his life

⁃ Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston in 1809

⁃ his father abandoned him when he was a toddler and his mother died when he was 2

⁃ his real father’s name was Poe, while Allan was the name of the family that adopted him

⁃ he spent his childhood in Scotland with the Allans

⁃ he went back to the US and studied at the University of Virginia but he was expelled for his
behavior, especially for his gambling and alcohol addiction

⁃ then he tried to succeed in a military career and he actually joined one of the most prestigious
military academies, but he was dismissed with dishonor

⁃ when he was 26 he married his cousin Virginia, who was only 13 at the time —> this was a very
important event for his life because during this peaceful period he was able to dedicate to the
writing

⁃ however, his wife Virginia died of tuberculosis in 1847 —> after this event Poe became obsessed

t
by the idea of the death of beautiful and young women, and this element is often found in his works

⁃ after his wife’s death, Poe’s addictions worsened

⁃ Poe only lived 40 years and the causes of his death are obscure and probably related with his
alcohol and drug addiction —> he was found lying in a corner in Baltimore and he was brought to
an hospital, where he died two days later in 1849

⁃ Edgar had a very troubled life and this is re ected in his works

⁃ there’s a sense of persecution that is clearly visible in his works (use of repetition)

⁃ was not appreciated very much during his life, but only after his death was his talent discovered by
Charles Dickens

his literary production

⁃ Poe’s literary career began in 1827 when the Allans refused to nance his studies

⁃ he has a very troubled life and this re ected in his works

⁃ during 1835 and 1845 he published his most famous works

⁃ he was not much appreciated during his life, but mmhis talent was discovered only after his death by
Charles Dickens

⁃ Edgar Allan Poe was more in uencing in Europe, especially in France, rather than in the USA

⁃ he was not in uenced by other American literary gures and by the typical American religious
attitude —> he did not in uence his American contemporaries as well + the US were much more

ETI
conservatives as Europe

⁃ he had a little reputation in the US in the 19th century because American people did not want him
to be their representative because he had moral values that were in contrast with theirs

⁃ in the US he was considered an obscure writer and best known for his journalism

⁃ he became famous in France and Europe because his works were translated in french by famous
french poets, such as Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Rimbaud

⁃ these poets belonged to the french symbolist movement and were called “cursed poets”

⁃ Poe was clearly in uenced by them and shared with them features of work and biographical
elements

⁃ Poe wrote both poetry and prose —> he wrote just one novel and mostly short stories, for what he
became famous for

⁃ he was the inventor of the genre of short stories —> he provided the typical structure, theme, time

⁃ short stories became considered as valid as poetry

short stories

⁃ Poe was the master of short stories and can be regarded as the inventor of this genre

⁃ Poe wrote two di erent kinds of short stories: tales of ratiocinacion/deduction + tales of
imagination

⁃ tales of ratiocinacion/deduction: detective stories or crime ctions (murder, kidnapping, robbery) —

> the detective is going to use their scienti c knowledge (science, logic, math) to nd evidence to
solve a crime or mystery

⁃ realistic events and settings + rational explanation for the events that happen in the story

⁃ the very rst detective character in literature was Dupin

⁃ tales of imagination: horror stories with supernatural creatures and events that cannot be explained
rationally

⁃ many stories shared common characteristics

⁃ key facts of Poe’s stories: unreliable rst person narrator, limited internal perspective and their own
interpretation of reality

⁃ the narrator is unreliable because he is under the e ect of drugs/alcohol or are a ected by a
mental illness

⁃ the protagonist has one xation (monomania) also called keynote

⁃ the protagonist always gives himself away

⁃ Poe was the forerunner / precursor of subjective reality, which is a concept that has been
developed in the 20th century

⁃ another important concept developed by Poe is art/ ction being realer than life —> this concept
in uenced Oscar Wilde

the Philosophy of Composition

⁃ the Philosophy of Composition is an essay written by Poe and rst published in 1846 by George
Rex Graham, a friend and former employee of Poe’s

⁃ in the essay, Poe discusses what he believes to be the rules which need to be followed to create
literature —> however, Poe did not exactly follow his own rules for all of his writing

