Life Darker Than Night By Edgar Allan Poe - 961 Words

Life Darker than Night Great American writer and creator of short stories, Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. According to Charles E. May, a literary scholar, who specializes in the study of the short story, â€Å"Poe is very important in the history of American culture †¦ , he developed short fictions as a genre that was to have a major impact on American literature†¦ in nineteenth century† (May 5). Despite the huge amount short stories written and sold, Poe unsuccessfully tried to fix his financial situation. Poe s life experiences, including his poverty, alcoholism, depression, and the deaths of those he loved, greatly influenced his short story writing. From birth in an impoverished actor’s family and during all his life, Poe fought with poverty as his heroes fights with poverty in his short stories. â€Å"Lack of copyright laws made the work of the great English writers readily available at low cost,† observes May in his †Å"Edgar Allan Poe† article (May 5). Poe’s bibliographer, J. Lasley Dameron, comments in his â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† article that John Allan, Poe’s foster father, died without leaving anything in his will, though Poe counted on getting something from him, but he was not lucky in that either (Dameron 5). Poe’s financial problems are reflected in some of his short stories; for example, Mr. William Legrand, in the tale â€Å"The Gold Bug†. The main hero, Mr. Legrand, is a descendant of a wealthy family that became bankrupt after of failure followsShow MoreRelatedWhy Should We Care?1748 Words   |  7 PagesWhy Should We Care?: Edgar Allan Poe â€Å"Few creatures of the night have captured [reader’s] imagination[s] like [Edgar Allan Poe]† (â€Å"Vampires†). Poe has fascinated the literary world since he first became known for writing in 1829, when he was just twenty years old (Chronology†). While he is widely known for exploring the macabre, his work is controversial because of its psychologically disturbing nature. Edgar Allan Poe is worth examining as an author because his many contributions to the literaryRead MoreEdgar Allan Poe, Jr.1735 Words   |  7 Pages Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 to Elizabeth Allan Poe and David Poe, Jr., a Scotch-Irish family in Boston, Massachusetts. Edger was an American artist, short story author, manager and commentator and one of the pioneers of the American Romantics. He is best known for his stories of the grotesque and his ballads, and being one of the early specialists of the short story and a forebear of investigator fiction, and wrongdoing fiction in the United States. Edgar parents and grandfatherRead More Deep into Darkness Peering Essay1711 Words   |  7 PagesEdgar Allan Poe is considered to be one of America’s most prominent poets. While his reputation precedes him, there is little that is actually known about the famous author. 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Slavery was banned in England in 1833 and a year later, The SpanishRead MorePoe vs. Shakespeare Essay1556 Words   |  7 PagesThe Comparison of Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare Brandi Greene University Composition and Communication I/COM155 May 9th, 2013 University of Phoenix The Comparison of Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare Many have been inspired by the likes of Edgar Allen Poe and Shakespeare in literature but, there are similarities and differences between the two. Each author could lure their audiences by the characteristics of their writing. Their places in society alsoRead MoreThe, Mystery And The Macabre By Edgar Allan Poe1261 Words   |  6 PagesEdgar Allan Poe was an iconic American writer, editor, and critic. Active between the years 1827 and 1849, he is best known for his poetry and short stories (Edgar Allan Poe). Particular interest lies in his gothic themed works that featured death, mystery and the macabre. He is highly regarded as the proponent in chief of the modern short story and also acknowledged for fostering the development of the â€Å"art for art’s sake† movement in nineteenth-century European literature (Poe, Edgar A.; BloomRead MoreAnalysis Of Edgar Allan Poe s Tell Tale Heart Essay1401 Words   |  6 Pagesdown. You begin to start picking on the girl with th e pale skin with dark short hair. You grow up in life and you continue to judge people. You become the stereotypical â€Å"mean girl’ in life. But are you a mean girl only because you are insecure about yourself, or do you genuinely have nothing better to offer society than cruel comments on people’s appearance. Very much like a â€Å"mean girl† in Edgar Allan Poe’s Tell Tale Heart, it is a thrilling mystery with murder. The story is basically about a man whoRead MoreEdgar Allan Poe s The Cask Of Amontillado2477 Words   |  10 Pagesauthors like Edgar Allan Poe wrote dark short stories like â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado† about the world around him. Dark romantics focused heavily on nature like all romantics did, but it had more of a darker approach to nature. Dark romantics helped develop gothic style writing, the gothic style was like the darker romantics, but it also delved more into the supernatural and in to the mind of the characters. Poe w as known as one of the best at gothic fiction. He took parts of his life and put themRead MoreEdgar Allan Poe s The Tell Tale Heart And The Fall Of The House Of Usher Essay2099 Words   |  9 PagesEdgar Allan Poe’s works contain many Gothic elements like fear, gloom, death, the supernatural, and horror, as well as several romantic characteristics, such as high emotions, nature and a focus on individuality. Through the use of these elements, Poe is able effectively enhance a reader’s emotions and produce sensations of mystery. The short stories â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† and â€Å"The Fall of the House of Usher† by Edgar Allan Poe contain many of these elements, and in this paper I will analyze why theseRead MoreEdgar Allan Poe s The Raven And The Black Cat1225 Words   |  5 Pages Although now seen as the father of the modern horror story, Edgar Allan Poe was previously viewed as a drunken failure. Within Poe’s writings much of his own life riddled with guilt, anxiety, alcohol, depression and death shines through resulting in works that appear unrelated yet once dissected prove similar. This is true for Poe’s works â€Å"The Raven† and â€Å"The Black Cat†. Poe’s examples of gothic fiction share the use of the color black and a rapid digression of the narrator s sanity while seemingly