EDGAR ALLAN POEAnna Selles

Biography Edgar Allan Poe was born

January 19, 1809 in Boston Massachusetts

Son of actors Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins and David Poe

His father deserted the family soon after he was born and his mother died a year later

He was taken in by the family of John Allan, a wealthy Virginia merchant

Biography The Allans provided for Poe’s

education In 1826 he entered the University of

Virginia where he studied Latin and poetry

While in school he accumulated large gambling debts and his stepfather refused to pay them

He was forced to leave school In 1827 he joined the army While in the army he published his first

volume of poetry Tamerlane and Other Poems

Biography In 1829 he published a second volume

Al Araaf The following year Poe’s stepfather

helped him get into the West Point Military Academy

He was expelled within a year though for academic violations and this resulted in a permanent break with his stepfather

Poe moved to Baltimore to live with his aunt Maria Clemm

She was mother of Virginia Clemm (1822-1847) who would become Poe’s wife at the age of 13

They got married in 1836 and moved to New York City

Biography Poe continued writing and

working as editor for several magazines, but could hardly support himself

After his third book of poetry, Poems , failed to bring him money or recognition, he began to write fiction

Five of his short stories were published in newspapers in 1832

In 1938 he published his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym

Biography Poe’s short stories gained

him some recognition and his poem “The Raven” was greeted with enthusiasm

Despite this he was never able to escape from poverty

In 1847 his wife Virginia died Two years later in 1849 Poe

died alone and penniless

Writing Style Over the years some writers and critics

have harshly criticized Poe’s writing Other have praised him for his use of

vivid imagery, sound effects, and for exploring the dark side of humanity

Poe is also said to be the father of detective fiction

Many of his stories foreshadowed science fiction, horror, and fantasy

Literary Period Edgar Allan Poe wrote

during the Romantic period from 1800-1860

The genre of writing included character sketches, slave narrative, poetry, and short stories

Big ideas of this time period were the freedom of imagination and the integrity of nature

Historical Context Poe was writing when publishing greatly expanded and

the industrial revolution brought new ideas Around the beginning of the 1800s the printing of

newspapers doubled and many more people read them Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo, the Great Depression

begins in the 30s, and the Californian Gold Rush begins

Historical Context In the early 1800s many other well

known people were born including, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickenson, and Charles Dickens

The Raven

The speaker, is a man who is lamenting the death of his lover, Lenore

He is reading a book of ancient stories to occupy his mind, but a tapping noise interrupts him

He opens the door to his bedroom but only sees darkness The tapping continues and he opens the shutter of the window

and discovers the raven It flies in and lands on the bust of Pallas (Athena) The speaker begins talking to the raven but it says “Nevermore” to all his thoughts and wishes At the end of the poem the speaker asks if he will ever see his beloved again and the raven say never again (“nevermore”), even in heaven

The Raven Narrator- a man who has lost his love, a women

called Lenore, he lonely and depressed and possibly mentally unstable

Atmosphere- Poe creates a very gloomy, sorrowful mood. He establishes the mood by the time of night, the bleak weather, and how the speaker is trying to forget his sorrow in books

He also uses words like weary, dreary, bleak, dying, sorrow, sad, darkness, stillness, mystery, grave, lonely, grim, ghastly, and gaunt.  

Setting- the chamber of a house at midnight

The Raven

“The Raven” has a musical effect when read. To achieve this Poe uses rhyming:

internal rhyme- words rhyming in the same line “Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the

bleak December” End rhyme- a word at the end of one line

that rhymes with a word at the end of another line

The Raven

Lines 2, 4, 5, and 6 rhyme in each stanza

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow  From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore- For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-   Nameless here for evermore.  

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,   "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I imploreBut the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,   And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,   That I scarce was sure I heard you"- here I opened wide the door;-   Darkness there, and nothing more. 

The Raven

Poe also uses alliteration, consonance, and assonance to give his poem musical quality

Alliteration- the repetition of similar sounds, usually consonants at the beginnings of words “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly

there came a tapping.” “From my books surcease of sorrow—

sorrow for the lost Lenore-”

The Raven Consonance- the repetition of consonant

sounds at the ends of words “As of some one gently rapping, rapping at

my chamber door.” “Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’ ”

Assonance- the repetition of vowel sounds “And the silken sad uncertain rustling of

each purple curtain” “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I

pondered, weak and weary”

The Raven Metaphor- The gaze of the raven is

compared to a fire. “To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned

into my bosom's core;”

Biblical allusion- Jeremiah 8:22- is there any cure for my depression? “Is there- is there balm in Gilead?- tell me-

tell me, I implore!".

The Raven Personification- of the lamp

“On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er”

Reference to Greek mythology- the narrator believes the raven is from the River Styx in the Underworld- which is where the dead are. Pluto is lord of the Underworld. The raven is more than a raven. “Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering

from the Nightly shore- Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's

Plutonian shore!"

The Tell-Tale Heart The narrator is obsessed with the

vulture-like eye of old man he lives with He decides to get rid of the eye by killing

the old man He smothers the old man, dismembers

the body, and then hides it under the floorboards

The police come to investigate and the narrator tries to keep his cool

He thinks he hears the beating of the old man’s heart

He panics, thinking that the police know his secret

He rips up the floorboards and confesses his crime

The Tell-Tale Heart Narrator- he is an “unreliable narrator” – he either

can’t or won’t tell us what “really” happened The narrator is trying to prove his sanity He admits that he has an intensely powerful sense

of hearing “I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I

heard many things in hell.” He is obviously sick in his mind and body Unreliable narrators are interesting because they

represent a basic part of being human- we all get confused and do and say things we don’t mean to

This confusions is taken to the extreme in The Tell-tale Heart

The Tell-Tale Heart Writing Style- there are many very short

precise sentences “Object there was none. Passion there was

none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.”

The narrator sees his hypersensitivity as proof for his sanity which allows him to tell the story in a precise and complete way

Poe keeps out all extra details in his writing to show the obsessions of the narrator- the old man’s eye, the heartbeat

The Tell-Tale Heart In The Tell-Tale Heart the eye of the old

man has a very important part in the story

The narrator is completely obsessed with this eye

He sees the eye as completely separate from the old man

This allows the narrator to murder the old man while saying that he still loves him

A central contradiction in the story is the fact that the narrator can love and hate at the same time

The Tell-Tale Heart The narrator’s heightened sense of sound is also

important because it eventually overcomes him It proves that he can’t tell between real and

imagined sounds He obsesses over the old man’s very quiet heart

beat, but doesn’t pay any attention to his shrieks which wake up the neighbors and bring the police

In the end we see the more he insists that he is calm, the more he cannot escape the beating of his own heart, which he actually mistakes as the old mans

The Tell-Tale Heart Poe uses this whole story to explore how

something in your mind can completely control you

As the story goes along we can see how the narrator is losing his grasp on reality

In the end the narrator’s paranoia and guilt make it inevitable that he will give himself away

Bibliography

http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/Raven.html#Text

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/context.html

http://www.enotes.com/raven http://www.online-literature.com/poe/ http://

www.shmoop.com/tell-tale-heart/old-man-eye-symbol.html

Prentice Hall Literature- The American Experience