Edgar Allan Poe Since His Life example essay topic

Whitman, Dickinson, Crane, Frost, Cummings, and Longfellow. All examples of prominent and reputable men and women of the past who had one thing in common: a love for poetry. They wrote on the dignity of man, nature, war, politics, theology and of nursery rhymes. Yet there was one poet who was prominent but not reputable or well liked.

He was known as Edgar Allan Poe. Due to his drinking, reviewers have made him sound like the town drunk who staggers around writing stories of death and horror. "With the aid of his psychological stories, critics have proclaimed him necrophilic, dipsomania, paranoid, impotent, neurotic, oversexed, a habitual taker of drugs, until all that is left in the public eye is an unstable creature sitting gloomily in a dim room, the raven over the door, the bottle on the table, the opium in the pipe, scribbling mad verses" (Bittner web). Poe was criticized by many because his life was marred by infrequent but intense drinking bouts that gave him a bad reputation and although he was said to be a "habitual taker of drugs" and insane, he was none of these and in fact virtually created the detective story and perfected the psychological thriller - a testament to his brilliance and sanity.

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is, if not the first of its kind, the first work of fiction in which a crime is solved by extensive analysis. Poe attributes the popularity of this story to being "something in a new key... people think they are more ingenious than they are-on account of their method and air of method. In the 'Murders in the Rue Morgue,' for instance, where is the ingenuity of unraveling a web which you yourself (the author) have woven for the express purpose of unraveling" (Po web). Poe expressed the detective in the story, C. Auguste Dupin, as being abstract; wandering around at night and having a sort of sleepy quality to his voice and eyes but Dupin used this to his advantage because his opponents would underestimate him. Overall, however, Dupin's success resulted from close inquiry and diligent observation as well as thoughtful insights. This portrayal of a detective not only pays tribute to the brilliance of Edgar Allan Poe, but it obliterates all of the rumors surrounding his life and writings.

"The Tell-Tale Heart", a dramatic monologue, is marked yet again by the narrator telling his story to show the reader how smart he is. An aspect of the story that is especially brilliant is the hallucinative "tell-tale" heartbeats which drive the speaker, who has murdered an elderly man, to confess his crime. Also effective are the other, remarkable, elements such as the old man's deformed "evil eye" and the "groan of mortal terror" the narrator hears coming from the old man: "I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me". Subsequently the wording that Poe integrates into this story is not wording used by the insane but diction thought of by extremely sound mind.

Ever since Poe's short stories first began to appear in the 1830's readers have been intrigued by the nature of the man or the mind that produced them. Was he as demonic or demented as the characters of his horror tales, and as logical or intuitive as the heroes of his detective and mystery stories Contrary to popular legend, Poe was neither an alcoholic nor a drug addict, though he did struggle during much of his adult life against a inclination to drink during times of grief or despair. Poe had many a reason that could excuse his alcoholic tendencies considering so many people that were close to him died of consumption or tuberculosis. It would seem as if his mind went through cycles of destruction having a "really good day" and then seemingly out of nowhere doing something stupid (i.e. : trying to sell magazine advertisements to the president). Many people criticized Edgar Allan Poe since his life was marked with periodic drinking stretches that impressed a bad reputation upon himself and while being labeled as a druggie and lunatic, he was none of these and in fact set many a precedent concerning fictional thrillers and detective stories, "Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it" (Doyle web). Poe, while not well liked in his time, is a phenomenal person who is one of the most recognized poets and writers ever to touch pen to paper.

How did he (Poe) live there (America), this finest of fine artists, this born aristocrat of letters Alas! he did not live there: he died there, and was duly explained away as a drunkard and a failure... He was the greatest journalistic critic of his time... His poetry is exquisitely refined... In his stories of mystery and imagination Poe created a world record for the English language: perhaps for all languages... unparalleled and un approached... Poe constantly and inevitably produced magic where his greatest contemporaries produced only beauty...

There is really nothing to be said about it; we others simply take off our hats and let Mr. Poe go first (Shaw web). "By wine some vow Poe's wit inspired to be, And say that they can prove his verses show it; More likely, I should fancy, it was tea, For clearly it is t turns Poe to poet".