Edgar Allan Poe

Elaine Chen, Penny Lu,

Kate Lin and Josephine Liao
 Edgar Allan Poe
 Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809
 His parents died before he was three, and
shortly afterwards Poe was adopted by John
Allan
 Poe Attended school in England during 1815-20,
and entered the University of Virginia in 1826,
but did not finish because of financial problems.
 Published his first book Tamerlane and Other
Poems
 Edgar Allan Poe (2)
 Broke off the engagement to Sarah Royster
 His supportive friends published Poems for
him.
 Poe was also an assistant editor of Southern
Literary Messenger, who moved to Richmond,
and secretly married Virginia in 1835
 Poe had also published the short story The
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and then
moved to NY
 Edgar Allan Poe (3)
 Poe moved to Philadelphia in 1838, became the
co-editor of Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, and
published The Fall of the House of Usher in 1839.
 His poem, “The Raven,” had made him a principal
reviewer of the Broadway Journal.
 His beloved wife, who is his cousin, Virginia died in
1847.
 Poe died of congestion of the brain on October 7,
1849, perhaps due to his constant drinking and
opium taking.
 Poe’s Works
 Poems: The Raven, To Helen, Annabel Lee
 Articles: Criticism
 Short Stories: The Tell-Tale Heart
 Detective: The Murders in the Rue Morgue
 Horror: The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall
of the House of Usher
Features of Poe’s Works
 The atmosphere in the work of Poe is rather
dark and strange
 The characters in his tales include those
aristocratic madam, self-tormented
murderers, neurasthenic necrophiliacs and
other deviant types (700, B 1509-10)
 Poetry was a “passion,” and not a “purpose”
(700, B 1510)
 “To Helen”
 Sarah Helen Whitman
(1803-1878), for whom
Poe wrote "To Helen”
 The poem itself could
be considered as a
letter to Helen of Troy.
 Metaphors to present
beauty of Helen
 Metaphors in “To Helen”
 The warm and comfortable feelings Helen
gives the narrator: That gently, o’er a
perfumed sea/The weary, way-worn
wandered bore to his own native shore
 Beauty of Helen: her timeless face,
hyacinth hair, nymphlike temperament and
the pride of Greece
 Helen is also portrayed as the narrator’s
mentor—Psyche, the agate lamp
 “Annabel Lee”
 The purpose of the poem was to be a
representation of Poe’s wife, Virginia.
 The theme includes two parts, including
perfect and true love
 In the poem, there are metaphors to show
the perfect as well as selfish love between
the narrator and Annabel Lee
 Metaphors
Perfect Love and Selfish Love

Mythical Setting: “It was many and many a year ago/In a

kingdom by the sea” (lines 1-2)
Innocent Love: I was a child and she was a child (lines 7-8)
Pure Love:
We love with a love that was more than love…with a love
that…seraphs…covet her and me (lines 8-11)
But we loved with a love that was more than love—me
and Annabel Lee (lines 8-9)
Selfish Love: This maiden she lived with no other
thought/that to love and to be loved by me (lines 5-6)
Metaphors—Eternal Love
The moon and the stars: “For the moon never
beams, without bringing me dreams/ Of the beautiful
Annabel Lee; / And the stars never rise, but I feel the
bright eyes/ Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.” (lines 34-
37)
Annabel Lee’s tomb by the sounding sea: “And
so, all the night tide, I lie down by the side/ Of my
darling [ . . . ]/ In her sepulchre there by the sea—/In
her tomb by the sounding sea.” (lines 38-40)
“The Fall of the House of Usher”
 “The Fall of the House” is widely acknowledged
to be one of Poe’s finest and most
representative tales, which is also an early and
supreme example of the Gothic horror story.
 The story exhibits Poe’s concept of “art for art’s
sake”--this idea is that a story should be devoid
of social, political, or moral teaching.
 Poe’s aim in his representation of horror in his
tales was to create the sense of “terror” of the
soul and mind.
 Summary I
The story begins with the first-person narrator riding on horseback toward
the ancient home of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher. In the opening, the
narrator has established an overwhelming atmosphere of dread. The house
seems to have collected an evil and diseased atmosphere from the decaying
trees and murky ponds around it. The narrator also notices that the structure of
the house is solid, and there is a fissure in the front of the building from the roof
to ground.
The reason the unnamed narrator rushes to the
house of Usher and stays there is that his friend,
Roderick, has written him a letter, asking for the
narrator's visit. Besides, Roderick mentioned in his
letter that he felt bodily and emotionally ill.
Summary II

