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GABRIELA AYALA
MPORTANT FACTS ABOUT EDGAR ALLAN POE 1. His mother was Elizabeth Arnold Poe and she died when Edgar was just three years old. 2. Edgar’s father, David, was an alcoholic and abandoned Edgar and his two siblings after Elizabeth’s death. 3. John and Frances Allan took Edgar in but never officially adopted him. 4. When he began to write, he wrote under the name Edgar Allan Poe. 5. Obsessed with cats, he often wrote with a Siamese cat on his shoulder. 6. Poe is credited for defining the modern short story. 7. He was the first person to use the word “short story”.
P
OE’S INSPIRATION WRITE
Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Edgar Allan Poe wrote to escape from his reality, and his stories relate to his experiences. There are a few ways in which his works relate to his life. Poe’s life was very depressing, which helped his inspiration for his dark stories. He was separated from his parents and siblings at birth, and went on to watch the rest of his family die around him. These dark events in his life stimulated his unique and creepy style of writing, which is what he is famous for.
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8. “The Raven” was a personal challenge Poe imposed upon himself. 9. The American football team the Baltimore Ravens are named in honor of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem ‘The Raven’. 10. Poe has a reputation for being a writer with a morbid imagination which he used to construct his weird tales.
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IME IN WHICH HIS LITERARY WORK WAS DISCOVERED Edgar Allan Poe's work was discovered when he was 18 years old in 1847, when he writes and prints his first book "Tamerlane and other Poems" Then when he was 26 years old in 1835 won a contest for "The Manuscript Found in a Bottle". These are some of the events that made him start his career as writer and poet.
F
AMOUS WRITERS THAT WERE POE’S FRIENDS George Rex Graham (Owner of Graham’s Magazine) Henry Beck Hirst (Poe’s first biographer) John Sartain (Owner of Sartain’s Union Magazine) Mrs. Susan Archer Tally Weiss (Author of The Home Life of Poe and several articles on Poe.) Nathaniel Parker Willis (Editor of the Evening Mirror, and later the Home Journal) Charles Dickens
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NALYSIS ABOUT POE’S LIFE
Edgar Allan Poe probably considered himself as a poet, and he wrote poetry to express his feelings. His talent was in the literary field. He is remembered as a short story writer, a poet, an essayist, and a critic. He filled up pages of the magazines he edited with his own writings. He would have had no serious financial problems if he hadn't had a drinking problem. His poem "The Raven" was a huge popular success, and he often read this poem in theaters. Poe has a reputation for being a writer with an extraordinary imagination which he used to make his weird short stories and poems. He always wanted to demonstrate de dark side of humanity in his work. He found a way to make such wonderful art from his suffering.
E
DGAR ALLAN POE´S WORK
Alone (1830) Al Aaraaf (1829) The Angel of the Odd--An Extravaganza (1850) Annabel Lee (1849) The Assignation (1834) The Balloon-Hoax (1850) The Bells (1849) Berenice (1835) The Black Cat (1843) Bon-Bon (1850) Bridal Ballad (1837) The Business Man (1850) The Cask of Amontillado (1846) The City In the Sea (1831) The Coliseum (1833) The Colloquy of Monos And Una (1850) The Conqueror Worm (1843) The Conversation of Eiros And Charmion (1850) Criticism (1850) A Descent Into the Maelstrom (1841) The Devil In the Belfry Diddling (1850) The Domain of Arnheim (1850) A Dream (1827) Dreamland (1844) Dreams (1827) A Dream Within A Dream (1827) The Duc De L'Omlette (1850) Eldorado (1849) Eleonora (1850) Elizabeth (1850) An Enigma (1848) Eulalie (1845) Eureka--A Prose Poem (1848) Evening Star (1827)
The Facts In the Case of M. Valdemar (1845) Fairy-Land (1829) The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) For Annie (1849) Four Beasts In One--the HomoCameleopard (1850) The Gold-Bug (1843) Hans Phaall (1850) "The Happiest Day, the Happiest Hour" (1827) The Haunted Palace (1839) Hop-Frog Or the Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs (1850) How To Write A Blackwood Article (1850) Hymn (1835) Imitation The Imp of the Perverse (1850) The Island of the Fay (1850) Israfel (1831) King Pest (1835) The Lake. To -- (1827) Landor's Cottage (1850) The Landscape Garden (1850) Lenore (1831) Ligeia (1838) Lionizing (1850) Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq. (1850) Loss of Breath (1850) The Man of the Crowd (1840) The Man That Was Used Up (1850) Manuscript Found In A Bottle (1833) Marginalia (1844-49) The Masque of the Red Death (1842) Mellonta Tauta (1850) Mesmeric Revelation (1844) Metzengerstein (1850) Morella (1850) Morning On the Wissahiccon (1850) The Murders In the Rue Morgue (1841) The Mystery of Marie Roget (1850) Mystification (1850)
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1850) Never Bet the Devil Your Head (1850) The Oblong Box (1850) The Oval Portrait (1850) The Pit And the Pendulum (1842) The Power of Words (1850) A Predicament (1838) The Premature Burial (1850) The Purloined Letter (1845) The Raven (1845) Romance (1829) Scenes From 'Politian' (1835) Serenade (1850) Shadow--A Parable (1850) Silence--A Fable (1837) The Sleeper (1831) Some Words With A Mummy (1850) Song (1827) Sonnet Silence (1840) Sonnet to Science (1829) Sonnet to Zante (1837) The Spectacles (1850) The Sphinx (1850) Spirits of the Dead (1827) Stanzas (1827) The System of Dr. Tarr And Prof. Fether (1850) Tale of Jerusalem (1850) A Tale of the Ragged Mountains (1850) Tamerlane (1827) The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) The Thousand-And-Second Tale of Scheherazade (1850) Thou Art the Man (1850) Three Sundays In A Week (1850) To -- (1830) To ----- (1829) To F-- (1835) To F--S S. O--D (1835) To Helen (1831) To Helen (1848) To M-- (1830) To M.L.S. (1847) To My Mother (1849)
To One In Paradise (1834) To the River (1829) Ulalame (1847) A Valentine (1846) The Valley of Unrest (1831) Von Kempelen And His Discovery (1850) Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand In A Sling (1850) William Wilson (1839) X-Ing A Paragrab (1850)
F
AMOUS STORIES
1.
