Corrupt

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)

"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality." Living a life of utter misery, enduring his parents' death at an early age, numerous love affairs shattered and torn, and maintaining no substantial and consistent income, Edgar Allan Poe committed his life to writing. While everyone else was not paying him much attention, Poe continued to write new, provocative and different pieces than what the public and literary elite was used to. Synthesizing the macabre of the Gothic tale with the personal will to power of the emotive Romanticist movement, we are delighted by a blend of prose and verse talent that can be best described as the dark Romanticism that this American poet creatively spawned.

Introduction

Edgar Poe entered this world on the nineteenth of January, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was born to David Poe and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins, both notable actors of their time. Unfortunately for Edgar, David Poe died in 1810 and Elizabeth followed him a year later. He then moved in with John and Frances Allan, the former a wealthy merchant. While attending the University of Virginia, in which he enrolled in 1826, Poe studied Latin and poetry, and also enjoyed such activities as swimming and acting. However, while in this school, Edgar accumulated some gambling debts which he was unable to pay off, and his now estranged foster father would not assist Edgar, so Poe was forced to leave school, take on the pseudonym Edgar A. Perry to avoid the creditors who sought Poe's payments, and join the United States Army. Also in 1827, Poe managed to get his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems published, along with the noteworthy poem, "Dreams," which effectively captured his emotions of childhood.

In 1829, when Frances Allan, Poe's foster mother, Edgar and John Allan were reconciled upon their brief reunion following the funeral. However, Poe found that his beloved Sarah Elmira Royster was engaged to another. Thoroughly melancholic, Poe then enlisted in the West Point Academy, but was dismissed the following year. In 1829, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, Poe's second book, was published. Two years later, coinciding with his new residence with his aunt Maria Clemm, Poems would be published. All through this time, Edgar suffered through varying states of poverty and always with no support (though Poe repeatedly asked for it) from Frances Allan, even though his foster father had inherited a large estate.

In the year of 1835, Edgar Allan Poe became the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. This was also the beginning of his career as a respected critic and essayist, though he was duly regarded by many for his slashing style of critique, which did not find many pieces worthy enough to receive any remarkable amount of adulation. In 1836, Edgar married his young cousin Virginia Clemm, the daughter of Maria, but it was inspired by Poe's cousin, Neilson Poe, who was to "take care" of thirteen year-old Virginia. Maria plainly did not want this, so she beseeched Edgar to reciprocate the favours of hospitality she showed him for four years and marry Virginia, even at that tender age. Edgar was indeed fond of Virginia, so he agreed, though it is likely that they did not have sexual intimacy until 1841, when Poe wrote "Eleonora," which revealed sexual themes in its clearly autobiographical tale.

Edgar Allan Poe's sole novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, was published in 1838. However, Poe was consistently fighting off forces of depression, and often enough turned to alcohol, which was one of the reasons why he was dismissed from the Messenger in 1837. After some more published works here and there, including the famous detective story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," in 1841, Poe completed his most remarkable collection, The Raven and Other Poems in 1845. Containing such noteworthy pieces as "The Raven," "To Helen" and "Eulalie," the work was a sure success. The following years saw more poems finished and published, but Poe became more and more erratic, and his condition was not helped by Virginia's death in 1847. However, he managed to marry the girl that got away, his teenage sweetheart Sarah Elmira Royster, in 1848. His cause of death is uncertain, with varying accounts of alcoholism, disease, and even murder. Nevertheless, a poet with great skill unique talent was laid to rest in an unmarked grave in the Old Westminster Burying ground of Baltimore in 1849, though he was moved in 1875 with his aunt's remains in the Poe Memorial Grave.

With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.