The narrator also explains that the Usher family is an

ancient clan that never flourished, and only one member of the
Usher family survives from generation to generation. When the
narrator walks in the house, he finds the inside of the house is
as dreary as the outside. He also notes that his friend is paler
and less energetic than he once was. Besides, Roderick suffers
from nerves and fear because he was also afraid of his own
house.
Summary III
Later on, the narrator sees Roderick’s sister, Madeline, who has taken
ill with a mysterious illness. After few days, Madeline dies, and Roderick
decides to bury his sister in the vaults in the house. When the narrator
helps Roderick put the body in the tomb, he notices that Madeline has
rosy cheeks as some do after death.
Over next few days, Roderick becomes even more uneasy. One night,
the narrator cannot sleep either, with Roderick knocking on his door,
apparently hysterical. He leads the narrator to the window, from where
they can see a bright-looking gas all around the house. However, the
narrator has used a rational way to explain the phenomenon.
 Summary IV
In order to calm Roderick down, the narrator reads the “Mad Trist” to
him. As he reads the story, he hears noises that correspond to the
description in the book. Although the narrator tries to ignore it; however, the
noises becomes more distinct. Moreover, the narrator hears the murmuring
of Roderick, and Roderick believes that they have buried his sister alive
and she is trying to get out. Suddenly, Roderick yells that his sister is
standing behind the door. The wind blows the door open, with his sister
really standing in white robes bloodied from her struggle. She falls upon
her brother, and Roderick dies of fear eventually. The narrator then flees
from the house, and as he does so, the entire house cracks along the
break in the frame, with everything crumpling to the ground.
The Setting of “The House”
 The house establishes an atmosphere of dreariness,
melancholy, and decay.
 “The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The
windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a
distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether
inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light
made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render
sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye,
however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the
chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark
draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was
profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and
musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any
vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of
sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over
and pervaded all.” (720, B 1537)
 The Setting of “The House”
 The house sets the scene for an eerie, diseased and black
tale.
 It is a symbol for the Usher family, since the house was not
only personified but that it was also just as crumpled as the
family was.
 “I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the
simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—
upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and
upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression
of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly
than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium—the bitter lapse
into everyday life—the hideous dropping off of the veil.
The Setting of The House
There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the
heart —an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no
goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the
sublime. What was it —I paused to think—what was it that
so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of
Usher?” (718, B1534-35)
 “It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in
thought the perfect keeping of the character of the
premises with the accredited character of the people, and
while speculating upon the possible influence which the
one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have
The Setting of The House
exercised upon the other [ . . . ] 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, [ . . . ] both the family and the family mansion. (719,
B1535-36)
 “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. [ . . . ] While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened—
there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind—the entire orb of the satellite
burst at once upon my sight—my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls
rushing asunder—there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the
voice of a thousand waters—and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed
sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of Usher." (730, B
1541)
Characters
 Unnamed narrator: first person POV, and
considered to be rational
 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—in regard to an
influence whose supposititious force was conveyed in
terms too shadowy here to be re-stated—an influence
which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance
of his family mansion, had, by dint of long sufferance, he
said, obtained over his spirit—an effect which the
physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn
into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought
about upon the morale of his existence. (721, B1538)
Characters
 Roderick--- is ill bodily and emotionally, as well as
superstitious
 Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he
had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious
warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an
overdone cordiality—of the constrained effort of the ennuyé
man of the world. [ . . . ] A cadaverousness of complexion; an
eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips
somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful
curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth
of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely molded chin,
speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral
energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity;
these features, with an inordinate expansion above the
regions of the temple, made up altogether a
Characters
countenance not easily to be forgotten. [ …] The silken
hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as,
in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell
about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its
Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.
(720, B1537)
 The conditions of the sentience had been here, he
imagined, fulfilled in the method of collocation of these
stones –[ . . . ], and in its reduplication in the still waters of
the tarn. Its evidence --the evidence of the sentience—
was to be seen, he said, [ . . . ] in the gradual yet certain
condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the
waters and the walls. The result was discoverable,
[ . . . ] ,and which made him what I now saw him—what he
was. (725, B1541-42)
Characters
 Madeline has unknown disease, which is
mysterious
 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. (722, B1539)
 Narrator represents science
 Roderick Usher : superstition
 Madeline represents the mystery and the cause of
the collapse of the house.
 Other Themes in the Story
 Dream— Poe entices readers to view the narrator’s experience
as a “dream,” which include iterative images of water, sleep and
descent as well as its repetition. (718,719, 722/ B1534-35, 1536,
1538-39)
 Evil — Poe creates an evil atmosphere through the narrator’s
description of the Usher family home and Roderick and Madeline.
 A glance, however, at his countenance, convinced me of his
perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he
spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of
awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief
a period, as had Roderick Usher! [ . . . ]. And now in the mere
exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and of
the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change
that I doubted to whom I spoke. (720, B1537)
Other Themes in the Story
 Terror—Poe intends to arouse a sense of
unearthly terror that spring from a vague, hinted
and mysterious source in the story.  His aim is
to create tales of terror
 Madeline is only seen briefly before she dies, stirring up
the feeling of “dread.”
 “As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance [ . . .] then,
with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person
of her brother, and in her horrible and now final death-
agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the
terrors he had dreaded.” (730, B1547)
Other Themes in the Story
 Roderick has a ghastly look of the pale skin he has on
his body, which creates an eerie feeling for the
audience.
 “Upon my entrance, [ . . . ] The now ghastly pallor of the

