Edger Allan Poe

[Katie]

I've been learning a lot about him in English class and I think he's very interesting to learn about. So far I've read the Tell-Tale Heart: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/poe/telltale.html

 

And the Black Cat: http://www.online-literature.com/poe/24/

 

Your thoughts on Edger?

[RheaZen]

I've read some of his stuff. The Tell-Tale Heart is definitely one of the most memorable one.

[Sorrowgrave]

you need to read the Raven and The Cask Of Amontillado

[chuhulil]

I was a child and she was a child

In this kingdom by the sea

But we loved with a love that was more than love

I and my Annabel Lee

 

We learned that one in English class. And it's my favorite of his.

Edited February 13, 2011 by chuhulil

[satyr76]

I love The Raven.

[Walker]

I have no respect for Edgar Allen Poe. He married his 12 year old cousin when he was in his 20s. Any man like that, no matter how good his writing, is not anyone I want to look up to. I don't care if it was considered more socially acceptable in that era by the way. Actually, the changed the age on the girl's birth certificate to make her look older so they were obviously trying to hide it. They knew it was shocking and wrong. He was, quite frankly, a jerk and a drunkard.

[satyr76]

I have no respect for Edgar Allen Poe. He married his 12 year old cousin when he was in his 20s. Any man like that, no matter how good his writing, is not anyone I want to look up to. I don't care if it was considered more socially acceptable in that era by the way. Actually, the changed the age on the girl's birth certificate to make her look older so they were obviously trying to hide it. They knew it was shocking and wrong. He was, quite frankly, a jerk and a drunkard.

O.o

My school said she was fourteen...

Of course, it's still disturbing either way, but...

[Walker]

lol We were both slightly wrong. She was 13. Either way though, that's some creepy stuff.

[Outer Space]

I have no respect for Edgar Allen Poe. He married his 12 year old cousin when he was in his 20s. Any man like that, no matter how good his writing, is not anyone I want to look up to. I don't care if it was considered more socially acceptable in that era by the way. Actually, the changed the age on the girl's birth certificate to make her look older so they were obviously trying to hide it. They knew it was shocking and wrong. He was, quite frankly, a jerk and a drunkard.

A human's private life (and his entire life) has nothing to do with his works. Poe is one the most brilliant poets ever. History knows a lot of genius men perversions, still they are brilliant: for their works, not for their life.

 

Also, the social circumstances in Poe's time were very different. Would you judge an african in 5-6 century AD for taking a 12-years old girl as his wife? Social rules change, as the time passes.

[olympe]

My thoughts? Call him Edgar... /shot

[SnowSherry]

I read one, "The Fall of the House of Usher"

 

It was by accident, when I was about 9 years old, and it was not really a book but one of those picture flip kid 'books' with about less than 30 pages but it was really scary and intriguing all the same... some of the imagery just sticks in my head.

 

Marrying child brides is so wrong, but still in various parts of the world, in this day and age.. THEY ARE STILL DOING THIS! (capped for extra emphasis)

[Kazeko]

I was a child and she was a child

In this kingdom by the sea

But we loved with a love that was more than love

I and my Annabel Lee.

I love that poem. <3 So much less disturbing than a lot of his other works.

 

"The Raven" is pretty great though, as is The Cask of Amontillado--damned creepy, both of them, but epic.

 

My chorus sang an arrangement of his "Bells". Only the first stanza, though; I went and looked up the rest of the poem, and from a cheery stanza about bells at Christmas the narrator goes slowly insane.

 

...

 

I think his "Telltale Heart" gave me a chronic fear of rhythmic bumping noises, especially the sounds my house makes at night, which sometimes I can't tell if they're in my head or outside.

[Dr. Paine]

The Masque of the Red Death is my favorite... especially after seeing it illustrated by Gris Grimly.

[HawktalonOfRiverClan]

I skimmed through the Tell-Tale Heart at the library once. It was so dark and creepy!

[Fishpaste]

I love how creepy his stories are

[klinneah]

Not everything of his is creepy:

 

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

 

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

 

[Hycla]

Has anyone read The Gold Bug? It was hilarious. So was The Mummy. Frankly, I don't find a lot of Poe's works creepy, just slightly disturbed. I mean, How to Write a Blackwood Article was actually mainly a satire, not a haunted house/murder/detective short story. I don't deny that Poe wrote some pretty creepy stuff, but he had a good stock of humor, also. I dunno, maybe my head is just twisted and Poe is supposed to give me nightmares, but I it hasn't happened yet.