The Work and Themes of Edgar Allan Poe

Prose

Mesmeric Revelations

V. You must begin at the beginning.
P. The beginning! but where is the beginning?
V. You know that the beginning is GOD. [This was said in a low, fluctuating tone, and with every sign of the most profound veneration .]
P. What then is God?
V. [Hesitating for many minutes.] I cannot tell.
P. Is not God spirit?
V. While I was awake I knew what you meant by "spirit," but now it seems only a word - such for instance as truth, beauty - a quality, I mean.
P. Is not God immaterial?
V. There is no immateriality - it is a mere word. That which is not matter, is not at all - unless qualities are things.
P. Is God, then, material?
V. No. [This reply startled me very much.]
P. What then is he?

In this short story that features a conversation between a mesmerist known to us only as 'P', who narrates in the first person for the introduction and the conclusion, and his patient, who is known as Mr. Vankirk, Edgar Allan Poe explores philosophy in regards to materiality, the manifestations of God and man, and life in terms of happiness and corporeality. The narrator gives us an introduction to the patient, describing him as one who has suffered much pain, but, Poe brags, "the more distressing effects of which had been relieved by my manipulations." The mesmerist, who is also the narrator, reveals no sympathies for his patients whatsoever, but regards him as a specimen to be examined. Indeed, Poe states his intentions myself: "I am impelled… to detail, without comment, the very remarkable substance between a sleep-waker and myself." Mr. Vankirk, the mesmerized, has, however, absolutely no qualms. Instead, he actually wants to be subjected to the mesmerism, so that he may experience what he had in past memorizations (this was the fifteenth occasion), as Mr. Vankirk felt that the histories of these supernatural events led to a more pristine state of mind than in his natural state.

These considerations have led me to think that some good results might ensure from a series of well-directed questions propounded to me while mesmerized.

What follows is the body of the discourse, with P. asking the questions and V. answering them using his hypnotic state of mind. The first primary question is, "What, then, is God?" After various confusions between the two, P. comes to understand that V. deems "God not as a spirit, for he exists. Nor is he matter as you understand it. But there are gradations of matter of which man knows nothing…" V goes on to explain that all matter is God, as every thought of his is what creates. "What men try to embody in the word 'thought', is this matter in motion."

The second question, though it is never directly asked, is the application of God in man, seeing as all matter is God. V. states: "…mind, existing incorporate, is merely God. To create individual, thinking beings, it was necessary to incarnate portions of the divine mind." Now, this begs the question that P. realizes. "You say that divested of the body man will be God?" To which V. denies as an absurdity, elaborating further that it is impossible for a man to be divested from body, as this is a matter of God's 'thought', and thoughts already made are irrevocable. Furthermore, the mesmerized goes on to say, "death" is but the painful metamorphosis of which we are not cognizant, just as the worm is unaware of its transition into the butterfly.

The third and final of the primary questions asks the entranced one of the meanings of impediments and pains. In a kind of difficult logic, V. tells us that an impediment is necessary, and the reason why the organic life and matter was created was to create this impediment. P. rightly asks, "Why need this impediment have been produced?" V. presents the logic thusly: through the impediments afforded by the… substantiality of laws of organic and life and matter, the violation of law is rendered… practicable." V. eventually reveals the point of his revelation and concludes that, "to be happy at any one point we must have suffered at the same. Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed." Upon the conclusion of his elucidation on infinitive substance, and having become suddenly feeble-voiced, P. was compelled to wake his subject, but, upon doing so, saw Mr. Valkirk expire with a smile on his face. However, what unsettled the mesmerist was the coldness of the corpse which should still have retained much warmth. In the words of Edgar Allan, "Had the sleep-waker, indeed, during the latter portion of his discourse, been addressing me from out the region of the shadows?"

In this short story, we can see an excuse for Poe to give readers an example of his understanding of philosophies relevant in the time in which this was written. Also, considering the time when this was written and his harsh history, it may be prudent to give thought to his own state at this point in time. Mind, as we have already seen, it was not uncommon for Poe to discuss death in detail at any point in his life. But here there are obvious traces of tranquility to be found in the release from this world, most clearly observed in the expiration of Mr. Valkirk, who passes with, "a bright smile irradiating all of his features." Other notable features of this tale are made manifest in V.'s lengthy discourse on such fragile subjects as convalescences and inorganic life. This is mature, if not revolutionary, idea forming, with Poe making firm developments of theory; ever leading his experiment along with the appropriate questions courtesy of his examiner, P. This work is an essential piece of Poe's literature as it showcases his diversity of subjects and his flexibility as a writer.