The Cask of Amontillado
The narrator begins by telling us that Fortunato has hurt him. Even worse, Fortunato has insulted him. The narrator must get revenge. He meets Fortunato, who is all dressed up in jester clothes for a carnival celebration − and is already very drunk. The narrator mentions he’s found a barrel of a rare brandy called Amontillado. Fortunato expresses eager interest in verifying the wine’s authenticity. So he and the narrator go to the underground graveyard, or “catacomb,” of the Montresor family. Apparently, that’s where the narrator keeps his wine. The narrator leads Fortunato deeper and deeper into the catacomb, getting him drunker and drunker along the way. Fortunato keeps coughing, and the narrator constantly suggests that Fortunato is too sick to be down among the damp crypts, and should go back. Fortunato just keeps talking about the Amontillado. Eventually, Fortunato walks into a man-sized hole that’s part of the wall of a really nasty crypt. The narrator chains Fortunato to the wall, then begins to close Fortunato in the hole by filling in the opening with bricks. When he has one brick left, he psychologically tortures Fortunato until he begs for mercy – and we finally learn the narrator’s name: Fortunato calls him “Montresor.” After Fortunato cries out Montresor’s name, he doesn’t have any more lines. But just before Montresor puts in the last brick, Fortunato jingles his bells. Then Montresor finishes the job and leaves him there to die. At the very end, Montresor tells us that the whole affair happened fifty years ago, and nobody has found out.
INSPIRATION
The inspiration for "The Cask of Amontillado" came from a story Poe had heard at Castle Island. According to this legend, while stationed at Castle Island in 1827 he saw a monument to Lieutenant Robert Massie. Massie had been killed in a sword duel on Christmas Day 1817 by Lieutenant Gustavus Drane, following a dispute during a card game. Other soldiers then took revenge on Drane by getting him drunk, luring him into the dungeon, chaining him to a wall, and sealing him in a vault.
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MESSAGE
Be careful how you treat others. No doubt, the Golden Rule is one message. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Montresor has taken insult upon insult from Fortunato. He has suffered a thousand injuries. Montresor has had enough. Also, you reap what you sew. Fortunato has sown grevious insults and now he will reap the ultimate insult. Montresor is about to put Fortunato behind a wall, there to die.
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GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
SETTING An underground catacomb, somewhere in Italy, during the carnival season
CHARACTERS
The Cask of Amontillado
Montresor Fortunato
PLOT The story starts on the day that Montresor took his revenge on Fortunato.
Montresor lures Fortunato into a private wine-tasting excursion in the catacombs. Fortunato enters and Montresor quickly chains him to the wall.
Montresor walls up the niche, entombing his friend alive. Fortunato screams for help, but nobody can hear them.
CONFLICT
RESOLUTION
Angry over numerous injuries and insults, he plans to murder his friend when hewas drunk.
Montresor buried Fortunato alive in the catacombs of his house.
2.
The Black Cat
The story is presented as a first-person narrative using an unreliable narrator. He is a condemned man at the outset of the story. The narrator tells us that from an early age he has loved animals. He and his wife have many pets, including a large, beautiful black cat (as described by the narrator) named Pluto. This cat is especially fond of the narrator and vice versa. Their mutual friendship lasts for several years, until the narrator becomes an alcoholic. One night, after coming home completely intoxicated, he believes the cat to be avoiding him. When he tries to seize it, the panicked cat bites the narrator, and in a fit of rage, he seizes the animal, pulls a pen-knife from his pocket, and deliberately gouges out the cat's eye. From that moment onward, the cat flees in terror at his master's approach. At first, the narrator is remorseful and regrets his cruelty. "But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of perverseness." He takes the cat out in the garden one morning and ties a noose around its neck, hanging it from a tree where it dies. That very night, his house mysteriously catches fire, forcing the narrator, his wife and their servant to flee the premises. The next day, the narrator returns to the ruins of his home to find, imprinted on the single wall that survived the fire, the apparition of a gigantic cat, with a rope around the animal's neck. At first, this image deeply disturbs the narrator, but gradually he determines a logical explanation for it, that someone outside had cut the cat from the tree and thrown the dead creature into the bedroom to wake him during the fire. The narrator begins to miss Pluto, feeling guilty. Some time later, he finds a similar cat in a tavern. It is the same size and color as the original and is even missing an eye. The only difference is a large white patch on the animal's chest. The narrator takes it home, but soon begins to loathe, even fear the creature. After a time, the white patch of fur begins to take shape and, to the narrator, forms the shape of the gallows. This terrifies and angers him more, and he avoids the cat whenever possible. Then, one day when the narrator and his wife are visiting the cellar in their new home, the cat gets under its master's feet and nearly trips him down the stairs. Enraged, the man grabs an axe and tries to kill the cat but is stopped by his wife- whom, out of fury, he kills instead. To conceal her body he removes bricks from a protrusion in the wall, places her body there, and repairs the hole. A few days later, when the police show up at the house to investigate the wife's disappearance, they find nothing and the narrator goes free. The cat, which he intended to kill as well, has also gone missing. This grants him the freedom to sleep, even with the burden of murder. On the last day of the investigation, the narrator accompanies the police into the cellar. They still find nothing significant. Then, completely confident in his own safety, the narrator comments on the sturdiness of the building and raps upon the wall he had built around his wife's body. A loud,
inhuman wailing sound fills the room. The alarmed police tear down the wall and find the wife's corpse, and on rotting head, to the utter horror of the narrator, is the screeching black cat. As he words it: "I had walled the monster up within the tomb!".
