Edgar Allan Poe

[BAYLOR]

Activating this thread.

Anyone read some Poe lately? Or anything about Poe?

I often wonder what his literary career would have become had he lived to a ripe old age.

 

[Extollager]

I'll make a wild guess, Baylor, that he would have written more criticism and less poetry and fiction as he got older, if he could have made it financially.

 

[BAYLOR]

I'll make a wild guess, Baylor, that he would have written more criticism and less poetry and fiction as he got older, if he could have made it financially.

Had he lived , I can see him getting into a spat with Mark Twain who had no use for his stories.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

I would say more stories if he had gotten more time. He had a wonderful sense of imagination. His personal life seemed to be huge weight on his shoulders that was always getting the better of him. He once wrote an article about flying in a balloon across the Atlantic in 3 days. The problem was that it was so well detailed that it seemed to be the real thing. The writing was that good for the times. But since Poe only dreamed it up but presented it as an actual account, the story was retracted. I don't know if he got to keep the money.

 

[Extollager]

A statue of Poe --

Edgar Allan Poe Statue - Monument to a Literary Icon at the University of Baltimore | Explore Baltimore Heritage

The Edgar Allan Poe statue sitting in the Gordon Plaza at University of Baltimore has a colorful past. The statue was commissioned in 1911 by the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association of Baltimore and was the last work of renowned American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel. Born in Richmond, Virgina...

explore.baltimoreheritage.org

Pretty lively story there!

If you want to visit it, "Use caution when parking in an urban environment. Common sense dictates that you lock your car and keep any valuables out of sight."

Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Baltimore - Statue of Poe by Moses Ezekiel

www.eapoe.org

Also Baltimore & Poe:

Baltimore Sun - We are currently unavailable in your region

www.baltimoresun.com

 

[Don]

The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction begins its Experiments in science-fictional method section of Chapter 1 Science fiction before the genre with Poe. Of the works it mentions, ‘A Tale of the Ragged Mountains’ (1844) is my favorite.

The first writer to grapple with this problem in a wide-ranging experimental fashion was Edgar Allan Poe. The earliest poem by Poe to see eventual publication was ‘Sonnet – to Science’, written in the early 1820s, and his career culminated in Eureka (1848), an extraordinary poetic essay on the nature of the universe newly revealed by astronomical telescopes. The imaginative thread connecting these two works ran through Poe’s entire career. As his appreciation of the aesthetics of scientific discovery grew, his attempts to find literary means of communicating and celebrating the wonders of science became more varied and more inventive.

Although the prefatory essay on the necessity of verisimilitude attached to reprints of Poe’s lunar voyage story ‘Hans Phaal’ (1835; revised 1840 as ‘The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall’) was not intended to be taken seriously, it highlighted the problem implicit in extending travellers’ tales beyond the Earth’s surface. Although balloons had enabled a few intrepid aeronauts to get off the ground, they were not a convincing means of extraterrestrial exploration, and Hans Pfaall’s attempt to outdo the hero of Willem Bilderdijk’s pioneering Kort verhaal van eene aanmerklijke luctreis en nieuwe planeetokdekking (1813) never seemed convincing even to its author. Despite its self-taunting sarcasm, however, Poe’s preface became the first tentative manifesto for modern sf.

Poe experimented with new frameworks for futuristic speculation in ‘The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion’ (1839), a dialogue of the dead whose protagonists recall the near-future destruction of Earth by a comet, and ‘The Colloquy of Monos and Una’ (1841) before producing ‘Mesmeric Revelation’ (1844), which recognizes and emphasizes the necessity of establishing a more authoritative species of visionary fantasy for science-fictional use. He also used mesmerism as a device in ‘A Tale of the Ragged Mountains’ (1844) and ‘The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar’ (1845); the latter added the further device of mimicking a ‘scientific paper’ – a prose form then in its infancy – thus paving the way for Eureka.

 

[Guttersnipe]

I enjoy his poems more than his prose, which isn't to say his stories aren't amazing.

 

[alexvss]

Curious video about Poe's life:

 

[Harpo]

 

[BAYLOR]

I enjoy his poems more than his prose, which isn't to say his stories aren't amazing.

Masque of he Red Death They try to escape the palyuge but end up shutting them selves in with it. Brilliant stuff.

I live the 1964 Roger Corman film adaptation with Vincent Price , Charles Beaumont and R . Campbell Wright did the screenplay .

There's is also 1969 animated adaption of this story. The animation looks a bit like Terry Gilliam's animation and, it's wonderful surreal. You can find it on Youtube.

 

[Foxbat]

The Tell Tale Heart is a wonderful exercise in guilt and paranoia. I think it’s my favourite work by Poe.

