Edgar Allan Poe

1809-1849

Life
Family

 Father: David Poe, an actor, abandoned the family around 1810.

 Mother: Elizabeth Poe, an actress, died of tuberculosis in 1811.
 Foster parents: Tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife, Frances Allan, cared
for Poe while he was young, but never legally adopted him.
 Wife: Poe married his cousin Virginia Clemm when she was 13 years old. After a
long bout with tuberculosis, she died in 1847.

Homes

 Boston, Massachusetts (1809, 1827)

 Richmond, Virginia (c.1811-1815, 1820-1825, 1826-1827, 1835-1837, 1849)
 England and Scotland (1815-1820)
 Charlottesville, Virginia (1826)
 Sullivan's Island, South Carolina (1827)
 West Point, New York (1830-1831)
 New York, New York (1831, 1837-c.1838, 1844-1846)
 Baltimore, Maryland (1829-1830, 1831-1835)
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1838-1844)
 Fordham, New York (1846-1849)

Occupations

 Soldier
 Editor and literary critic
 Author

Chronology

1809: Born in Boston on January 19 to David Poe, an actor, and Elizabeth Poe, an
actress

c. 1810: David Poe abandons the family

1811: Elizabeth Poe dies in Richmond; John Allan, a tobacco merchant, and
Frances Allan take in Poe, but never adopt him.

1815-20: Lives with the Allans in England and Scotland before the family
returns to Richmond

1826: Attends the University of Virginia, where he covers the walls of his
dormitory room with sketches and strikes at least one classmate as gloomy and
morose. In less than a year, Allan removes him, ostensibly because of gambling
debts Poe incurred.

1827: Goes to Boston, where he publishes Tamerlane and Other Poems

1827: Joins Army and serves on Sullivan's Island, setting of "The Gold-Bug"

1829: Leaves Army; publishes Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems

1830: Enrolls at West Point with Allan's help

1831-35: Deliberately has himself dismissed from West Point. After a short stint
in New York City, where he publishes "Israfel," "To Helen," and other works in
Poems, Poe moves to Baltimore with his aunt, Maria Clemm, and makes a living
writing nonliterary material. In 1833, he wins a prize for "MS Found in a Bottle,"
which appears in the Baltimore Sunday Visitor. John Allan dies in 1834.

1835: Poe becomes assistant editor of the Southern Literary Messenger and
moves back to Richmond. He marries Maria Clemm's daughter and his cousin,
13-year-old Virginia Clemm. In a letter to another poet, Poe boasts of the
accuracy of his ear and invokes musical terms such as "harmony" and "discords"
to discuss poetry.

1836: Poe publishes a review in which he celebrates phrenology. Later, in 1841,

he will admit to being examined by several phrenologists.

1837-39: After raising the Messenger's circulation 700 percent but quarreling
with colleagues, Poe leaves and goes to work for Burton's Gentleman's Magazine
in Philadelphia. He publishes "Ligeia," The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, and
other works.

1840: Publishes Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque, a book of previously
published stories, including "William Wilson" and "The Fall of the House of
Usher."
 1841-42: Works for Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia; publishes "The
Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Masque of the Red Death," and "The Pit and
the Pendulum."

1843: Works for The Saturday Museum in Philadelphia and publishes "The Tell-
Tale Heart," "The Gold-Bug," and "The Black Cat."

1844: Moves to New York, where he works for the Evening Mirror and the
Broadway Journal.

1845: Poe wins national fame with "The Raven," published in the Evening
Mirror and in The Raven and Other Poems. At the peak of his popularity, he
produces a five-part plagiarism series that, among other things, charges Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow with "the most barbarous class of literary piracy." In
Boston, after promising to write and read a new poem for a convocation, Poe
instead dusts off the 16-year-old, windy, and none-too-popular "Al Aaraaf."
Listeners leave early.

1846: Poe moves to Fordham, New York, with Virginia. Although ill, he
publishes "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Philosophy of Composition," and
other works.

1847: Virginia dies of tuberculosis. Poe publishes "Ulalume." Around this time,
according to a letter the Poes' nurse wrote in 1875, Poe shows signs of a lesion on
one side of his brain.

1848: Poe writes in a letter that he has tried to commit suicide.

