A Classic Crime Collection (45 page)
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Authors: Edgar Allan Poe
Critical Response in the 1980s and Beyond
Deas, Michael J.
The Portraits and Daguerreotypes of Edgar Allan Poe
. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1988.
Deas’s unique take on Poe is to consider the writer’s career in the context of the photographic portraits taken of him in his adult life.
The physical similarities between Poe and a character such as Usher have led at times to an unfortunate blurring of the distinction between life and art, with some readers attributing to Poe the same compulsions and maladies suffered by his fictional creations. The misapprehension is little dispelled by the author’s most frequently reproduced portraits, the six daguerreotypes taken during the last eighteen months of his life—each of which depicts a worn and evidently troubled individual. The “Ultima Thule” daguerreotype typifies the matter: with its nocturnal tonality and saturnine gaze, the portrait suggests one of Poe’s Gothic tales as readily as it does the sunlit daguerreotype studio in Providence where it was taken in the autumn of 1848. Moreover, later likenesses such as the “Ultima Thule” plate have provided a kind of visual credence to Rufus Griswold’s defamatory description of Poe, and have been instrumental in shaping a popular image of the poet which, while perhaps satisfying the public demand for stereotypes of genius, appears to have little basis in fact.
Peeples, Scott.
Edgar Allan Poe Revisited
. New York: Twayne, 1998.
Peeples, in updating the Twayne’s United States Authors series book on Poe, provides a readable critical overview that merges traditional scholarship with new approaches such as feminist criticism and New Historicism.
In considering Poe’s posthumous reputation, we encounter yet another dichotomy: between the alcoholic madman and writer of immoral tales on the one hand and the devoted husband and son-in-law, the seeker of supernal beauty on the other. We might take another step back and posit a split between the shadowy pop culture icon alluded to in movies, songs, novels, and television shows and the body of work that inspires meticulous scholarly research—and endless debate, as we have seen. There are, of course, many Poes, not only because he was a kind of literary ventriloquist but because readers bring such a variety of expectations to his poems and tales. Still, Poe encourages us to think in terms not of multiplicity but of dichotomy: the self we know versus the self we don’t know; everyday experience versus the reality of dreams and art; the mathematician versus the poet; the desire to reach a mass audience versus disdain for that same audience; the impulse for survival versus the impulse for self-destruction; faith in the transmigration of the soul versus fear of the “conqueror worm.”
Vines, Lois Davis. “Poe in France.” In
Poe Abroad: Influence, Reputation, Affinities
, edited by Lois Davis Vines. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999.
Poe Abroad
is a global survey that provides ample proof of Poe’s widespread popularity. In “Poe in France” Vines outlines the biographical similarities that led Charles Baudelaire to embrace Poe as a kindred spirit.
Baudelaire’s “singular shock” when he first read Poe has become legend in literary history. He discovered in Poe’s family history uncanny parallels with his own life and in Poe’s work ideas he had already considered. Baudelaire’s strong feelings of identity with Poe were based on a number of similarities. They both had lost their biological fathers at an early age and had to deal with surrogates, a stern stepfather in Baudelaire’s case and a foster father in Poe’s. As a consequence, their mothers played a major role in their lives, creating a source of both conflict and comfort. Although Poe had three mother figures—Elizabeth Arnold Poe (his biological mother whom he lost at age two), Frances Allan (his foster mother), and Maria Poe Clemm (his aunt and mother-in-law)—it was Clemm whom Baudelaire idolized. In the dedication to his first volume of Poe translations, he paid tribute to her: “I owe this public homage to a mother whose greatness and goodness honor the World of Letters as much as the marvelous creations of her son.” Each writer sought his mother’s approval and encouragement as he confronted a day-to-day existence that was resolutely hostile, or at least indifferent, to literary aspirations.
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UESTIONS FOR
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ISCUSSION
Poe is one of the most divisive figures in American literature. American writers have tended to think of him as “the jingle man,” as Ralph Waldo Emerson called him, an occasionally ingenious but generally second-rate poet. European writers, on the other hand, are more likely to consider him one of America’s greatest writers—the “finest of fine artists,” as George Bernard Shaw put it. Which, if either, camp do you think is correct? How do you account for Poe’s greater popularity outside his own country?
Using examples from at least two stories, discuss the importance of setting for Poe. Are there any stories where the setting can’t be determined? How does the setting affect the characters’ psychological states, and how do their psychological states affect the setting?
Consider the stories “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Masque of the Red Death” and the poems “The Raven” and “Dream-Land” in light of Poe’s intention to create a “unity of effect” in his writing. Do you think he succeeds in these works? Why or why not?
As of this publication, nearly 200 film and television productions credit the works of Edgar Allan Poe as a direct source, and many more than that bear a marked influence in style and subject matter. Why has he had such an effect on popular entertainment? Identify three elements of Poe’s stories that you believe have had an influence on horror and fantasy movies today.
Poe claimed in his essay “The Philosophy of Composition” that “the death . . . of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world. . . .” Why do you think Poe believed this about the death of a woman, as opposed to an admired man or a child, or another topic entirely? Are the female characters in Poe’s works fully developed compared to the male characters? Does the “poetical” effectiveness of the depiction of a woman’s death depend on her being a convincing character?
Research the concept of the doppelgänger. What are some examples of doppelgängers in Poe’s stories and/or poems? Why do you think this was a subject of particular interest to Poe?
Locate instances of humor in Poe’s stories and poems. Do you think that he intended his tales of death, mourning, and horror to be taken completely seriously? What examples can you find to suggest that he might have been writing tongue in cheek?
Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin is considered the first “armchair detective,” so called because he figures out the solutions to mysteries mostly from the comfort of his own home. (Two other famous armchair detectives are Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe.) In “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter” is Dupin motivated to solve the mysteries by a desire to see justice done or by other considerations? How do his motives affect your response to him as a character?