INSPIRATION
Edgar Allan Poe wrote this story inspired in his adiction to cats, and murder cases. Poe writes this story from the perspective of the narrator. Telling the story from the first person point of view, intensifies the effect of moral shock and horror. His story does not deal with premeditated murder. The reader is told that the narrator appears to be a happily married man, who has always been exceedingly kind and gentle.
MESSAGE
The story is written from the narrator's jail cell, highlighting the theme of "Freedom and Confinement." The narrator writes from a space of confinement, and detailing the events that led him to prison is one of the few freedoms he has left. This tension between freedom and confinement is repeated throughout the story, and is particularly intense when we look at some other aspects of the setting.
GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
The Black Cat
CHARACTERS
SETTING
Narrator
Both houses seem like prison cells for everyone involved, especially the man's wife and pets.
Pluto Wife
PLOT The narrator is in jail and awaiting to be executed, for the brutal murder of his wife. He says that something terrible has happened and that something has terrified him.
During one of the many fits of temporary madness that the he endures after drinking, he tortures Pluto. He lost control of himself and his fate.
Someone sets fire to the narrator's house, this could be Pluto's revenge.
CONFLICT
RESOLUTION
The narrator has a drinking problem. Explains that after getting his cat, Pluto, he developed a tendency to drink heavily and is abusing of his wife and other pets. .
The narrator is found out and the crime is exposed because the sounds of a meowing cat were heard coming from the wall.
3.
The Tell-Tale Heart
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a first-person narrative of an unnamed narrator who insists he is sane but suffering from a disease (nervousness) which causes "over-acuteness of the senses". The old man with whom he lives has a clouded, pale, blue "vulture-like" eye which so distresses the narrator that he plots to murder the old man, though the narrator states that he loves the old man, and hates only the eye. The narrator insists that his careful precision in committing the murder shows that he cannot possibly be insane. For seven nights, the narrator opens the door of the old man's room, in order to shine a sliver of light onto the "evil eye". However, the old man's vulture-eye is always closed, making it impossible to "do the work". On the eighth night, the old man awakens after the narrator's hand slips and makes a noise, interrupting the narrator's nightly ritual. But the narrator does not draw back and, after some time, decides to open his lantern. A single thin ray of light shines out and lands precisely on the "evil eye", revealing that it is wide open. Hearing the old man's heart beating loudly and dangerously fast from terror, the narrator decides to strike, jumping out with a loud yell and smothering the old man with his own bed. The narrator then dismembers the body and conceals the pieces under the floorboards, making certain to hide all signs of the crime. Even so, the old man's scream during the night causes a neighbor to report to the police. The narrator invites the three arriving officers in to look around. He claims that the screams heard were his own in a nightmare and that the man is absent in the country. Confident that they will not find any evidence of the murder, the narrator brings chairs for them and they sit in the old man's room, on the very spot where the body is concealed, yet they suspect nothing, as the narrator has a pleasant and easy manner about him. The narrator, however, begins to feel uncomfortable and notices a ringing in his ears. As the ringing grows louder, the narrator comes to the conclusion that it is the heartbeat of the old man coming from under the floorboards. The sound increases steadily, though the officers seem to pay no attention to it. Terrified by the violent beating of the heart, and convinced that the officers are aware of not only the heartbeat, but his guilt as well, the narrator breaks down and confesses. He tells them to tear up the floorboards to reveal the body.
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INSPIRATION
The inspiration was a description by Daniel Webster of a real crime committed in Massachusetts, when John Francis Knapp employed Richard Crowninshield, Jr., of Danvers, to rob and kill Joseph White of Salem on the night of April 6, 1830. The criminals were apprehended and Crowninshield committed suicide
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MESSAGE
In the end of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart," readers should leave with one message or moral: that murder is wrong. Given that a moral is the relating of behavior in regards to right and wrong, the speaker, alone, simply cannot come to terms with what he has done. That being said, while the beating is understood by the speaker as the heart of the old man, readers know that it is, instead, his own heart beating in his ears.
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GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
The Tell-Tale Heart
CHARACTERS Narrator Old man
PLOT
SETTING
The story takes place inside a random old house about which few details are directly given.
The narrator wants to show he is not insane, and offers a story as proof. In that story, the initial situation is the narrator's decision to kill the old man.
The narrator makes a noise while spying on the old man, and the man wakes up and opens his eye.
The narrator kills the old man with his own bed and then cuts up the body and hides it under the bedroom floor.
CONFLICT
When the police arrived the murderer was calm and then he started hearing an awful and annoying ringing.
