E. A. Poo?

Dead Riverdragon

Dead Riverdragon

Fuimus, non sumus
Joined
Mar 30, 2004
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121
Anyone here much of a Poe fan? I've been reading an anthology of his stories and have been quite disappointed by the lack of horror imparted by all but The Fall of the House of Usher, thus far. I nabbed the book from my Mum's store and had it lying around until I first heard Iron Maiden's 'Murders in the Rue Morgue' (point of fact I heard the In Flames cover first) which I recognised as based on Poe and judgeing by the lyrics I thought the story would be amazing. I was very sorry to find that Poe's short had nothing to do with the psychological terrors implied by the song and was instead concerned with an enraged ape. Now, I know little about Poe save he inspired Lovecraft (who I rate highly) and has a general reputation as a seminal horror writer. Yet so far my impressions are that he rarely writes horror, and is more along the lines of mystery and fairly miscellaneous shorts such as 'A Decent Into the Maelstrom' (horror or no, he can pick inspiring titles). Any thoughts?
 
First of all I must say I feel annoyed by this topic title. That'll tell you where I stand on Poe.

He was no mere purveyor of gore and cheap thrills. He was a consummate man of letters, a pioneer of detective stories, science fiction and horror. 'Murders' is not a horror story at all but a detective tale. He was a fine poet too and a learned and interesting theoriser on poetry, literature and aethetics.

Some of his best stories are not horror at all but satire. However, as he is known as a horror writer, some stories I'd urge you to try would include 'The Tell Tale Heart', 'The Cask of Amontillado' and 'The Masque of the Red Death'.
 
I actually think of Poe as more a technical prose writer - an explorer of form and meaning, rather than of story and plot itself. But it's his poetry where the man is really unleashed - if you're book has a good selection of his poetry in it, then I'd recommend you focus on that a little. This is where he opens up properly and his emotions just come out. "The Raven" is probably his most famous - but look out for others, especially where he relates to his tragic marriage to his cousin.
 
I think Poe is above all, for me, an atmospheric writer. Perhaps that is an artifact of the time in which he lived. Whatever it comes from, the thing that makes Poe's stories so effective is that he sets an atmosphere that, at his best, can pull the reader completely into the story.

My own favorite Poe story is "The Cask of Amontillado", followed closely by "The Pit and the Pendulum", which was the first Poe story I ever read, at about the age of ten, late at night. That was an interesting experience. I also quite like "The Tell-Tale Heart", which is not really horror at all, but psychological in nature.

I believe it is a mistake to categorize Poe as "just" a horror writer, much as it is a mistake to classify Stephen King that way. As knivesout pointed out, Poe wrote a wide variety of stories, pioneering in all the genres he worked in.
 
I read Poe's Philosophy of Composition for one of my Lit classes (so long ago), which uses The Raven as an example. Good stuff.
 
Some of Poe's tales are truly brilliant, The Tell Tale Heart being a textbook example of gripping writing. I also like the atmosphere of loneliness and melancholia that he raises in Ligeia and Fall of The House of Usher. On the other hand stories like The Oval Picture are too insubstanatial for him to have taken the effort of writing them down and The Black Cat was utterly despicable rubbish.
I do like some of his poems and yes, The Raven's IMO a classic, as you may have guess from my nick ;)
 
Poe is genious and I cannot call him a horror writer, or a gothic writer - each genre he wrote in, he made it brillianly. And he had a very specific sense of humour. They say that that one of the reasons why he was dismissed from West Point was that he appeared at the morning (?) review on the parade-ground equipped strictly as the West Point service regulations required, wearing white waistbelt, white gloves, something else (don't remember) and that was all he was wearing at all!:D
 
knivesout said:
First of all I must say I feel annoyed by this topic title. That'll tell you where I stand on Poe.

He was no mere purveyor of gore and cheap thrills. He was a consummate man of letters, a pioneer of detective stories, science fiction and horror. 'Murders' is not a horror story at all but a detective tale. He was a fine poet too and a learned and interesting theoriser on poetry, literature and aethetics.

Some of his best stories are not horror at all but satire. However, as he is known as a horror writer, some stories I'd urge you to try would include 'The Tell Tale Heart', 'The Cask of Amontillado' and 'The Masque of the Red Death'.
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Once again, you've said it all. :)
 
When I read this title, I thought you were asking something different :eek: ! Oh well, everyone makes typos. :D Gave me a good laugh.
 
I'm not sure anyone has noted it, but Poe basically invented the short story in its modern form. He also was the first to write what we would call detective fiction (he called them "stories of ratiocination"), and he brought the Gothic -- which had become a mode suffering much ridicule, even from him (cf. "Metzengerstein") into a more modern sensibility, namely by studying the psychology of fear, melancholia, etc. He was also more than a little of a Romantic, and his poetry is nearly always quite exquisite. Even though the sentiment may now be trite, I think one of my favorite passages remains from an early poem:

"Thy heart -- thy heart! I wake and sigh,
And sleep to dream till day
Of the Truth which gold can never buy,
Of the baubles that it may"

Actually, the amount of "horror", either prose or poetry, that Poe wrote, only amounts to about a tenth of his non-critical work. (He was also America's first great critic.) But he remains the man who created what we know as horror today, and without him, we wouldn't have had such fine figures as Le Fanu, Verne, Wells, Lovecraft, or Ligotti.
 
In my opinion, "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" is by far his creepiest, and most atmospheric story that I have read of his.
 
It's been awhile since I read it but I honestly don't remember anything in the story that made me laugh. Could have been though.
 
Not that story.... geez Valdemar is awful ..."I tell you I am dead!" he insists..and by golly he is!
Nooo.... some funny, funny stories, Poe, I envy people just discovering him.
 
I just read "The Purloined Letter" and had to laugh. The detective steals from thief and sells to the police inspector. Great way to make a quick 50,000 francs! Dupin is no dope; he even bashes mathematicians. (Sorry if I spoiled it for anybody.:eek:)
 
To me he is the greatest horror of them all because its not about,gore,cheap thrills. Its how no matter the type horror should be about creating great atmosphere,messing with your mind.

This thread name is silly. Should have been forgotten thread for the regular poe horror thread....
 
I too was a bit put off by the title but took it in stride attributing it to what was hopefully a tyPoe.
 
j. d. worthington said:
I'm not sure anyone has noted it, but Poe basically invented the short story in its modern form.

............................

But he remains the man who created what we know as horror today, and without him, we wouldn't have had such fine figures as Le Fanu, Verne, Wells, Lovecraft, or Ligotti.
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That's a lot of praise for a single man.

Poe was a man of his time who continued to write in the manner of his time. Horror and detective stories had already been written by E.T.A Hoffmann, Charles Nodier, and Ludwig Tieck.

Poe's simple reportoire of ideas includes murderers/madmen as narrators, doppelgängers, revenge tales, scientific experiments gone wrong, etc., not exactly new ground. Lovecraft was probably the first great breakthrough in horror. He gave horror a cosmic, mythological scope that Poe and his contemporaries never imagined. He gave horror an alternative to the tropes of the 18th/19th century.

As for Poe inventing the modern short-story, Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol and Anton Chekhov may disagree with that.
 
"Whatever his limitations, Poe did that which no one else ever did or could have done; and to him we owe the modern horror-story in its final and perfected form." H.P. Lovecraft, SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE.

Please don't shoot the messenger.:eek:
 
Writers usually put on pedestals those who came before them, but they're not always the wisest critics.
 
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