skin, and the now miraculous luster of the eye, above all
things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too,
had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild
gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face,
I could not, even with effort, connect its arabesque
expression with any idea of simple humanity.” (720, B
1537)
Poe’s Short Stories
 Gothic literature
a. A tone that is gloomy, dark and threatening.
b. Events take place must be strange,
melodramatic or evil.
c. Two categories:
(1) The grotesque — refers to more realistic
stories with human interaction.
(2) The arabesque — involves very few people
but many ideas, and are frequently in abstract
location.
Important Themes in Poe’s Works
 Doubling: The paralleled scenes or characters
closely mimic each other. e.g. “The Fall of the
House of Usher”
 At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a
moment, paused; for it appeared to me [ . . . ]—it
appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of
the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to my ears, what
might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the
echo [ . . . .] of the very cracking and ripping sound
which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. (728,
B1545)
Important Themes in Poe’s Works
 Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling
of wild amazement—for there could be no doubt
whatever that, in this instance, I did actually hear
(although from what direction it proceeded I found it
impossible to say) a low and apparently distant, but
harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or
grating sound—the exact counterpart of what my
fancy had already conjured up for the dragon's
unnatural shriek as described by the romancer. (729,
B 1546)
Important Themes in Poe’s Works

 Kinds of horror—Psychological & Physical

 “The Cask of Amontillado”
 “The Fall of the House of Usher”
 Conflicts — e.g. science and superstition
 Revenge — e.g. “The Cask of Amontillado”
 The Tell-Tale
Heart
“True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been

and am; but will you say that I am mad?”