1849: En route to Philadelphia from Richmond, where he had arranged to marry

Sarah Elmira Royster, Poe stops in Baltimore, where he is found unconscious on
the street. He dies four days later on October 7.

Themes and issues

Edgar Allan Poe--author of the "The Raven" and "The Tell-Tale Heart," vituperative
critic, and troubled man--is one of the world's most famous and controversial writers. For
works such as "The Raven," which has been called the best-known poem in the Western
Hemisphere, he has assumed a place among the popular imagination alongside William
Shakespeare, Mark Twain, and Thomas Malory, author of the most famous Arthurian
romance, Le Morte D'Arthur. Responses to him have been more ambivalent in literary
circles, however. French writers, particularly Charles Baudelaire, have hailed Poe as a
superior genius, and his British and American admirers include George Bernard Shaw,
Robert Frost, Richard Wilbur, and Willa Cather. Somewhat less favorable reactions have
come from the American novelist Henry James, who sniped, "An enthusiasm for Poe is
the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection" (Clarke 209), and British writer
Aldous Huxley, who said: "To the most sensitive and high-souled man in the world we
should find it hard to forgive, shall we say, the wearing of a diamond ring on every finger.
Poe does the equivalent of this in his poetry; we notice the solecism and shudder" (Clarke
251).

Among the general public, Poe is known primarily for his mastery of the Gothic genre.
Made popular in the 18th century and early 19th century by British writers such as
Horace Walpole and Mary Shelley, Gothic literature has a number of conventions,
including evocations of horror, suggestions of the supernatural, and dark, exotic locales
such as castles and crumbling mansions. Poe's short stories "The Fall of the House of
Usher" and "Ligeia" are both classic examples of the genre. Poe also has earned a
reputation among general readers for his musical poems, such as "Annabel Lee" and
"The Bells," and his fascination with death, particularly the death of women--a subject
that has been studied by the biographers Kenneth Silverman and Marie Bonaparte, as
well as others. Perhaps Poe's most enduring contribution to popular culture has been his
invention of the detective story. His chief detective, C. Auguste Dupin, and stories such
as "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" have inspired countless imitators, most notably Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Much of Poe's popularity has grown out of a fascination with his peculiar, tortured life.
Abandoned by his father while he was still an infant, he lost his mother to tuberculosis
before he was three years old. Partially because of his own petulance, he frequently
fought with his foster father, John Allan, who withdrew Poe from the University of
Virginia before he had completed a year there. While in his mid-20s, he married his 13-
year-old cousin Virginia Clemm and for the next several years maintained an unusual
relationship with Virginia, whom he called "Sissy," and her mother, whom he sometimes
treated as his own mother. For several years in the 1840s, he suffered through Virginia's
bout with tuberculosis, finally losing her in 1847. Always poor, he continually ruined
opportunities for success by embarrassing himself and antagonizing important figures.
Several incidents, including a suicide attempt, suggest that Poe suffered from some kind
of mental illness, and the modern researcher Kay Redfield Jamison has presented
compelling evidence that he was manic-depressive. Even after death, misfortune haunted
Poe. Rufus Griswold, an enemy whom Poe curiously had chosen to be his literary
executor, wrote a condemnatory obituary, which begins: "Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He
died in Baltmore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few
will be grieved by it. The poet was well known personally or by reputation, in all this
country; he had readers in England, and in several states of Continental Europe; but he
had few or no friends and the regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the
consideration that in him literary art lost one of its most brilliant, but erratic stars" (69).
In another work, Griswold further tarnished Poe's reputation by misquoting his letters and
overplaying Poe's drinking problem, which modern scholars attribute to a low tolerance
for alcohol rather than habitual abuse. The physical and mental struggles of this life
emerged in fictional form in Poe's highly autobiographical writings. Calling Poe "the
hero of all his tales," the critic Roger Asselineau has written: "If Roderick Usher, Egaeus,
Metzengerstein, and even Dupin are all alike, if Ligeia, Morella, and Eleonora look like
sisters, it is because, whether he consciously wanted to or not, he always takes the story
of his own life as a starting point, a rather empty story on the whole since he had mostly
lived in his dreams, imprisoned by his neuroses and obsessed by the image of his dead
mother" (60). To support this assertion, Asselineau cites Poe's own testimony: "The
supposition that the book of the author is a thing apart from the author's Self is, I think,
ill-founded" (Asselineau 52).