RESOLUTION
The narrator goes to the old man's room every night for a week, but the sleeping man wont' open his eye. The narrator cannot kill him.
At the end, the narrator concludes that the sound was "the beating of the man's hideous heart!"
4. The Masque of the Red Death
After five or six months, Prospero decides to hold a grand masked ball, which he holds in the seven rooms of an imperial suite. Instead of having the suite form one long hall, Prospero has the apartments segregated by sharp turns, and tall stained glass windows on each side of the room look out into the surrounding corridor. Each room features a different color, which matches the color of the window: the first room is blue, the second purple, the third green, the fourth orange, the fifth white, and the sixth violet. The seventh room, however, is slightly different in that although the dominant color is black, the windows are blood red. The lights shining through the window from the corridors creates such a ghastly effect in this room that most of the guests avoid the room altogether. In this apartment is also a giant ebony clock, whose pendulum swings ominously and whose hourly ringing is so disturbing that it invariably disconcerts the musicians, dancers, and other revelers, causing everyone to pause until the chimes fade away, at which point everyone nervously resumes their actions. Other than the unnerving seventh room, the ball is boldly and wildly decorated in a way that hints at Prospero's potential madness. The masqueraders' costumes are similarly wild, almost to the point of grotesqueness, and the party is described as "a multitude of dreams," despite the regular interruption of the gaiety by the ebony clock. All the apartments are crowded except for the seventh, and the ball continues until the stroke of midnight. At midnight, when the clock strikes twelve times, a masked figure appears whose costume arouses emotions in the crowd that range from surprise and disapproval to terror. He stands out even in the gaudily dressed crowd because he is dressed as the Red Death. The tall, thin figure wears funeral garments marked with blood and a mask that resembles a corpse with the disease's characteristic red stains. Despite their debauchery, the crowd is stunned rather than amused by the costume, and, from the blue room, Prospero angrily demands into the silence that the figure be seized, unmasked, and hanged. The prince's courtiers begin to move towards the masked intruder, but the figure begins to slowly walk towards Prospero, and everyone in the crowd is too afraid to grab him. By the time he reaches the violet room, Prospero becomes enraged and ashamed of his temporary lack of courage, and he rushes through the six rooms towards the masked intruder, wielding a dagger. At first the intruder retreats towards the seventh apartment, but when Prospero approaches the figure at the end of the violet room, the latter turns to face Prospero, who drops the dagger as he falls dead to the floor on the black carpet of the seventh room.
In despair, the crowd finally swarms around the unmoving figure of the Red Death, but they realize to their horror that there is no tangible body underneath the figure's mask and funeral garments. The revelers realize that the Red Death has finally caught up with them "like a thief in the night," and one by one, all of the partygoers fall, despairing and dying, to the floor. As the last of the guests dies, the ebony clock ceases to work, "and Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."
INSPIRATION
The disease called the Red Death is fictitious. Poe describes it as causing "sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores" leading to death within half an hour. It is likely that the disease was inspired by tuberculosis (or consumption, as it was known then), since Poe's wife Virginia was suffering from the disease at the time the story was written. Like the character of Prince Prospero, Poe tried to ignore the fatality of the disease. Poe's mother Eliza, brother William, and foster mother Frances Allan had also died of tuberculosis. Alternatively, the Red Death may refer to cholera; Poe would have witnessed an epidemic of cholera in Baltimore, Maryland in 1831.
MESSAGE
The main theme is how death cannot be denied. No one can escape it. In this story, Prince Prospero has a party and locks his guests and himself in his home in order to avoid contracting the Red Death, a plague that is marked by the loss of blood, especially on the face. Prospero should have known that this was not an intelligent thing to do; however, because the rich and wealthy and those born into nobility quite frequently saw themselves as being better than others and more blessed, this jaded his judgment. In the end, everyone dies at the party, including Prince Prospero.
GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
The Masque of the Red Death PLOT The disease ravages his people and the Prince decides to hide from it in an abbey with many of his friends. A guest is seen covered in red as though he has been sprinkled with blood and all the partiers are scared. After that, the guest rushes back toward the black room.
CHARACTERS
SETTING
Prince Prospero red death
The story is set in Prince Prospero's luxurious "castellated abbey", hidden somewhere in his kingdom.
After a few months in the abbey, the Prince decides to give a masquerade party to break the monotony of the cloistered time.
Everything is weird at the party and the giant black clock threateningly chimes the hour and makes everyones freeze.
CONFLICT
RESOLUTION
The Red Death It is a hideous, horrific disease symbolized by blood coming from every orifice of the victim.
All of the party everyone dies and bleeds . The clock stops, and the party is over. The Red Death conquered everything.
guests
5.