⁃ in the Philosophy of Composition Poe wrote about the “single e ect” that he aimed to and
achieved with his short stories

⁃ the aim of the “single e ect” was to have the greatest impact on the reader

⁃ Poe’s rules for a well written piece of literature are based on: form, content and style

⁃ Poe stated that all literary works should be short —> if a piece of writing cannot be easily read and
consumed in one sitting it is not worth reading

⁃ in Poe’s opinion the most e ective stories take place in one setting, which must be secluded, dark,
gloomy, enclosed

⁃ the setting re ects the protagonist’s mental isolation because they are as well secluded and
enclosed in their minds + it mirrors also the narrator’s progressive detachment from reality

⁃ the protagonist and narrator are always males

me
⁃ the protagonist is always caught in the middle of their a mid life crisis, in a moment of existential
crisis —> the story starts in medias res, very atypical of the time

⁃ interior monologues and use of repetition mirror the protagonist’s internal crisis and obsession on a
text/style level + tension is built up in the story

⁃ hammering/pouncing rhythm that is achieved thought the use of repetition/alliteration/anaphora

and the use of refrain (= ritornello)

⁃ Poe did not use iambic, instead he used a very unnatural rhythm called trochee (1 stressed syllable
and 1 unstressed syllable)

oscura se
the Tell-Tale Heart

The raven

• plot summary: the poem is written in 18 stanzas

• The speaker of the poem reads old books on a dreary night to ease his sadness over the death of
his beloved Lenore, he falls asleep, he awakens when he hears a knock on the door as he sits
debating who could be there, his imagination begins to run away with him.

• The narrator nds no one there, then he hears a knocking on the window , and when he opens it,
a raven ies into the room and perched on the bust of Palls Athena that sits above his door , at
rst the speakers amused by the ravens manner he eaven asks the birds name, to which the
raven replies NEVERMORE!

• The raven says nothing else sitting in silence on the statue, the speaker mentions with the sense
of sparrow that the raven like everyone else in his life will leave him in the morning, the raven
again repeats nevermore, the narrator is shocked but then rationalizes away the birds speaking,
this must be a sign of the previous owners terrible misfortunes, along with explaining the birds
appearances as trying to get out of the storm or likely having escaped from his former abusive
owner.

• He still nds the bird interesting and amusing so he takes a seat in front of the bird and the bust
and tries to gure out what the bird means by “nevermore” .

• The narrator ruminates on his lost love Lenore who will never again sit in the chair he currently
occupies at the thought of her, the speaker feels something in the air and smells incense in the
closed room , he gets angry asking for a potion of some kind, that will make him forget Lenore
and the memories of her, that torture him; the raven replies once again Nevermore and raging him
further.

• The birds singular answers pushed the narrator towards madness, the speaker calls the bird a
prophet but wether for good or evil, he isn’t quite sure; so he asks the bird if he had any hope of
reuniting with her in heaven, but the raven replies with the same answer as always, driving the
speaker into further ts of rage. In one of these ts he orders the raven to leave him in his
loneliness and despair.

• The raven again says Nevermore ; the nale stanza sees the raven still sitting in the chamber
perched on the statue , the speaker had succombed fully to his despair he is engulfed in the
ravens shadow forever ending the the poem on a doomed and hopeless note

Analysis

• This popular narrative poem is written in the rst person. ‘The Raven‘ personi es the feeling of
intense grief and loss, while other symbols throughout the poem reinforce a melodramatic mood
that emphasizes the main character’s grief and loss.

• In ‘The Raven,’ Poe engages themes that include death and the afterlife.

• These themes are accompanied by memory, loss, and the supernatural. throughout the piece, the
reader gets the sense that something terrible is about to happen, or has just happened, to the
speaker and those around him.

• These themes are all emphasized by the speaker’s loneliness.

• It is a ballad made up of eighteen six-line stanzas. Throughout, the poet uses trochaic octameter,
a very distinctive metrical form. He uses the rst-person point of view throughout, and a very
consistent rhyme scheme of ABCBBB. There are a large number of words that use the same
ending, for example, the “ore” in “Lenore” and “Nevermore.” Epistrophe is also present, or the
repetition of the same word at the end of multiple lines.