“The Purloined Letter” Blog Post

by Nathan P.

             While Edgar Allan Poe had the tendency to gravitate towards the macabre, he also served as a pioneer for the western detective genre with his set of three detective stories. In contrast to his more well-known short stories of imagination and emotion (a darker counterpart to romanticism), “[The detective stories] have logical explanation. The fantastic aspect is not presented. In all these stories, we know at the end who is guilty, and who causes the crimes” (Castillo). Unlike one of Poe’s trademark works, “The Raven,” the main character’s decisions are not driven by a tickling lunacy, but stone-cold intellect and reasoning; this variance in his own works reflect the slow shift of literature from the romantic era (which peaked in the 1840’s) towards the era of realism (which fittingly became popular in the second half of the 19^th century).

The inconsistency of the nature “The Purloined Letter,” when compared to the other works of the time, is strengthened by the publishing date – 1844, a year following the peak of romanticism and preceding the beginning of realism. Frankly, during this year, while romanticism still lived prominently, the genre was beginning to grow stale in the eyes of the public. According to George Lippard, an accomplished writer of Poe’s time, with regards to Poe’s “Lady Annabel”, “…thus, your style, although generally nervous, is at times somewhat exuberant — but the work, as a whole, will be admitted, by all but your personal enemies, to be richly inventive and imaginative — indicative of genius in its author” (Lippard). Lippard’s description summarizes romanticism as a whole, an undoubtedly common opinion on the genre that might have spurred Poe’s interest in the world of super sleuthing.

One final thing to note is that, while Poe was an accomplished dark romantic, “The Purloined Letter” seems to even mock romantic thoughts, and promote those of realists, rewarding those who look with their intellects, and not their hearts. With regards to the ability of solving the story’s mystery, Jacques Lacan, who gave a seminar on this story, said, “This would no doubt be too much to ask them, not because of their lack of insight but rather because of ours. For their imbecility is neither of the individual nor the corporative variety; its source is subjective” (Lacan). The aforementioned subjectivity refers to the collective opinion of the then common romantic masses of minds, and the inability to cope with the mysteries of the future without first looking at the world in a more realistic way.

 

Castillo, Marisol R. “Edgar Allan Poe, The Murders In The Rue Morgue And The Detective        Story.” Web log post. Academia. Web. 14 Aug. 2013.

Lacan, Jacques. “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter.’” Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida, and   psychoanalytic reading. Eds. John P. Muller and Willian J. Richardson. Baltimore: John   Hopkins University Press, 1988. 39.

Thomas, Dwight. Poe in Philadelphia, 1838-1844. Diss. University of Pennsylvania, 1978. Print.

“The City in the Sea” Blog Post

by Angel M.

During Mr Poe’s life he dealt with the death of two important figures in his life, his mother and his wife which both had sub come to the treacherous death of tuberculosis (Edgar Allan Poe – Biography). The first death lead him to be taken in by the Allan family who cared for him until he went off to the military. After some years Mr. Poe went on to marry his cousin who after a few years of marriage was dying of tuberculosis. Having to witness the death of two important people in his life Mr. Poe sought some comfort in drinking his sorrows away (Edgar Allan Poe – Biography), because after  witnessing  a disease that attacks a person’s pulmonary track, which lead to terrible sweats, fever and bloody cough must have taken its toll on Mr. Poe’s psyche (Tuberculosis Symptoms). With this so called “motivation” Poe went on to write many poems and narrative such as “The Raven” which dealt with horrifying deaths such as this poem (Edgar Allan Poe – Biography). This poem was published three times with three different names each one that signified death, despair, and sin. The first publication was named the “Doomed City”, then “The City of Sin”, and finally in 1845 became known as the “The City in the Sea” (Cummings Study Guide). Although they were published with different names these works all had the same theme and underlying theme of death, doom, swelling seas, and of water turning red. These themes can be perceived to be reflections of what Mr. Poe felt and saw during the death of his wife and mother. With the disease came feelings of despair and doom, which rose from the constant deterioration of his wife and mother, that drained him of all hope that his wife or mother could be “saved” in a mortal way and also religious manner . Knowing their fate of death only prolonged the vivid imagery of their lungs filling with fluids and turning into blood as it was expelled from their bodies.  These images are present and play a role in many of Mr. Poe’s literary works which portrayed death in a horrid way.