Ligeia
After offering a quote by Joseph Glanvill claiming that man only yields to death if his will is not strong enough, the unnamed narrator explains that he does not remember any details about his original acquaintance with Ligeia. Although he remembers her knowledge, her beauty, and her thrilling voice, he does not associate the acquisition of these memories with a specific moment. He believes that he met her in an old city near the Rhine River, but he cannot recall what she said about her family, and he never asked for her last name, despite having married her. Despite not recalling these details, he remembers her very clearly and describes her as tall and slender, to the point of emaciation upon her deathbed. He mentions her majestic demeanor and the lightness of her steps, as well as her strange but exquisite features, pale skin, and black, curly hair. The narrator recalls Ligeia's brilliant black eyes with particular accuracy, as they give him a sense of rapture that he compares to his emotions when viewing certain stars or watching the ocean. He repeats Glanvill's quote and connects it to Ligeia, whose serene exterior hides a fierce passion that her eyes still express, which both "delighted and appalled" the narrator. He also speaks of Ligeia's learning and skill with languages, which surpassed his own knowledge. Because of her superior intelligence, she helps him understand "the chaotic world of metaphysical studies" during their first years as a married couple. Although the couple lives happily for some time, Ligeia eventually falls extremely ill. Both Ligeia and her husband firmly try to resist her impending death, and not until the last is her placid appearance outwardly disturbed by her mental turbulence. She pours out her love for her husband, who recognizes her wild longing for life, and she asks him to read her verses from a poem that she recently composed. The poem describes a throng of angels watching a play performed by mimes who are controlled by "vast formless things." After a moment, a blood-red crawling object enters and writhes "with mortal pangs" while eating the mimes, to the distress of the angels. The curtain falls, and the angels confirm that the tragedy is called "Man" and the hero is the Conqueror Worm. Ligeia asks if the conqueror can be avoided, and her last words are a reference to Glanvill's quote, affirming her belief that man only dies because of his weak will. Distraught, the narrator leaves the ancient city on the Rhine and purchases a gloomy old abbey in a remote area of England. He marries the blonde, blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine, and their bridal chamber is a pentagonal room in one of the towers with a window that is tinted so as to give a ghastly light, a vaulted oak ceiling with Gothic and Druidical designs, furniture of Eastern origin and black granite sarcophagi, and gigantic gold tapestries that give a phantasmagoric effect. Rowena does not love her husband and fears his temper, but he loathes her and does not care. Instead, he indulges in opium and dreams of Ligeia's beauty and love. In the second month of their marriage, Rowena suddenly falls ill and speaks of hearing noises, which the narrator blames on illusions created by the Gothic atmosphere of the bridal chamber. She recovers briefly before commencing a series of increasingly severe illnesses, and the narrator observes that she is fearful of movements in the chamber. To calm her, he goes to give her some light wine, but to his surprise, he senses the shadow of a shade. Being under the influence of opium, he ignores it and pours a goblet of wine for his
wife. As Rowena drinks, he thinks he hears someone moving and sees a few drops of red liquid fall into the goblet. Rowena sees nothing, and he guesses that the opium was simply giving him hallucinations. Three days later, Rowena dies, and the next day, the narrator sits next to her body in the bridal chamber. He recalls the shadow that he saw before looking at Rowena, but instead of thinking of his second wife, he begins to think only about Ligeia. Around midnight, he is startled by a low sob and begins to intently watch Rowena's body. For a few moments, he sees some color return to her face, and he supposes that Rowena is still alive, but he has no way to immediately call the servants and continues to watch. However, soon the body returns to death, and the narrator resumes daydreaming of Ligeia. After an hour, the process of semi-revival repeats and the narrator attempts to help her, but she returns to death, and he returns to thoughts of his first wife. The process occurs several more times, and each time the corpse seems to return more finally to death, until eventually she manages to rise from the bed and walk a few steps towards him. The confused and frightened narrator asks himself if Rowena has revived, but he notices that she has grown taller, and he tears away her funeral shroud to find that her hair is not blonde but black. She opens her eyes, and he realizes that Ligeia - not Rowena - is standing before him.
INSPIRATION
Poe inspired in his death wife Virginia.
MESSAGE
In Ligeia death is never the end. Right from the start we’re forced to consider that, though dying is probably the end, there’s a small possibility that people can overcome it and return to life.
GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
Ligeia
CHARACTERS
SETTING
Narrator
the world is gray and most everything is old and decaying.
Ligeia Lady Rowena
PLOT The narrator doesn't know what to do without Ligeia and moves to England where he marries Lady Rowena.
The narrator watches in horror and amazement a Rowena's body comes back to life, and then falls quickly back to death.
Rowena rises from her bed, but the narrator notices that something is not quite right with her.
CONFLICT Ligeia suddenly becomes ill and dies. With Ligeia's sickness and death, the narrator dreams go away. He does not have hope and no guidance.
RESOLUTION Rowena becomes Ligeia.
6.
Eleonora
The story follows an unnamed narrator who lives with his cousin and aunt in "The Valley of the Many-Colored Grass", an idyllic paradise full of fragrant flowers, fantastic trees, and a "River of Silence". It remains untrodden by the footsteps of strangers and so they live isolated but happy. After living like this for fifteen years, "Love entered" the hearts of the narrator and his cousin Eleonora. The valley reflected the beauty of their young love: The passion which had for centuries distinguished our race... together breathed a delirious bliss over the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. A change fell upon all things. Strange, brilliant flowers, star-shaped, burst out upon the trees where no flowers had been known before. The tints of the green carpet deepened; and when, one by one, the white daisies shrank away, there sprang up in place of them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life arose in our paths; for the tallflamingo, hitherto unseen, with all gay flowing birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us. Eleonora, however, was sick — "made perfect in loveliness only to die". She does not fear death, but fears that the narrator will leave the valley after her death and transfer his love to someone else. The narrator emotionally vows to her, with "the Mighty Ruler of the Universe" as his witness, to never bind himself in marriage "to any daughter on Earth". After Eleonora's death, however, the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass begins to lose its lustre and warmth. The narrator chooses to leave to an unnamed "strange city". There, he meets a woman named Ermengarde and, without guilt, marries her. Eleonora soon visits the narrator from beyond the grave and grants her blessings to the couple. "Thou art absolved", she says, "for reasons which shall be made known to thee in Heaven."