While literary scholars have analyzed all of these aspects of Poe's work, they have
studied many more, as well. Of particular interest is Poe's fascination with psychology.
An outspoken admirer of phrenology, a pseudoscience based on the premise that various
functions are controlled by specific regions of the brain, he tirelessly explored subjects
such as self-destruction, madness, and imagination in works such as "The Imp of the
Perverse," "William Wilson," and "Ulalume." If the mind was Poe's favorite place, it
should come as no surprise that many of his tales are set there. Stories such as "Ligeia,"
"Landor's Cottage," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "MS Found in a Bottle," and The
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym all make more sense when read as journeys into and
around the mind rather than accounts of the physical world. Specifically, I have argued in
Poe in His Right Mind that Poe had an unusually potent right cerebral hemisphere--
which many researchers believe plays an important part in visual imagery, music,
emotions, reverie, and self-destructive urges--and tapped the resources of this
psychological region to create his extraordinarily powerful works.

Poe's literary criticism, which he produced in great volume as editor of the Southern
Literary Messenger and other publications, also has attracted attention from scholars.
Indeed, Poe is the only major American writer to excel in poetry, fiction, and criticism. In
an era when writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and
John Greenleaf Whittier were using literature largely to pursue truth or inculcate morals,
Poe argued in "The Poetic Principle" that truth is not the object of literature and
condemned what he called "the heresy of The Didactic." Indeed, a close look at Poe's
work reveals almost no extended attention to contemporary or even universal social
issues, such as community, democracy, slavery, and national identity. Instead, he praised
the "poem per se--the poem which is a poem and nothing more--this poem written solely
for the poem's sake." "Beauty," he wrote in "The Philosophy of Composition," "is the sole
legitimate province of the poem." In his regard for beauty, "effect," and form, Poe
anticipated the critical principles of many later writers.

Works
"Al Aaraaf"

 The literary critic Daniel Hoffman has argued that Poe longed for a realm separate
from--indeed superior to--base, material reality. In "Al Aaraaf," Hoffman writes,
 Poe "writes as though the real world were completely irrelevant" (38). Citing
details from this poem, agree or disagree with Hoffman's argument.
 Hoffman also has written: "The heart it is, in Edgarpoe's divisive psychology,
which suffers, which feels the miserable passions of love-longing, of loss, of
sorrow, of grief never-ending. The soul it is which rises above these passions,
poor miserable human afflictions that they are, by partaking itself and taking the
reader toward a realm of pure being--or pure nonbeing--where passion is
unknown" (Hoffman 93). Apply this idea to "Al Aaraaf."

"Romance"

 Publication: 1829
 What does the speaker mean in saying: "I fell in love with melancholy" and "I
could not love except where Death / Was mingling his with Beauty's breath"?
How might we apply these lines to other Poe works?
 What is significant about the place where the speaker learned his alphabet?
Compare this poem with "Sonnet--To Science."

"The City in the Sea"

 Publication: 1831
 What are some of the images in this poem? How are they similar? How do they
help Poe create his effect?
 "No swellings tell that winds may be / Upon some far-off happier sea- / No
heavings hint that winds have been / On seas less hideously serene." How do you
interpret these lines?
 "In order to demonstrate the horrid stillness of the city in the sea, Poe describes
how evident it is when one small stir occurs in the form of a ripple in the sea.
While some places which are entirely motionless would seem to have a peaceful
and serene feel, the adjectives Poe uses to describe this city in the sea produce the
adverse effect. With references to stone fixtures, melancholy waters, gravesides,
and death, Poe portrays the image of a city wihout a soul. Poe could be drawing
comparisons between the city and a decaying human body as both are completely
motionless, silent, and lacking of a soul" (Butler 8/27/96).
 "One particularly striking part of the poem is when Poe speaks of Death peering
down at the city from his 'proud tower' (lines 28-29). This emphasizes that Death
is the ruler of the land, who is held in high respect" (Smith 8/27/96).

