Edgar Allen Poe RESPONSE

Edgar Allen Poe was a great writer and critic of his time Edgar Allen Poe was a great writer and critic of his time. His prose is exemplary and I believe no one has matched his perfection since. Many people believe Poe was a negative man with many bad qualities in his personality. Many say he drank, gambled and used drugs. Even so, this would explain the darkness and gloom in his writing. It is even believed that Poe took some of his writing from dreams.

Every mind “every mind, Poe thought, is capable of falling into madness at any given time.” I think this is what made Poe’s writing so dark. Poe’s work seems as though it could be reality. This evoked emotions of fear and terror in the reader. No other poet has been able to match the type of terror as in Poe’s works. Poe’s prose works

“Poe’s critical doctrines find their best exemplification in his own poems. He is, first of all, a poet of beauty, paying little heed to morality or to the life of his fellow-men. He is, in the second place, a master-craftsman, who has produced a dozen poems of a melody incomparable so far as the western world is concerned; and he has achieved an all but flawless construction of the whole in such poems as The Raven, The Haunted Palace, and The Conqueror Worm; while in The Bells he has performed a feat in onomatopœia quite unapproached before or since in the English language. He is, moreover, one of the most original of poets. And the best of his verse exhibits a spontaneity and finish and perfection of phrase, as well as, at times, a vividness of imagery, that it is difficult to match elsewhere in American poetry.” I agree that Poe was a master-craftsman. After reading many of his poems I can see that they are written to perfection beyond what people are capable of today. Next is Poe’s last poem, It’s one of my favorites………

Annabel Lee It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of ANNABEL LEE; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. 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; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsman came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me- Yes The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me- Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we- Of many far wiser than we- And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. 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; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride, In the sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea.

“within the realm of the lyric he confined himself to the narrowest range of ideas. Nature he employed merely as ornament or as symbol or to fill in the background; and nowhere in his poems does he deal with the life about him, except in so far as he writes of friends and kindred. His most constant theme—if we exclude the poet himself, for few writers have so constantly reflected themselves in their work—is either the death of a beautiful woman and the grief occasioned thereby, or the realm of shades—the spirit-world—a subject to which he was strongly attracted, especially in his middle years. Hence, although most European critics have accorded him first place among American poets, most American critics have hesitated to accept their verdict.” I think that Poe may have use his writing as a way to get away from the life about him. I agree with the fact that he didn’t portray nature the way it should have been portrayed. But without the dark side, the spirit world, and the death. Poe would not have had the same effect upon his readers as what he had.

Edgar Allen Poe is unarguably an amazing writer and poet.

Websites Used wwww.bartleby.com www.americanpoems.com/poets/poe server31.hypermart.net/ crowolf/armoire.html