INSPIRATION
Many biographers consider "Eleonora" an autobiographical story written for Poe to alleviate his own feelings of guilt for considering other women for love. At the time of the publication of this very short tale, his wife Virginia had just begun to show signs of illness, though she would not die for another five years. The narrator, then, is Poe himself, living with his young cousin (soon-to-be wife) and his aunt.
MESSAGE
The message in "Eleonora" is that a man is allowed to wed without guilt after the death of his first love. The maintheme: the death of a beautiful woman. After her death, Poe uses a literary device called “sublime”: it is the“rebirth or reincarnation of the beloved”, suggesting “that the romantic idealist may, mad though he be, finally achieve some success in his quest for a higher meaning”.
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GRAPHIC ORGANIZER C
Eleonora
CHARACTERS
SETTING
Narrator
The Valley of Many-Colored Grass, the River of Silence, a forest of thousands of trees, hills, millions of flowers.
Eleonora Aunt Ermengarde
PLOT The story follows an unnamed narrator who lives with his cousin and aunt in "The Valley of the ManyColored Grass". The narrator chooses to leave to an unnamed "strange city". There, he meets a woman named Ermengarde and, without guilt, marries her.
After living like this for fifteen years, "Love entered" the hearts of the narrator and his cousin Eleonora.
After Eleonora's death, however, the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass begins to lose its lustre and warmth.
CONFLICT
RESOLUTION Eleonora soon visits the narrator from beyond the grave and grants her blessings to the couple.
Eleonora was sick and fears that the narrator will leave the valley after her death and transfer his love to someone else.
7.
Berenice
The narrator, Egaeus, is a studious young man who grows up in a large gloomy mansion with his cousin Berenice. He suffers from a type of obsessive disorder, a monomania that makes him fixate on objects. She, originally beautiful, suffers from some unspecified degenerative illness, with periods of catalepsy a particular symptom, which he refers to as a trance. Nevertheless, they are due to be married. One afternoon, Egaeus sees Berenice as he sits in the library. When she smiles, he focuses on her teeth. His obsession grips him, and for days he drifts in and out of awareness, constantly thinking about the teeth. He imagines himself holding the teeth and turning them over to examine them from all angles. At one point a servant tells him that Berenice has died and shall be buried. When he next becomes aware, with an inexplicable terror, he finds a lamp and a small box in front of him. Another servant enters, reporting that a grave has been violated, and a shrouded disfigured body found, still alive. Egaeus finds his clothes are covered in mud and blood, and opens the box to find it contains dental instruments and "thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking substances" – Berenice's teeth. The Latin epigraph, "Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas," at the head of the text may be translated as: "My companion said to me, if I would visit the grave of my friend, I might somewhat alleviate my worries." This quote is also seen by Egaeus in an open book towards the end of the story.
INSPIRATION
Charm City wasn't charming in Poe's age. According to historian Frank Shivers, Poe may have been inspired to write "Berenice" by news about people robbing graves to steal teeth to sell to dentists.
MESSAGE
We can never be aware of all the danger that surround us, even our relatives can cause us any type of danger.
GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
CHARACTERS
SETTING
Egaeus
A large gloomy mansion, in the library where Egaeus was born.
Berenice
Berenice
PLOT The story begins with the narrator telling us that we cannot scape misery.
Egaeus has a disorder, he loses reality and Berenice isn't energetic anymore and she has seizures.
Egaeus has an odd feeling about Berenice, and a servant tells him that she is dead and that someone has violated her grave.
RESOLUTION CONFLICT They were supposed to get married, but Berenice dies before they can do it.
Egaeus finds his clothes are covered in mud and blood, and opens the box to find it contains dental instruments and Berenice's teeth.
8.
The Oval Portrait
The tale begins with an injured narrator (the story offers no further explanation of his or her impairment) seeking refuge in an abandoned mansion in the Apennines. The narrator spends his or her time admiring the paintings that decorate the strangely shaped room and perusing a volume, found upon a pillow that describes them. Upon moving the candle closer to the book, the narrator immediately discovers a beforeunnoticed painting depicting the head and shoulders of a young girl. The picture inexplicably enthralls the narrator "for an hour perhaps". After steady reflection, he or she realizes that the painting's "absolute life-likeliness' of expression is the captivating feature. The narrator eagerly consults the book for an explanation of the picture. The remainder of the story henceforth is a quote from this book — a story within a story.
The book describes a tragic story involving a young maiden of "the rarest beauty". She loved and wedded an eccentric painter who cared more about his work than anything else in the world, including his wife. The painter eventually asked his wife to sit for him, and she obediently consented, sitting "meekly for many weeks" in his turret chamber. The painter worked so diligently at his task that he did not recognize his wife's fading health, as she, being a loving wife, continually "smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly". As the painter neared the end of his work, he let no one enter the turret chamber and rarely took his eyes off the canvas, even to watch his wife. After "many weeks had passed," he finally finished his work. As he looked on the completed image, however, he felt appalled, as he exclaimed, "This is indeed Life itself!" Thereafter, he turned suddenly to regard his bride and discovered that she had died.
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INSPIRATION
His friend Thomas Sully's painting of a girl holding in her hand a locket that hung on a ribbon about her bare neck, or by Tintoretto, who painted a portrait of his dead daughter.