 

[Randy M.]

The Tell Tale Heart is a wonderful exercise in guilt and paranoia. I think it’s my favourite work by Poe.

Big fan of "The Fall of the House of Usher." It's intense, larger-than-life Gothic, and the final image has stuck with me since I first read it.

 

[alexvss]

The trailer for the new Netflix Poe-related movie just dropped. Christian Bale plays a detective investigating a series of murders in West Point Academy. He is aided by a young Edgar A. Poe, who's a cadet. Reminded me of The Raven (2012). Looks good.

 

[Randy M.]

The trailer for the new Netflix Poe-related movie just dropped. Christian Bale plays a detective investigating a series of murders in West Point Academy. He is aided by a young Edgar A. Poe, who's a cadet. Reminded me of The Raven (2012). Looks good.

Rats. I'd seen that was coming and planned to get to the novel first (same title, written by Louis Bayard) but forgot.

Well, it does seem like a Fall/Winter read, so maybe soon.

 

[paeng]

"The Conqueror Worm" by Poe

Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly—
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!

That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
And the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

 

[BAYLOR]

Big fan of "The Fall of the House of Usher." It's intense, larger-than-life Gothic, and the final image has stuck with me since I first read it.

Ive read it nervous times, it never its power. Of the film adaptions , I like the 1960 film with Vincent Price in the Role of Roderick Usher. Richard Matheson wrote the screenplay. its easily of Rodger Corman best films.

 

[thunderbyrd]

i read Poe extensively when i was 11-12 yrs old (early 70's) but seldom since then. recently i reread "A Descent into the Maelstrom" for the 1st time in decades and was endlessly impressed with it. there is a personal reason that i was so taken with the story. several years ago, i was fishing in the Ohio River at the dam at Louisville, Ky. it was early March and the river was way up and moving fast. at the spot where i was, there is a huge concrete wall which separates a large pool, maybe 10-12 acres, off from the main stream of the river. as i sat there on the rocks, suddenly that pool, for no discernable reason, formed itself into a gigantic whirlpool. i was not in danger, it wasn't overrunning the bank, but i was in AWE. it was a tremendous thing to see!

so imagine a whirlpool 10 miles across, and imagine being caught in it.

i can't help but think that Lovecraft found some inspiration in this story, though i have never read where he acknowledged it. of course i could be wrong, but the scale of some of his monstrosities would fit into the maelstrom.

 

[BAYLOR]

i read Poe extensively when i was 11-12 yrs old (early 70's) but seldom since then. recently i reread "A Descent into the Maelstrom" for the 1st time in decades and was endlessly impressed with it. there is a personal reason that i was so taken with the story. several years ago, i was fishing in the Ohio River at the dam at Louisville, Ky. it was early March and the river was way up and moving fast. at the spot where i was, there is a huge concrete wall which separates a large pool, maybe 10-12 acres, off from the main stream of the river. as i sat there on the rocks, suddenly that pool, for no discernable reason, formed itself into a gigantic whirlpool. i was not in danger, it wasn't overrunning the bank, but i was in AWE. it was a tremendous thing to see!

so imagine a whirlpool 10 miles across, and imagine being caught in it.

i can't help but think that Lovecraft found some inspiration in this story, though i have never read where he acknowledged it. of course i could be wrong, but the scale of some of his monstrosities would fit into the maelstrom.

You might find The Dark Domain by Stephan Grabinski to be interest also Night And Damnations by Gerald Kersh .

 

[thunderbyrd]

some years ago, i did a lot of reading about psychopathy for a writing project i was into. i am not a psychologist, but i can tell you that, many years before the word had even been invented, Poe gave two excellent, authentic illustrations of psychopathy in "the Tell-Tale Heart" and "the Cask of Amontillado". (also, to some degree, in "The Black Cat".) the narrator's psychopathy is to be seen in their justifications for their deeds. they have done completely outrageous things but they can explain it in a logic that makes sense to them and their value system. that Poe did this is amazing to me.

"Why will you say i'm mad?" Because you are, you nut.

 

[BAYLOR]

some years ago, i did a lot of reading about psychopathy for a writing project i was into. i am not a psychologist, but i can tell you that, many years before the word had even been invented, Poe gave two excellent, authentic illustrations of psychopathy in "the Tell-Tale Heart" and "the Cask of Amontillado". (also, to some degree, in "The Black Cat".) the narrator's psychopathy is to be seen in their justifications for their deeds. they have done completely outrageous things but they can explain it in a logic that makes sense to them and their value system. that Poe did this is amazing to me.

"Why will you say i'm mad?" Because you are, you nut.

Tale of William Wilson