[LascielsShadow]

(You mean thoughts other than his first name has an "a" in it?)

...

The marriage was supported/encouraged by her mother. And they didn't live so much as husband and wife as brother and sister, at least for the first two years after they married, and that they might not ever have actually *consummated* said marriage. (Meaning, it's possible to likely that there was no sex.) There was also the financial aspect-he had more money than they did, so, while they weren't living in anything like luxury, he was a help to them, and him marrying Virgina kept her from being married off to someone else. He loved her so dearly that he never quite recovered from her loss (which is kinda obvious if you look at some of his works after her death). *sigh* People make it sound like he was some perv who only wanted to get into a little girl's skirts or something. Also, I don't know that it's entirely fair to call him an alcoholic, precisely. While he may have drunk more than was good for him *on occasion* but had long periods (months to years) of abstinence from drink between those times and though there are a couple of legitimate incidents that were reported, plenty of what you hear about him in that regard (And re drugs of any sort) is lies and/or exaggeration.

(I'm not an expert or anything, just a long time fan and Baltimorean who's really mudkipzing tired of seeing all the bull**** about him bandied about like fact.)

 

I'm a pretty big Poe fan (er, if that wasn't already evident. ) and like some stories that don't get mentioned often, like The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether and X-ing a Paragrab, and one of my favourite poems is Alone, which for some reason does not always appear in collections of his work. I'm as much a fan of his humour as I am of the creepier stuff he wrote because you've got to have at least a little bit of funny along with all of the darker stuff, not that I don't absolutely adore all of the dark and disturbed stories.

Edited February 18, 2011 by LascielsShadow

[Ninjaassassin]

His writing iz so epically creepy but awesome. o.o The Cask of Amontallado (or however you spell it) made me so creeped out. o.e

[Infinis]

Not everything of his is creepy:

 

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

 

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

8D Now I know where that quote at the beginning of The Fog came from (I knew it was by Poe, I just didn't where he'd written it |D)

 

I loved The Fall of the House of Usher and The Tell-Tale Heart, though my favorite work of Poe's has to be The Raven.

 

Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore!'

 

x3

 

I also liked The Cask of Amontillado and The Black Cat. The latter was kinda weird. e_e

[bloodred-dragonfly]

I don't know much about his private life but I love his work.

Who am I to judge? I wasn't alife back then. I wasn't there to see what he did and how he lived.

I'm just reading his stories and poems and I leka them.

 

Especially The Raven and his story about the Premature Burial... the fear of every human being...

It still creeps me out... to think someone wakes up and has to realize that they are burried and noone hears them scream or knock or cry.

The same with 'Berenice' here...

 

And The Murders in the Rue Morgue are brilliant as well!

[Orlageddon]

I've read like everything from him I could get translated to Czech (everyone seems to publish just about five stories, excluding the Rue Morgue , my English teacher lent me a book of his works and I had to return it because I had read all of these already). I especially enjoyed The Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum, and Some Words With a Mummy of the stories, and all of his poems.

[FengShien]

Hey, I DID grow with Poe. I was 4 when I read the first thing from him (The Black Cat, of course I didn't understood it at all ) Now I've read all I've found of him, (mostly all of him bwahahaha ) and I have a special love for a short story called "silence", and of course the classic ones like the Raven. I highly recommend you keep reading his stuff, not only as a school homework....

[Dauntingale]

Oh my god. Edgar Allan Poe is my poetry idol. The first time I read him was in 9th grade. The first poem of his I read was "The Bells". Oh my god, "The Bells". It was the best. He's the best. I loved him so much I mentioned him on my college apps and annotated several of his poems. I think my poetry writing style is sort of like his (but so inferior in comparison).

[ishlia]

I love Poe's works, very much. I've probably read everything (except the two novels) he wrote both in English and in Chinese (in several versions, although I much prefer them in English, the feelings are very different), most of them several times. Of his short stories, I especially like "The Masque of the Red Death", "Hop-Frog", "Ligeia", "Morella", and some I cannot recall (my poor memories). As of his poems there're too many to number. The ones that I can remember immediately are "Annabel Lee"(!), "Along", "A Dream Within a Dream", "The Conqueror Worm", and "The City in the Sea". Too bad that beautiful arts are often born from tragedies.

Edited January 6, 2015 by ishlia