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MESSAGE
The central idea of the story resides in the confusing relationship between art and life. In "The Oval Portrait", art and the addiction to it are ultimately depicted as killers, responsible for the young bride's death. In this context, one can synonymously equate art with death, whereas the relationship between art and life is consequently considered as a rivalry. It takes Poe's theory that poetry as art is the rhythmical creation of beauty, and that the most poetical topic in the world is the death of a beautiful woman (see "The Philosophy of Composition"). "The Oval Portrait" suggests that the woman's beauty condemns her to death.
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GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
The Oval Portrait
CHARACTERS
SETTING
Narrator
The first half of the 19th century. In a chateau in the Apennines, a mountain range in centra Italy.
Pedro woman in the portrait painter
PLOT Pedro is forced to take refuge in a chateau, he stumbled a great number of spirited modern paintings.
Consulting he book, Pedro discovered that the woman in the painting was the painter's wife.
The painter becomes obsessed with his painting. He works continously.
CONFLICT
RESOLUTION
Pedro finds a portrait that he describe as an absolute life-likeness of expression.
The painter turns to address his wife and discovered that she was dead.
9.
William Wilson
The story follows a man of "a noble descent" who calls himself William Wilson because, although denouncing his profligate past, he does not accept blame[dubious – discuss]for his actions, saying that "man was never thus [...] tempted before". After several paragraphs, the narration then segues into a description of Wilson's boyhood, which was spent in a school "in a misty-looking village of England". William meets another boy in his school who shared the same name, who had roughly the same appearance, and who was even born on exactly the same date. William's name (he asserts that his actual name is only similar to "William Wilson") embarrasses him because it sounds "plebeian" or common, and he is irked that he must hear the name twice as much on account of the other William. The boy also dresses like William, walks like him, and even looks like him, but he could only speak in a whisper, he imitates that whisper exactly. He begins to give orders to William of an unspecified nature, which he refuses to obey, resenting the boy's "arrogance". One night he stole into the other William's bedroom and saw that the boy's face had suddenly become different. Upon seeing this, William left the academy immediately in horror, and in the same week, the other boy followed him. William eventually attends Eton and Oxford, gradually becoming more debauched and performing what he terms "mischief". For example, he stole from a man by cheating at cards. The other William appeared, his face covered, whispered a few words sufficient to alert others to William's behavior, and leaves with no others seeing his face. In his latest caper, he tries to seduce a married woman but the other William stops him at a ball in Rome; the enraged William drags his "unresisting" double—who was wearing identical clothes—into an antechamber, and stabs him fatally. After William does this, a large mirror suddenly seems to appear. Reflected at him, he sees "mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood": apparently the dead double, "but he spoke no longer in a whisper". The narrator feels as if he is pronouncing the words: "In me didst thou exist—and in my death, see [...] how utterly thou hast murdered thyself."
INSPIRATION
The setting of "William Wilson" is semi-autobiographical and relates to Poe's residence in England as a boy. The "misty-looking village of England" of the story is Stoke Newington, now a suburb of north London. The school is based on the Manor House School in Stoke Newington which Poe attended from 1817 to 1820. Poe's headmaster there, the Reverend John Bransby, shares the same name as the headmaster in the story, though, in the latter, he acquires the dignity of being a "Doctor".
MESSAGE
"William Wilson" clearly explores the theme of the double. This second self-haunts the protagonist and leads him to insanity and also represents his own insanity. According to Poe biographer, Arthur Hobson Quinn, the second self represents the conscience. This division of the self is reinforced by the narrator's admission that "William Wilson" is actually a pseudonym. The name itself is an interesting choice: "son" of "will". In other words, William Wilson has willed himself into being along with the double which shares that name.
GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
SETTING
CHARACTERS
William Wilson
The narrator starts in an undisclosed location and flashes back to an England village.
William Wilson William Wilson
PLOT William Wilson has some special connection to the narrator, and probably suspect that he is not actually a real person.
William Wilson stabs his double. This would seem to be the sudden and brutal fall into utter evil that Wilson spoke of in his introduction.
Wilson is on the verge of discovering the truth. He sees only his own reflection. William's double explains that William only lived through him.
CONFLICT
RESOLUTION
A second William Wilson, alike in looks, demeanor, and mannerism appears.
William has murdered himself.
10. The
Spectacles
The narrator, 22-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte, changes his last name from "Froissart" to "Simpson" as a requirement to inherit a large sum from a distant cousin, Adolphus Simpson. At the opera he sees a beautiful woman in the audience and falls in love instantly. He describes her beauty at length, despite not being able to see her well; he requires spectacles but, in his vanity, "resolutely refused to employ them". His companion Talbot identifies the woman as Madame Eugenie Lalande, a wealthy widow, and promises to introduce the two. He courts her and proposes marriage; she makes him promise that, on their wedding night, he will wear his spectacles. When he puts on the spectacles, he sees that she is a toothless old woman. He expresses horror at her appearance, and even more so when he learns she is 82 years old. She begins a rant about a very foolish descendant of hers, one Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart. He realizes that she is his great-great-grandmother. Madame Lalande, who is also Mrs. Simpson, had come to America to meet her husband's heir. She was accompanied by a much younger relative, Madame Stephanie Lalande. Whenever the narrator spoke of "Madame Lalande", everyone assumed he meant the younger woman. When the elder Madame Lalande discovered that he had mistaken her for a young woman because of his eyesight, and that he had been openly courting her instead of being civil to a relative, she decided to play a trick on him with the help of Talbot and another confederate. Their wedding was a fake. He ends by marrying Madame Stephanie and vows to "never be met without SPECTACLES" — having acquired a pair of his own at last.
