Edgar Allan Poe

1809-1849
Edgar Allan Poe1809-1849
an American poet, short-story writer,
editor and literary critic, and is
considered part of the American
Romantic Movement. Best known for
his tales of mystery and the macabre,
Poe was one of the earliest American
practitioners of the short story and is
considered the inventor of the
detective-fiction genre. He is further
credited with contributing to the
emerging genre of science fiction. He
was the first well-known American
writer to try to earn a living through
writing alone, resulting in a financially
difficult life and career.
Edgar Allan Poe1809-1849
Life
Significance
Works
Evaluation and conclusion
Life
He lived a short and tragic life.

(1) His childhood was a miserable one. He lost both of
his parents when he was very young and then he was
adopted by a wealthy merchant, John Allan. Poes
relation with the Allans was unhappy.
(2) He entered University of Virginia and then West Point
but did not finish.
(3) He worked as editor and writer most of his life and he
was always poor.
(4) At 27 he married his thirteen-year-old cousin, whose
death in 1847 left him inconsolable.
Significance
father of modern short story
father of detective story
father of psychoanalytic criticism
Works
List of his works
Achievements
Poetry
Short Stories
Features of his works
Conclusion

List of his works
Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque
MS. Found in a Bottle
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Masque of the Red Death
The Cask of Amontillado
The Raven
Israfel
Annabel Lee
To Helen
The Poetic Principle
The Philosophy of Composition
The Tell Tale Heart
Achievements
He wrote all kinds of literary productions. Among all his works, his
poems and short stories are more famous.

(1) Poems
A. Theory
Poems should be short, concise and readable at one sitting;
The aim of poem writing is beauty; the most beautiful thing described by a
poem is the death of a beautiful woman; the desirable tone of a poem is
melancholy;
He opposed didactic poems;
He stressed the form of poem, especially the beautiful and neat rhyme.
His poetry theory is not fair at all time. For example, according to him,
Paradise Lost is not a good poem.

B. Famous poems: The Raven, Annabel Lee, To Helen etc.
C. All his poems were written according to his poetry theory and his
poems have strong dreamy color.
Achievements
(2) Short Story
A. Theory
B. Sample: The Fall of the House of Usher
(P143.)
Features of his works
a. Gothic elements
b. deep analysis of human psychology (He
noticed subconscious of human mind nearly one
hundred year before Freud. ) (He was also the
first American author who took neurotic
characters as main characters in his stories.)
c. precursor of detective stories (e.g. The
Murders in the Rue Morgue) and science
stories
Evaluation
Poe remained the most controversial and most
misunderstood literary figure in the history of
American literature.
Emerson dismissed him in three words the
jingle man ()Mark Twain declared
his prose to be unreadable. And Whitman was
the only famous literary figure present at the Poe
Memorial Ceremony in 1875.
Today, Poes particular power has ensured his
position among the greatest writers of the world.
Conclusion
style: ordinary, traditional
language: mannerism
a controversial figure in American literary history
(Poe was criticized by several famous American
writers, such as Emerson, Henry James and
Mark Twain. However, his works was welcomed
in Europe, especially in France.)
great influence on aesthetism, William Faulkner,
Baudelaire

The End