"To Helen"

 Publication: 1831
 Who is Helen? How does this allusion help Poe convey meaning and emotion?
 Note the famous lines: "To the glory that was Greece, / And the grandeur that was
Rome."
 "Self-torture is also apparent in many of Poe's love poems to beautiful, but
untouchable, women, as is the case in "To Helen" and "Ligeia" (Baldwin 9/3/96).
"Israfel"

 Publication: 1831
 What is Israfel?
 What are some of the key lines in this poem, and why?
 What does the speaker mean in saying: "Our flowers are merely-flowers"?
 What is the status of language in this poem? Compared to music, is language
effective or weak?
 What is the meter in the poem? What is the rhyme scheme? How do these features
of sound shape your understanding of the poem's meaning?

"MS. Found in a Bottle"

 Publication: 1833

The narrator discovers the word "DISCOVERY" on a sail. What kinds of discoveries take
place in this story?

 What is unusual about the areas the narrator describes in this story?
 At one point in the story, the Swede cries: "See! See!" How might we interpret his
words?
 Daniel Hoffman argues that the narrator's journey suggests a journey back into the
womb, and thus into unity and our origins (148-149).

"Berenice"

 Publication: 1835
 How does the narrator describe his place of birth? What does he mean by a
"palace of imagination"? What other Poe stories take place in similar locales, and
what does this pattern say about Poe's conception of literature and the mind?
 Why does the narrator commit his gory crime?
 "Since the narrator keeps the teeth, he appears to be attempting to hold on to the
one he loves even after she is gone. This also reminds one of Poe because he
seems to be trying to hold on to and keep those women in his life that he
tragically lost" (Jakeman 4).
 After Poe's death, the editor Rufus Griswold, who has become infamous for the
calumny he spread about Poe, wrote: "He was at times a dreamer--dwelling in
ideal realms--in heaven or hell, people with creations and accidents of the his
brain. He walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in
indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayers . . ." (72). Why do
you suppose contemporary readers familiar with this story and others by Poe
would be inclined to believe this account?

"Shadow"
  Publication: 1835
 Where does this story take place? How does this setting function in the story?

"Ligeia"

 Publication: 1838
 What kind of woman is Ligeia? In what ways does she resemble other women in
Poe's works, such as Helen and Ulalume? In what ways does she resemble a
Muse?
 What is the nature of the narrator's fascination with Ligeia?
 How effective is language in this tale?
 How do the images help Poe create an effect in this work?
 "The whole basic idea of this story seems to imply that if [people keep] on
thinking of those loved ones that they have lost, then these loved ones will come
back to them, just as the dead Ligeia came back to the narrator of the story. This
can be directly related to Poe's life because he did lose so many women in his life.
He was very distraught over all of these losses and would obviously be interested
in seeing these women again. Therefore, he would always have that hope of being
reunited with the women he loved, and this hope is genuinely reflected in his
telling of the story 'Ligeia'" (Jakeman 5).
 Why do you think the narrator of this story, like many others in Poe's tales, is not
named. Consider this interpretation from literary critic Daniel Hoffman:
"Birthplace, parentage, ancestry--these are the attributes of body. To the soul they
are inessential accidents. And the direction of Poe's mind, the thrust of his
imagination is away from the body and toward the spirit, away from the 'dull
realities' of this world, toward the transcendent consciousness on 'a far happier
star'" (Hoffman 206).

"William Wilson"

 Publication: 1839
 Who or what is William Wilson? What word is hidden twice in his name, and
what might this pattern suggest? Consider the Glanville quotation in "Ligeia."
 How does Poe describe Dr. Bransby's school? What do these features suggest?
 William Wilson tells the narrator: "In me didst thou exist--and, in my death, see
by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thous hast murdered thyself" What
does he mean?
 "In the final scenes of this story, I was confused about who was actually
murdered. The image that pervaded as I read was that of a madman who was
struggling bodily with himself. This last description of William's struggle could be
interpreted as a physical manifestation of his internal struggles" (Hundley 9/3/96).