INSPIRATION
Besides warning readers to obey their eye doctors, Poe seems to be addressing the concept of "love at first sight" — in fact, the first line of the story points out that "it was the fashion to ridicule the idea." Yet, the story is presented to "add another to the already almost innumerable instances of the truth of the position" that love at first sight does exist. The irony is that the narrator does not have a "first sight" of the woman he falls in love with, due to his lack of spectacles.
MESSAGE
The story is based around vanity. The narrator changes his name, with "much repugnance", from Froissart to Simpson, "a rather usual and plebeian" name in order to collect inheritance. His original patronym, he says, elicited in him "a very pardonable pride". This same pride kept him from wearing spectacles. Madame Lalande admits that she was teaching him a lesson.
GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
PLOT
CHARACTERS
Napoleon sees a beautiful woman in the audience and falls in love instantly, despite not being able to see her well, he requires spectacles but refused to employ them.
Napoleon Bonaparte
The Spectacles
Madame Eugine Madame Stephanie
His companion identifies the woman as Madame Eugenie Lalande. He courts her and proposes marriage; she makes him promise that, on their wedding night, he will wear his spectacles.
She was accompanied by a much younger relative, Madame Stephanie Lalande. Whenever the narrator spoke of "Madame Lalande", everyone assumed he meant the younger woman.
She decided to play a trick on him with the help of Talbot and another confederate.
CONFLICT
RESOLUTION
When he puts on the spectacles, he sees that she is a toothless old woman. He expresses horror at her appearance, and even more so when he learns she is his great-great-grandmother.
Their wedding was a fake. He ends by marrying Madame Stephanie and vows to "never be met without SPECTACLES" — having acquired a pair of his own at last.
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RITERS INSPIRED BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
● Daniel Hoffman A playful meditation on Poe by Hoffman, himself an important poet. Poe's poetry and his theories on poetry influenced all of his writing. Hoffman is extremely knowledge about Poe, but also not afraid of personal insights into Poe's work. This book doesn't try to explain to us why Poe is important to the world, or what Poe is "about" in some large sense; instead, it tells us what Poe is about for one reader's life, perhaps an angle more appropriate to Edgar. STORIES: 1. Poe Poe Poe 2. An Armada of Thirty Whales 3. Makes You Stop and Think: Sonnets
● Borges Borges is a reader and student of Poe's mystery fiction. Poe's original tales of C Auguste Dupin, the first literary detective, still excite interest and raise questions about exactly what the substance of detective fiction really is. Borges complicates those questions further and helps us see the genre more clearly inside his interlocking, fascinating puzzles. A great introduction to Borges and a gloss on Poe. STORIES: 1. Labyrinths 2. Edgar Allan Poe 3. The end
● Arthur Conan Doyle Arthur Conan Doyle once said that Edgar Allan Poe's stories were "a model for all time." Just how much Doyle relied on Poe's model when he developed his own contribution to detective, crime, and murder mystery books and stories can readily be seen when one examines the internal evidence of the stories both men wrote. STORIES: 1. Sherlock Holmes 2. A study in Scarlet 3. The sign of the four
● Peter Straub Originally, Straub planned that the characters in Ghost Story would retell the tales of several early American horror writers, including Poe. Although he took this out of the plan for the book, Poe's traces can still be found in this smart, addictive novel about a group of friends haunted by personal and societal demons. STORIES: 1. Poe’s Children 2. Ghost Story 3. A Dark Matter
● Scott Peeples Peeples, president of the Poe Studies Association in the United States, chooses a perfect framework for a study of Poe. Poe did not really become the Poe we know until after his death. Peeples expertly examines responses to Poe's writings as well as his life in the century and a half since his death. His chapter on Poe's death, and the way it has been perceived, stands among the very best texts on the subject. STORIES: 1. The Afterlife of Poe 2. Black House
● Philip Roth One of Poe's most lasting legacies is that of the narrator who is frantic, frenetic, a little deranged, who nevertheless somehow grows on us. We trust his world vision even when we don't believe a word he's saying. Roth's Portnoy is a great example of a latter-day evolution of that species of Poe's narrators. He is delusional but somehow in touch with a cultural and emotional reality that is evocative and unforgettable. There is also a sexual self-torture that cannot fail to remind us of Poe's characters. STORIES: 1. Portnoy’s Complaint 2. The human stain 3. The Ghost Writer
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CTUAL TV PROGRAMS INSPIRED BY POE
The Raven Many of Poe's short stories have been made into movies and short films. Most recently was the film, The Raven, staring John Cusack as Poe. The film is about a serial killer, obsessed with Poe's work, and uses Poe's stories as the layout for his murders and Poe is trying to catch this killer. The basis of the film is, "The only one who can stop a serial killer is the man who inspired him."
● The Following One of the most popular inspirations from Poe's work in today's culture is hit television series on Fox, "The Following." Starring Kevin Bacon, the show is related to the idea that people become so obsessed with Poe's work that they form a cult of murderers. This is the same basic idea as "The Raven" except "The Following" puts this into a modern, large scale context.
● Tomb of Ligeia A man's obsession with his dead wife drives a wedge between him and his new bride.
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IBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, Hervey. Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe. 2 vols. New York: George H. Doran Co., 1926. Reprint. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1956.
http://www.enotes.com/topics/edgar-allan-poe
http://www.eapoe.org/people/pmpindx.htm
http://www.biography.com/people/edgar-allan-poe-9443160
http://poestories.com/biography.php