Page 17 - DENG202_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_III

Elective English—III

Notes 2.5 Role

Edgar Allan Poe did not receive much of recognition during his lifetime, but in years later after
his death, his works have become a canvas for other writers to inspire and create upon. Poe had
a reputation for being a unwise drunk without any talent, which was why the literary circles of
his time rejected him. However, today, his acceptance is more noticeable than ever. Law and
Order, N.Y.P.D. Blue, and numerous other television shows that include a detective character,
would have never been existed today, had it not been for Poe’s character, C. Auguste Dupin in
The Murders in the Rue Morgue. This story has also been related to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s
memorable mysteries of Sherlock Holmes. However, his condition has a name today; Poe
frequently used themes regarding the “double self,” which was also referred to as split personality.
Today it is known as schizophrenia or bi polar disorder.
Poe had a vivid and wild imagination, which he used it to his advantage and created beyond
what anyone could imagine. While he frequently took the opportunity to deal with dark topics,
he did it with such style that he has been credited for initiating the surrealist movement. It was
sure that his writing style would inspire a new generation of writers but not until years after his
death did his level of inspiration become visible.

Many writers vocally praised Poe’s work and attributed him for their inspiration. The praise
was strongest in France before it spread to Russia, China, Portugal, Austria, Croatia, Japan,
Scandinavia, Spain, Germany, England, Estonia, Latin America and Poland. Many famous writers
like Jorge Luis Borges, Jules Verne, Carlos Fuentes and Franz Kafka called Poe as their chief
source of inspiration. It took many years for the American literary circles to ultimately begin to
accept his talent. Joyce Carol Oates state quite bluntly, “Who has not been influenced by Poe?”
Today, Poe is recognised as one of the leading ancestors of modern literature, both in its popular
forms, for example, detective and horror fiction, and in its more complicated and self-conscious
forms that signify the indispensable artistic manner of the 12th century. In contrast, to previous
critics who viewed the man and his works as one. Criticism of the past twenty-five years has led
to the development of a view of Poe as a detached and indifferent artist who was more concerned
with exhibiting his virtuosity than expressing his “soul,” and who shared an ironic rather than
an autobiographical relationship with his writings. While at one time critics such as Yvor
Winters wanted to eliminate Poe from literary history, his works remain vital to any conception
of modernism in world literature. Herbert Marshall McLuhan wrote in an essay entitled “Edgar
Poe’s Tradition”: “While the New England dons formally turned the pages of Buddha and Plato
beside a tea-cozy, and while Tennyson and Browning were creating a parochial fog for the
English mind to relax in, Poe never lost contact with the awful pathos of his time. Coevally with
Baudelaire, and long before Eliot and Conrad, he explored the heart of darkness.”

2.6 Major Themes

Death

A large portion of Poe’s fiction contains musings on the nature of death and on queries about the
afterlife. In poems like Eldorado, the protagonist is only able to reach his life’s goal in death,
having spent his life in continuous seeking. In other works like The City in the Sea, The Bells, and
The Conqueror Worm, death is a foregone conclusion as the end of a decaying process that started
long before. Poe does not essentially come to the same conclusion about death in every poem,
especially in the case of The Raven and Lenore, two poems that share a dead female’s name but
that take a quite distinctive approach to the subject of the afterlife. While Guy de Vere of Lenore
is disobedient and hopeful in his mourning, as he believes that he will again see Lenore in
Heaven, the anonymous narrator of The Raven becomes progressively agitated as he begins to
believe that he will “nevermore” see Lenore.

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