"The Fall of the House of Usher"

 Publication: 1839
 What is the House of Usher?
  What Gothic conventions does Poe use in this tale? To what effect?
 What similarities do you see in this story, "Berenice," "Ulalume," and "Ligeia"?
 What is the nature of Usher's relationship to Madeline?
 In what ways is the House of Usher a "palace of imagination"?
 Interpret this description of Roderick Usher: "By the utter simplicity, by the
nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention" (324).
 What function does Usher's song, "The Haunted Palace," serve in the story?
 In what ways does Usher resemble Poe? What do these similarities suggest?
 Why does the entire house collapse at the end of the story?
 "Poe many times writes things, and it is difficult to see whether they occur or are
just figments of imagination. In "The Fall of the House of Usher," I had trouble
deciphering whether the narrator really went in the house or just concocted the
story in passing" (Plonk 9/3/96).
 "The description of the head of the household leaves a chilling view in one's
mind, and the man seems to be more of a ghost than a human" (Daugherty
9/5/96).
 "Toward the beginning of the story, Poe implies that perhaps, indeed, his story is
nothing more than a fantasy when the narrator thinks to himself, 'there grew in my
mind a strange fancy--a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show
the vivid force of the sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my
imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there
hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity' (117).
Here Poe actually states that the narrator was making a conscious effort to create
the atmosphere in his mind" (Minis 9/3/96).
 "In 'The House of Usher,' the main character, Roderick Usher, has a paralleling
relationship to the house. It is as if Poe simultaneously describes the house and
Usher. One example of this point is "the vacant and eye-like windows" (116).
Positioned in the paragraph pertaining to the house, not only does this description
personify the windows, but also the blank, disconnected look of a person
dwindling in health: Roderick Usher" (Wallen 9/3/96).

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

 Publication: 1841
 How would you characterize Dupin?
 What does the narrator say about his intellect? Is it purely analytical?
 What is his relationship to the narrator? The narrator says: "We existed within
ourselves alone." What does he mean?
 What is their house like?
 How does Poe make this detective story engaging?
 Daniel Hoffman suggests that both Dupin and Poe are detectives seeking to break
a code--Dupin the clues to a crime, Poe the material details that mask the mystery
of the universe: "By analogy with the feat Dupin will later perform at Poe's behest
in disentangling the plot of Minister D----, we can infer that if the detective, or to
be more generic, the genius, can crack the code of that Author, he has made
himself coequal with the perpetrator of the code" (127).
  "Both of these stories ["Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Gold-Bug"]
illustrate how a human approaches a problem and comes to a resolution. He
explains in intricate detail how a code was broken in "The Gold-Bug," which
parallels another code he spoke of in "The Philosophy of Composition": that of
writing a poem. To me, these stories seem to be a metaphor for his own thought
processes when approaching the challenge of writing either prose or a poem"
(Hundley 9/10/96).

"The Descent into the Maelstrom"

 Daniel Hoffman likens this descent to the human tendency toward self-
destruction, which Poe describes in "The Imp of the Perverse" (139).

"The Masque of the Red Death"

 Publication: 1842
 How did the story affect you? Why? What elements contribute to this effect?
 In what ways does Prince Prospero's abbey resemble other settings in Poe's tales?
 Analyze Poe's prose. How does he create interesting sound effects with his
sentences?
 What is Prince Prospero trying to do? Do you see any metaphors or symbols at
work in the plot and setting of the story?
 What is the significance of the clock?
 According to the modern model of the human brain, the left hemisphere controls
language and other sequential information while the right hemisphere is
responsible for visual images, certain musical properties, dreams, emotions, and
self-destructive urges. In what ways does "The Masque of the Red Death" appeal
to readers' right brains?
 "I believe that Prince Prospero made up this imaginary escape from the Red Death
as a way of dealing with the notion that he might be killed by this monstrous
disease. By creating this castle (in his mind), he felt the was safe from the plague.
However, reality hits the prince and drags him away from his make-believe castle
when the Red Death captures and kills him" (Smith 9/3/96).
 University of North Carolina student Kara Baldwin has pointed out that Poe "uses
short, concise phrases and the use of commas consistently to add to the suspense
by giving a feeling that the reader will never get to the end, but he knows
something tragic and gruesome is going to happen when he does" (Baldwin
9/10/96). Citing sentences from "The Masque of the Red Death," make your own
observations on Poe's style.