Characters and Setting
 The characters in this story include the
narrator, the old man (someone the
narrator that intended to kill), and the
police
 The setting is in the house, in the old
man’s room, where the old man is killed on
the bed.
 “The Tell-Tale Heart”
This grisly story was first published in a
magazine called The Pioneer, 1843. It was
reprinted twice in Poe’s lifetime but never as part
of the collections of his fiction in book form.
It has been adapted for stage, radio, movies,
and television. Its combination of action,
confessional commentary, and accompanying
sounds make it especially suitable for the radio.
“The Tell-Tale Heart”
The story reflects the wretchedness, sense of
pain, and psychological malaise that Poe was
undergoing toward the end of 1842, when he
left Graham’s, and his wife Virginia became
gravely sick.
The story “The Tell-Tale Heart” is very
dramatic and has separate segments which
conform to the five parts of traditional drama.
 “The Tell-Tale Heart”
 First, the narrator introduces himself and his victim,
and denies himself as sane, of acute senses, and
committed to a murderous course.
 Second, suspense mounts as he enters the old
man’s room, time after time.
 Third, he returns a final time to consummate the
deed.
 Fourth, his clean-up activities constitute falling
action, leading to the end.
 And fifth, the catastrophic entrance of the police
officers and the revelation by the killer of his deed
and his victim’s body.
The Old Man
It has been said that the old man, whom
the narrator feels obliged to murder may be
an authoritarian figure, perhaps Poe’s
foster father, John Allan, or other members
of the literary and publishing establishment
which Poe could not conquer, and that he
felt a sense of relief, while vicariously
destroying them all.
The Conscience
In this story, the narrator takes great pain to
conceal the body, but the imperceptive police still
attempts to search the old man.
The narrator confesses the repulsive unmotivated
murder of the harmless roommate, driven by
remorse of conscience; he gives himself away
when he hears—or fancies he hears—the beating of
the dead man’s heart.
The beating could be viewed as the narrator’s
conscience-stimulated tell-tale heart that beats
louder and louder, then eventually reveals the
murder.
The Moral
The moral has to do with the perverse
compulsion of the guilty to unmask
themselves.
The narrator here surely could have gotten
away with the act of murder but for his
inner being’s urge to come out into the
open.
“The Raven”
 The narrator moves through a sequence of changing moods.
When first awakened by the raven, he is gloomy. Terror
quickly follows, then curiosity as he seeks a simple
explanation for the tapping. The entrance of the bird makes
him smile. But soon the uncanny aptness of the same, cruel
answer causes bitter self-questioning, sad memory, near
hysteria, and finally permanent hopelessness. The raven in
the end never flits, still sitting there, with devil eyes, its
shadow falling on the floor; and the man’s soul is in that
shadow, forever.
 The subject of the poem deals with the death of a beautiful
woman, which could be Virginia or others whom the Poe
speaker loves, and the sorrow of a lover whose beautiful lady
has been taken from him by death.
“The Raven”
This poem was first printed on January 29, 1845, in
the New York Evening Mirror and was soon reprinted
in the February issue of the American Review.
Poe received $10 for it but also with world-wide fame.
“The “Philosophy of Composition” had explanatory
notes step by step on the creative process Poe went
through in fashioning the poem.
The poem exists in 16 different versions, which
suggests that Poe had built it up over a period of
years (1841-1844).
The Symbol
The next-to-last stanza describes the end of
action, since the raven refuses to leave, and
what follows is the unending feeling of stark
wretchedness, symbolized by the immobile
raven, with its evil dreaming eyes and its
engulfing shadow.
The raven is revealed as a symbol—not of
death, but in Poe’s memorable phrase, of
“Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance.”
“The Philosophy of Composition”
 This piece of work was written in 1846, as an
essay on the creation of “The Raven.”
 Poe describes that composing a poem is a
mathematical problem  “by a species of fine
frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively
shudder at letting the public take a peep behind
the scenes.” (753, B1599)
 Poe expresses that a piece of work must have a
single effect which could be read at one sitting 
Length: 100 Lines/poem, and “The Raven” has
108 Lines (754, B1599-1600)
 The Philosophy of Composition
In addition, “The Raven” is written backwards.
 Effect  Plot  The piece of work
 Beauty + Death=the death of a beautiful woman
 Melancholy
 Subject and Tone
 “Nevermore”
 After the climax no meaning for the narrator the
search the moral of “Nevermore”
 "Mournful and never-ending remembrance."
Works Cited
 “Who was E.A. Poe?” Edgar Allen
Poe.
<http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/poe/>.
 Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1949)
<http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/eapoe.htm>