Edgar Allan Poe: His Writing and Legacy

1. Edgar Allan Poe:His Writing and Legacy

2. Poe and Gothicism • Poe emerged after 1820s, when America was looking for a national identity of its own • Time (1700s-1800s) when “Gothic literature” was inveighed against: • Too much class structuring • Too many sacrilegious themes • Gothic literature/Gothicism • Ascribed to German fiction • British in origin (1750s)—spread to Germany

3. Poe and Gothicism • First Gothic novel: Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story (1764) • Use of castles and monastery outgrowth of contribution of British cultural heritage to literary Gothicism • 1530s/KH8: • Dissolved many British religious centers • Led to closure—and subsequent ruin—of abbeys, religious centers, cathedrals • By 1750s, these structures had become symbols of transience of human experience • Provided origins for supernaturalism in literary Gothicism

4. Poe and Gothicism • Charles Brockden Brown – credited with founding American literary Gothicism • Poe took Brown’s ideas and individualized them, emphasizing psychological issues more than previous writers

5. Poe and Gothicism • Characteristics of Gothicism: • Haunted castle • Lust • Money madness/greed • Anxiety and power plays leading to tragedies • Sometimes as a result of supernaturalism • Sometimes with warped characters who move into eerie architectural or natural settings • Emotional unsettledness • Gloomy atmosphere

6. Poe’s Fiction • Wanted to be known as a poet, but continues to be admired for his literary legacy • So, why write short stories, “tales”? MONEY! • In 1833, after reflecting on what should characterize terror and horror tales, Poe began writing his own stories • Won writing competition in Baltimore’s Saturday Visiter for best poem (“The Coliseum”) and short story (“MS. Found in a Bottle”) • Rejected prize because it was discovered that same author wrote both works

7. Poe’s Fiction • Failed in his attempt to publish “Tales of the Folio Club,” narratives of a group of writers who meet monthly to read and critique literature, especially their own • Publishers rejected “Tales,” claiming it was too sophisticated for general readership

8. Poe’s Fiction • “Shadow—A Parable,” “Silence—A Fable,” and “King Pest” present drunken narrators plunged to their own destructiveness as a result of their drunkenness • Eventually, Poe diminished—or removed—these in order to locate disturbing and frightening circumstances nearer the real source: the mind • Imaginative geography emphasized over locative geography • Influenced by cultural world in which Poe lived, which involved search for human mind in discovery of hidden self

9. Poe’s Fiction • Though influenced by Emerson, Poe’s fiction: • Did not present the human mind as a place of warm pleasure; rather, considered the human mind as fascinating, yet a source, not of pleasure, but of danger • Contained troubled waters and obscure lighting, which created perfect metaphors for shifting sensations in unstable minds, as well as strange actions and speeches that represent those emotional traumas

10. Poe’s Fiction • In addition, Poe’s works emphasized: • Issues of gender (masculinity and femininity) • Pursuit and exploration of human mind and self • Absence of supernatural

11. Poe’s Legacy • Longevity of Poe’s creative works • Overlooked during his time • Success due to touching on timeless, existential anxieties common to everyone • Brief, short-story structure(parallels dream structure) • Invigorating exploration of human mind • Dark windings of interiors, movements spiraling up and down, rich textures and dizzying effects • Ultimately, search for human identity

12. Poe’s Legacy “What has sometimes been mischaracterized as mere hackwork, created out of an inadequacy and inability to rise to greater heights, may today reveal more about some readers’ limitations than about any liabilities in Poe’s artistic vision and achievement.”