"The Pit and the Pendulum"

 Publication: 1842
 Where is the narrator?
 What images stand out in this story? Why?
 What is the significance of the narrator's two chief foes, the pit and the pendulum?
  The literary critic Daniel Hoffman has argued that Poe, by making misery and
horror the subject of his literature, subjects these phantoms to his control and thus
enjoys some dominion over them (93-95). Based on your interpretation of this
story, would you agree with Hoffman's argument? Why or why not?

"The Gold-Bug"

 Publication: 1843
 What is the point of this story? Is Poe creating an effect here, or is he after a
different goal? How does he achieve this goal?
 Poe loved puzzles and boasted in his editor's columns about his ability to solve
any cryptogram. In what ways does this story reflect this fascination with puzzles,
particularly word games? What do Poe's puzzles say about the nature of
language?
 How does Poe depict Jupiter? How might this characterization reflect Poe's
personal attitudes and the context in which he lived and wrote?
 What might the treasure symbolize? Do you see any significance in the fact that
the characters must go through the left eye to find it?
 Why does the narrator suspect that Legrand is mad? How does Poe define
madness? See "Berenice," "Eleonora," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The
Black Cat," and "The Tell-Tale Heart."
 "Both of these stories ["Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Gold-Bug"]
illustrate how a human approaches a problem and comes to a resolution. He
explains in intricate detail how a code was broken in "The Gold-Bug," which
parallels another code he spoke of in "The Philosophy of Composition": that of
writing a poem. To me, these stories seem to be a metaphor for his own thought
processes when approaching the challenge of writing either prose or a poem"
(Hundley 9/10/96).

"The Imp of the Perverse"

 "I was struck by his idea of human nature and the innate desire to inflict harm
upon oneself. As twisted as this may sound, I feel to some extent this is true. I
have heard people say before that they have the urge to throw themselves off a
high cliff when on a mountain. Of course, they never would, but the desire still
remains. Likewise, people tend to feel sorry for themselves and wallow in their
self-pity. This could be attributed to Poe's idea of self-torture" (Plonk 9/10/96).
 "I think this shows Poe may have been attention-deprived and liked to do bad
things to get the attention of others . . . ." (Ryan 9/10/96).

"The Black Cat"

 Publication: 1843
 Daniel Hoffman sees the Imp of the Perverse as the individual's desire for
annihilation, which in Poe's cosmogony means a return to the original state of
unity: "Thus, to sum up, the Imp of the Perverse is, psychologically, that impulse
 which contradicts the individuation of the self: that yearning for self-destruction
which expresses the soul's longing to return to the unity and primal simplicity
from which it came" (297). Do you see any evidence of this "desire for
annihilation" in other works by Poe? Explain.
 The narrator "first steps into his place [in the mind] when he returns home
intoxicated and gouges his cat's eye out. Or is this a time when he has stepped out
of his "Place in the mind"? Could this man be an criminally insane monster whose
fits of rage are controlled by a continuous escape to non-reality? When he returns
to reality, he loses control and murders his cat or wife. Clearly he is in a different
mental location during his acts of violence than when he is discussing his love for
animals. The only question is which location is his real self and which is a place
in his mind" (Lasher 9/2/96).

"The Balloon Hoax"

 Disguised as a news account, this story "was actually taken seriously by the New
York Sun, and for the day or so between receipt of the 'report' and a reply, by post,
to the paper's request for confirming details from South Carolina, the Balloon
Hoax was the talk of the town" (Hoffman 156).

"Dream-Land"

 Publication: 1844
 What is distinctive about the locale in this poem?
 What patterns do you see in the images of the poem?
 Why would Poe want to travel to a place that is "OUT OF SPACE-OUT OF
TIME"? Why does his narrator say: "For the heart whose woes are legion / 'T is a
peaceful, soothing region"? How might this characterization of "Dream-Land" fit
with the "palace of imagination" Poe describes in "Berenice"?
 "Here with the first mention of NIGHT with a black throne and of dim Thule the
poet sets the scene of darkness and depression. This then cues the reader that the
dreamland is not a land of dreams as might have first been expected, but this
dreamland of Poe is in reality a land of nightmare and despair" (Gregory 8/27/96).
 "As the poem progresses, we see that in this land of dreams the speaker meets
memories from his past. These memories we see are the forms of dead friends
wandering through this land of despair wearing white shrouds. This is interesting
due to the number of important people in Poe's life who died during his lifetime.
This land of dreams we learn cannot be exposed to the 'weak human eye,' a
reference apparently saying that these memories can only be dealt with in the
subconscious world of sleep and would be too much for the human conscious to
bear" (Gregory 8/27/96).