 

“Cummings Study Guide.” Poe’s The City in the Sea: A Study Guide. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Aug. 2013.

“Edgar Allan Poe – Biography.” Edgar Allan Poe. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Aug. 2013.

“Tuberculosis Symptoms.” Tuberculosis Symptoms. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Aug. 2013.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” Blog Post

by Anthony M.

                  Edgar Allan Poe originally published “The Fall of the House of Usher” within the Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine in 1839 (eapoe.org). A year later Poe republished the short story within his two volume anthology entitled The Grotesque and Arabesque. Normally the term Arabesque describes the complexity of Islamic architecture and art. However, the association of the words grotesque and arabesque within the title implies Poe’s association of Islamic art to disturbance and fear. Within his article, UCSB PhD alumni, Jacob Rama Berman claims, “Poe’s own adoption of the arabesque illuminates his aesthetic fascination with decadence and decay” (Berman 132).  At the same time, other American writers also contributed these same qualities to the arabesque. Popular with writers of the nineteenth century, authors like Melville and Twain also wrote about the desolation of the Holy Land with their works Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage to the Holy Land (1876) and The Innocents Abroad: or, The New Pilgrims’ Progress (1869). Modern scholars claim that Poe’s anthology and particularly “The Fall of the House of Usher” was “part of a larger nineteenth-century European Romantic fascination with the arabesque” (Berman 132). Scholars at the time coined this attraction with the arabesque within the century as “Holy Land mania” (Obenzinger). This “mania” emerged from the idea that America was the New Israel; a nation chosen by God as the new promised land (Obenzinger). Disappointingly when scholars like Herman Melville and John Lloyd Stephen returned they often described the land as desolate, therefore, raising apprehension about America’s potential future. As an editor during this “Holy Land mania,” Poe reviewed many works in regards to this topic.  After examining the work of John Stephen’s travel narratives, Poe himself described the contemporary Palestine as “the visible effects of the divine displeasure” (Poe 152). Poe himself could not resist the mania and used its association with decay within his anthology and short stories.

Modern scholars like Jacob Rama Berman, and Molly K. Robey, have recently taken Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” into a historical context in regards to the “Holy Land mania.” In her paper “Poe and Prophecy: Degeneration in the Holy Land and the House of Usher” Molly K. Robey claims that the description of Roderick Usher’s deterioration as a transformation from Hebrew to Arab comments on the fear and anxiety that America may become the contemporary Palestine.

 

Sources:

Berman , Jacob Rama. ‘Domestic Terror and Poe’s Arabesque Interior’, ESC, 31/1 (March 2005): 128-150.

Obenzinger, Hilton. American Palestine: Melville, Twain, and the Holy Land Mania. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1999. Print.

Poe, Edgar Allan. ‘Palæstine’, Southern Literary Messenger, February 1836, p. 152

Robey, Molly K. “Poe And Prophecy: Degeneration In The Holy Land And The House Of Usher.” Gothic Studies 12.2 (2010): 61-69. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Aug. 2013.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” Blog Post

by Meggie T.

Edgar Allan Poe’s short narrative, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” was first published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine in September 1839. It was later revised and republished in the Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. However, the poem “The Haunted Palace” within the short story was separately published earlier in an issue of Baltimore Museum magazine. Voloshin suggested that the poem was incorporated into the narrative to give the poem more context as well as “a representation of the fall of thought” in the story as well as the turning point (Voloshin 22).

Thomas Dunn English, Poe’s physician and alienated friend, claimed that he tried to sell his poem “The Haunted Palace” to John L. O’Sullivan, editor of The Democratic Review (Winwar 355). However, English believed O’Sullivan rejected the offer because he had trouble comprehending the poem. Instead, Poe’s poem was published in the April 1839 issue of Baltimore Museum. Voloshin’s suggestion is consistent with Poe’s later incorporation of his poem into “The Fall of the House of Usher.” 

