving musically
• To a lute's well-tunèd law,
• Round about a throne, where sitting
• (Porphyrogene!)
• In state his glory well befitting,
• The ruler of the realm was seen.

6
The Haunted Palace

• And all with pearl and ruby glowing
• Was the fair palace door,
• Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing
• And sparkling evermore,
• A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
• Was but to sing,
• In voices of surpassing beauty,
• The wit and wisdom of their king.
• But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
• Assailed the monarch's high estate
• (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
• Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
• ...
• And travelers now within that valley,
• Through the red-litten windows, see
• Vast forms that move fantastically
• To a discordant melody
• While, like a rapid ghastly river,

7
The House of Usher

• I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact that
  the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as
  it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring
  branch in other words, that the entire family
  lay in the direct line of descent, and had
  always, with very trifling and very temporary
  variation, so lain.
• it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral
  issue, and the 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, in the minds
  of the peasantry who used it, both the family and
  the family mansion.

8
The House of Usher

• The House
• I looked upon the scene before meupon the mere
  house, and the simple landscape features of the
  domainupon the bleak wallsupon 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 every-day lifethe hideous dropping
  off of the veil.
• Roderick
• His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous
  indecision (when the animal spirits seemed
  utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic
  concisionthat abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and
  hollow-sounding enunciationthat leaden,
  self-balanced, and perfectly modulated guttural
  utterance, which may be observed in the lost
  drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium,
  during the periods of his most intense
  excitement.

9

• No portion of the masonry had fallen and there
  appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its
  still perfect adaptation of parts, and the
  crumbling condition of the individual stones. In
  this there was much that reminded me of the
  specious totality of old woodwork which has
  rotted for years in some neglected vault, with no
  disturbance from the breath of the external air.
• Beyond this indication of extensive decay,
  however, the fabric gave little token of
  instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing
  observer might have discovered a barely
  perceptible fissure, which, extending from the
  roof of the building in front, made its way down
  the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became
  lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.
• Its evidencethe evidence of the sentience of
  the housewas to be seen, he said (and I here
  started as he spoke), in the gradual yet certain
  condensation of an atmosphere of their own about
  the waters and the walls. The result was
  discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet
  importunate and terrible influence which for
  centuries had molded the destinies of his family,
  and which made him what I now saw himwhat he
  was.

10
Hypochondria Melancholy

• To an anomalous species of terror I found him a
  bounden slave. I shall perish, said he, I must
  perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and
  not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the
  events of the future, not in themselves, but in
  their results. I shudder at the thought of any,
  even the most trivial, incident, which may
  operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul.
  I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except
  in its absolute effectin terror.
• In this unnervedin this pitiable conditionI
  feel that the period will sooner or later arrive
  when I must abandon life and reason together, in
  some struggle with the grim phantasm, Fear.
• I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through
  broken and equivocal hints, another singular
  feature of his mental condition. He was enchained
  by certain superstitious impressions in regard to
  the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for
  many years, he had never ventured forth

11

• He admitted, however, although with hesitation,
  that much of the peculiar gloom which thus
  afflicted him could be traced to a more natural
  and far more palpable originto the severe and
  long-continued illnessindeed to the evidently
  approaching dissolutionof a tenderly beloved
  sister, his sole companion for long years, his
  last and only relative on earth.
• "Her decease," he said, with a bitterness which I
  can never forget, "would leave him (him the
  hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient
  race of the Ushers." While he spoke, the lady
  Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly
  through a remote portion of the apartment, and,
  without having noticed my presence, disappeared.

12

• 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.
• One evening, having informed me abruptly that
  the lady Madeline was no more, he stated his
  intention of preserving her corpse for a
  fortnight (previously to its final interment) in
  one of the numerous vaults within the main walls
  of the building.
• The worldly reason, however, assigned for this
  singular proceeding, was one which I did not feel
  at liberty to dispute. The brother had been led
  to his resolution, so he told me, by
  consideration of the unusual character of the
  malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and
  eager inquiries on the part of her medical men,
  and of the remote and exposed situation of the
  burial ground of the family.

13
Sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature

• A striking similitude between the brother and
  sister now first arrested my attention and
  Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured
  out some few words from which I learned that the
  deceased and himself had been twins, and that
  sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature had
  always existed between them.
• Our glances, however, rested not long upon the
  deadfor we could not regard her unawed. The
  disease which had thus entombed the lady in the
  maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all
  maladies of a strictly cataleptical character,
  the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and
  the face, and that suspiciously lingering smile
  upon the lip which is so terrible in death.

14

• Oh, whither shall I fly? Will she not be here
  anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my
  haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the
  stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and
  horrible beating of her heart? Madman!here he
  sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out
  his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving
  up his soulMadman! I tell you that she now
  stands without the door!
• Then without those doors there did stand the
  lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline
  of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes,
  and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon
  every portion of her emaciated frame. For a
  moment she remained trembling and reeling to and
  fro upon the thresholdthen, with a low, moaning
  cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her
  brother, and in her violent and now final
  death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse,
  and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.
• Anticipated?

15

• 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. The radiance was
  that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon,
  which now shone vividly through that once barely
  discernible fissure, of which I have before
  spoken as extending from the roof of the
  building, in a zigzag direction, to the base.
• While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widenedthere
  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.

16
Masque of the Red Death

• But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless
  and sagacious. When his dominions were half
  depopulated, he summoned to his presence a
  thousand hale and light-hearted friends from
  among the knights and dames of his court, and
  with these retired to the deep seclusion of one
  of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive
  and magnificent structure, the creation of the
  prince's own eccentric yet august taste.
• They resolved to leave means neither of ingress
  or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of
  frenzy from within. The abbey was amply
  provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers
  might bid defiance to contagion. The external
  world could take care of itself. In the meantime
  it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince
  had provided all the appliances of pleasure.
• All these and security were within. Without was
  the Red Death.

17

• It was in this apartment, also, that there stood
  against the western wall, a gigantic clock of
  ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull,
  heavy, monotonous clang and when the minute-hand
  made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to
  be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of
  the clock a sound which was clear and loud and
  deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar
  a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an
  hour, the musicians of the orchestra were
  constrained to pause, momentarily, in their
  performance, to harken to the sound and thus the
  waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions and
  there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay
  company
• and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes,
  (which embrace three thousand and six hundred
  seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet
  another chiming of the clock, and then were the
  same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation
  as before.

18

• Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and
  death are equally jests, there are matters of
  which no jest can be made. The whole company,
  indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the
  costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit
  nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and
  gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the
  habiliments of the grave.
• The mask which concealed the visage was made so
  nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened
  corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had
  difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all
  this might have been endured, if not approved, by
  the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone
  so far as to assume the type of the Red Death.
  His vesture was dabbled in blood and his broad
  brow, with all the features of the face, was
  besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

19

• There was a sharp cry and the dagger dropped
  gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which,
  instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the
  Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage
  of despair, a throng of the revellers at once
  threw themselves into the black apartment, and,
  seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect
  and motionless within the shadow of the ebony
  clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding
  the grave cerements and corpse-like mask which
  they handled with so violent a rudeness,
  untenanted by any tangible form
• And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red
  Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And
  one by one dropped the revellers in the
  blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each
  in the despairing posture of his fall. And the
  life of the ebony clock went out with that of the
  last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods
  expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death
  held illimitable dominion over all.