"The Raven"

 Publication: 1845
  What is the tone of this poem? How do the images, setting, language, and use of
poetic techniques such as repetition shape this tone?
 What motivates the narrator to keep asking his questions?

"The Philosophy of Composition"

 Publication: 1846

What does Poe say he is trying to do in his work?

 Why does he use the metaphor of a dramatic set (trap doors, red paint, step-
ladders) for the creative process?
 What are the key elements of his formula? What seems to be missing from Poe's
formula?
 What is the main difference between Poe's approach to literature and the
Transcendentalists' approach?
 Where do you see Poe following his own advice outside "The Raven"?
 Daniel Hoffman suggests that part of Poe's motivation behind writing "The
Philosophy of Composition" is the desire to emulate God in the act of creation:
"'Thought, for Poe, is the activity by which man most closely resembles God.
Ergo the most puissant man is he whose mental processes most closely resemble,
in their operation if not in their scope, those of the deity. . . . He is indeed just
such a 'thinker' in his 'Philosophy of Composition,' a master-creator working out
the details of his preconceived plan, observing himself in the act of conceiving,
choosing, shaping, succeeding" (96).

"The Cask of Amontillado"

 Publication: 1846
 What is irony, and what examples can you cite in this story? How does the irony
function?
 What motivates the narrator to bury Fortunato?
 This story contains some examples of "dark humor"--that is, material that is
simultaneously disturbing and funny. Identify and analyze some of this humor in
the story.
 Like "William Wilson" and other works by Poe, this story features dual characters
who may symbolize psychological entities or states. Paying especially close
attention to the story's conclusion, explain how Montresor and Fortunato represent
two sides of a human mind.
 In what ways is the story similar to other Poe works, such as "Hop-Frog" and
"The Fall of the House of Usher"?
 The inscription--"Nemo me impune lacessit (No one insults me with impunity)"--
closely resembles Poe's own words to his publisher at Gentleman's Magazine: "If
by accident you have taken it into your head that I am to be insulted with
impunity I can only assume that you are an ass" (Silverman 316). What other
 elements in this story and Poe's life suggest that "The Cask of Amontillado" has
autobiographical elements?
 The critic Daniel Hoffman has suggested that Poe, trapped in his real life by
circumstance, sought control and freedom in his mind and art: "All that is left to
this headstrong and penurious youth are his dreams, his vain imaginings, which he
spells out in chiming, rhyming lines. Edgar has no recourse but to become the
hero of his own imagination" (28). Elsewhere, Hoffman writes: "Poe, poor
Edgarpoe, the penniless orphan, the abandoned and lovelorn boy, cognizant of his
impotence in the affairs of men and the love of women, conceives himself as a
self-begotten deity, the infinite I AM made finite, given a habitation and a name.
Name of Edgar Allan Poe" (46). Use details from this story--and, if you like, one
or two others--to support Hoffman's argument.

"Ulalume"

 Publication: 1847
 Where is the action in this poem taking place? Consider the narrator's partner in
conversation: Psyche.
 Why does the narrator return to his lover's tomb?
 What similarities do you see in this poem and "The Raven"?
 Apply the following ideas of literary critic Daniel Hoffman to "Ulalume": "I
propose that Edgar adapted the ballad convention in two ways. One set of his
lyrical ballads--'El Dorado,' 'Annabel Lee,' and 'For Annie'--tell their tales in
straightforward fashion, without refrains, the style approximating that of 'Israfel,'
'To One in Paradise,' and the songs in 'Al Aaraaf.' The narrative content in these
poems deals with the putatively successful escape of the speaker from the
'horrible throbbing / At heart,' from the 'fever called living.' The other set of
Edgarpoe's ballads includes 'Lenore,' 'Ulalume,' and 'The Raven': ballads wildly
declaimed to a madder music, an insanely inescapable meter and the demented
recurrences of far-fetched rhyme and interior rhyme. In these the speaker is
desperately trying to burst out of the prison of his passions, but he cannot do so;
he is trapped, and can only endure the thumping repetitions of a refrain like
'Nevermore'" (69).