After the poem was published, Poe’s rival, Rufus Wilmot Griswold raised suspicion that the poem was plagiarized from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Beleaguered City.” Longfellow’s “’Beleaguered City’ is designed to imply a mind beset with lunatic fancies; and this is, identically, the intention of ‘The Haunted Palace’” (Longfellow). Even the title of Longfellow’s poem is a paraphrased version of Poe’s. In 1841, Poe wrote a letter to Griswold addressing the plagiarism suspicion and claimed that it was actually Longfellow who plagiarized him. Poe stated in his letter that although both poem shared many similarities, the “allegorical conduct, the style of its versification & expression” were all his own. He also notese c that Longfellow’s poem was published six weeks after his appeared in Baltimore’s Museum (Poe).

Even with Griswold’s suspicion, “The Haunted Palace” was one of the poems featured in the first American poetry anthology, The Poets and Poetry of America published in 1842. Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and poem, “The Haunted Mansion,” has become the classic works of American Gothic literature.

 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. Letter to Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Autographed
          letter. 28 September 1850.

Poe, Edgar Allan. Letter to Rufus Wilmot Griswold. 29 May 1841.
          <www.eapoe.org/works/letters/p4105290>

Voloshin, Beverly. “Explanation in ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’” in Studies in
          Short Fiction, Vol. 23, No. 4, Fall, 1986, pp. 419-28. 

Winwar, Frances. “The Haunted Palace. A Life of Edgar Allan Poe.” The Pennsylvania
          Magazine of History and Biography. (1959): 355-337. Web.
          <www.jstor.org/stable/20089220?seq=2>

Wohlpart, Jim. “Edgar Allan Poe ‘The Fall of the House of Usher.’” Florida Gulf Coast
          University.
          <itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/PoeFall.htm>

 

 

 

“Annabel Lee” Blog Post

By Sophie S.

            Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” was published posthumously in 1849, only two days after his death (Johnson). This poem deals with one of the author’s favorite subjects, the “death of a beautiful woman [which he believed was] unquestionably, the most poetic topic in the world” (Johnson).

Because this was Poe’s last poem to be published, many people questioned who the inspiration was for this poem. Although there were a few possible candidates, many people claimed that Virginia Clemm, Poe’s first wife, was “the only woman Poe ever loved” and must therefore have been the muse for his last poem (Jones). In fact, many interpret the line, “She was a child and I was a child,” as a hint to Virginia being Poe’s inspiration due to the fact that they were married when she was only thirteen years old, while Poe was twenty-seven, both being relatively young (Johnson). At this time, Poe had been living with his aunt, Maria Poe Clemm, and her daughter, Virginia, whom he eventually wed (“Edgar Allen Poe” 630). Unfortunately, when Virginia was only nineteen years old she began to have hemorrhages and five years later she died from tuberculosis (“Edgar Allen Poe” 631). It was said that Virginia Clemm was “the only stable element in [Poe’s] tempestuous life” and after her death he published a poem, “Ulalume,” that was inspired by his grief at the loss of his first love (“Edgar Allen Poe” 631).

Although many people believe that Virginia acted as his muse for this particular poem, there are also a few other possible candidates. Poe was later engaged at two other times in his life: first, to the poet Sarah Helen Whitman and then to Elmira Royster Shelton (“Edgar Allen Poe” 631-632). These and a few other women have either claimed to be, or were thought to be potential “Annabel Lees.”

Poe’s view on love was that it was “a spiritual passion that transcended human limits” (Johnson). Although he believed that poetry should strive towards beauty, he felt that its real topic should be love (Johnson). From this brief history of Edgar Allen Poe’s love life in reference to the poem “Annabel Lee”, we are able to see how death and love have not only had a powerful effect on his life, but also on his writing and the evident passion of his poetry.

 

“Edgar Allen Poe.” Author Introduction Overview. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Gen. ed. Nina Baym. 8th ed. Vol. B. New York: Norton, 2012. Print. 5 vols.

Johnson, Jeannine. “Overview of ‘Annabel Lee’.” Poetry for Students. Ed. Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 9. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Aug. 2013.

Jones, Buford, and Kent Ljungquist. “Poe, Mrs. Osgood, and ‘Annabel Lee,’.” Studies in the American Renaissance. Ed. Joel Myerson. University Press of Virginia, 1983. 275-280. Rpt. in Poetry for Students. Ed. Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 9. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Aug. 2013.