"Hop-Frog"

 Publication: 1849
 Who is the protagonist of this story? Why? How is this protagonist atypical?
 Who is the antagonist of this story? How do you know?
 What is the significance of Hop-Frog's choice of costume for the king and his
ministers?
 In what ways is this story autobiographical?
 "A big parallel can be drawn between the story and Poe's life. Poe seems to be
regarding alcohol as an evil that is being conquered. This description can be
formed from his life because alcohol was many times an evil for Poe which he
could not defeat. Therefore, this story would serve as an example of the hope that
 Poe had that he would one day be able to overcome his battle with alcohol"
(Jakeman 6).
 Important incidents and aspects of Poe's life can universally be seen throughout
his works. For instance, his low alcohol tolerance level can be related to his main
character in the story 'Hop-Frog,' both his gambling and drinking problems can be
associated with those of the narrator in 'William Wilson,' and his continued loss of
female figures in life can be compared to his main characters in 'Ligeia' or 'The
Fall of the House of Usher' (Brooks 9/10/96).
 "Hop-Frog: The Opera": Click here to see the libretto for an operatic adaptation
of "Hop-Frog" by Todd Lasher, a student at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill.

Eureka

 Publication: 1849
 Daniel Hoffman argues: "It is Poe's contention that 'simplicity' equals Unity, and
that the entire Universe has been constituted from a 'primordial particle,' willed by
God" (288).

"The Bells"

 Publication: 1849
 What is onomatopoeia? How does Poe use it in this poem?
 How does the meaning of the bells change over the course of the poem?
 "The numbing patterns in "The Bells" also function to display Poe's obsessive
nature as well as to juxtapose the words with an actual systematic ringing of
bells" (Daigneault 8/27/96)
 "Part three of the poem begins a change in the tone of the poem. Now Poe is
describing bells of terror and how they shriek. In line forty-six Poe uses repetition
of the word "higher" to describe the leaping of the bells. Once again Poe uses the
word "bells" repetitively, representing the rhythm that they create. But this time
the bells do not create a sense of well-being, but rather a 'clamor and claning.' In
part three of the poem, the bells develop into 'a groan.' People are described as
'tolling, tolling, tolling' and as 'ghouls' who are ruled by the ringing of the bells. In
the ending of the poem, Poe repeats the word "time," "bells," and "knells" in order
to create the ultimate images. The final line of the poem describes the way Poe
interprets the bells: 'To the moaning and the groaning of the bells'" (Kimmel
8/26/96).
 "Poe uses this type of device in each stanza to speak of a different type of bell,
and he does it very effectively. Also, at the end of each stanza, he uses a repetition
of seven 'bells,' which seemed to remind me of a collection of many different
types of bells all ringing simultaneously" (Jakeman 8/27/96).
Bibliography
 Asselineau, Roger. "Edgar Allan Poe." Pamphlets on American Writers No. 89,
Minneapolis, 1970. (Reprinted in Clarke, 41-66.)
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Hill. September 3, 1996.
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September 10, 1996.
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 Canada, Mark. Poe in His Right Mind. Dissertation. University of North Carolina
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 The Edgar Allan Poe Museum. 1997. www.poemuseum.org (October 2, 1997).
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Hill. August 27, 1996.
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1972.
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Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Raven." Performed by Richard Bauer. Weekend Edition
Sunday. 31 October 1999. National Public Radio. 7 June 2000
<http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm?PrgDate=10/31/1999&PrgID=10>.

Click on "The Raven" while at this site and hear actor Richard Bauer read
"The Raven."

“Present At the Creation: ‘The Raven.’” Morning Edition.14 January 2002.National

Public Radio.15 January 2002.<http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/me/20020114.me.13.ram>.

This report discusses Poe’s composition of his most famous poem.

 Ryan, Cory. Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
September 10, 1996.
 Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance.
New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
 Smith, Jenny. Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
August 27, 1996.
 ---. Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
September 3, 1996.
 Thomas, Dwight, and David K. Jackson. The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of
Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1987.
 Wallen, Stephanie. Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill. September 3, 1996.

© Mark Canada, 1997

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