P. You have often said that the mesmeric state very nearly resembles death. How is this?
V. When I say that it resembles death, I mean that it resembles the ultimate life; for when I am entranced the senses of my rudimental life are in abeyance, and I perceive external things directly, without organs, through a medium which I shall employ in the ultimate, unorganized life.

The Angel of the Odd

Hereupon I bethought of me of looking immediately before my nose, and there, sure enough, confronting me at the table sat a personage nondescript, although not altogether indescribable. His body was a wine-pipe, or a rum-puncheon, or something of that character, and had a truly falstaffian air. In its nether extremity were inserted two kegs, which seemed to answer all the purpose of legs... "You zee,'said he, "it iz te bess vor zit still; and now you shall now who I pe. Look at me! zee! I am te Angel ov te Odd!"

Here in this wild, quirky story mixing reality and dreamscape, Poe explores the theme of life's oddities and the maze of disbelief. Utilizing a weird sense of humour (which in itself supplements the theme of strangeness), Poe describes the experience of a man who finds in dream, and in the waking from the dream, the "moral of the story," so to speak. The oddity which the speaker had initially made several attempts to dispel through the means of a reasonable mind, had avenged itself.

The story opens with the gentleman, who tells this tale through the first-person point-of-view, telling the reader his morning reading material, and most specifically the "stray newspaper" that speaks of lost dogs and other such mundane matters. One note of obscure humour that is particularly enjoyable goes as follows:

"I attacked with great resolution the editorial matter, and, reading it from beginning to end without understanding a syllable, conceived the possibility of its being Chinese, and so re-read it from the end to the beginning, but with no more satisfactory result."

The material that sets the gentleman, that is, the speaker, into a rage, however, is found in a subsequent paragraph that catches his eye. "The avenues to death are numerous and strange"; so begins the news report that tells of a man who dies whilst playing 'puff the dart', which is a sort of game that involves blowing needles at targets through tubes of some kind. According to the death report, the newly deceased inserted the needle at the wrong end of the tube and thusly blew the needle right into his throat, killing him over the course of a few days.

After reading this outrageous story, the gentleman explodes "into a great rage, wihout exactly knowing why." According to him, who prides himself on his possession of such reason enough to spot the deceit, the story is a contemptible tale in its obvious falsehood. He denounces the writers and publishers of the piece for their exploitation of the elderly subscribers, who are known to be extra gullible.

"Mein Gott, den, vat a vool you bees for that!" Thus spoke "one of the most remarkable voices I ever heard," the gentleman in genuine shock.

After some time, his precious reason finally governed the householder to peer immediately before him; and there found the little Hessian that eventually reveals himself as "te Angel ov te Odd." When the speaker attempted to order his "footman" to remove the mini deviant from his house, the "Angel" hit the gentleman with one of his bottles that acted as arms. Following further methods of removal, which failed miserably on all counts, the intruder left on his own accord, right after the gentleman insulted him by expressing his incredulity at the angel's weird stories that begged for disbelief.

Very pleased with the renewal of peace in his home, the gentleman goes for a regular nap. During what was intended to be a slight rest of the eyes, the speaker experiences a few unsettling and consequential "dreams." In the first scene, the dreamer is drowned by the Angel of the Odd, who casts an ocean of kirschen-wasser from out of one of his long-necked bottle limbs. Following this fiasco, and the loss of the speaker's hair, not to mention the fracturing of his arm by an anachronistic hog, the gentleman took it upon himself to find a wife. However, after initial successes at seduction, an unfortunate entanglement resulted in the loss of a critical wig, and so the gentleman's decency was removed entirely, as well as his chances at being this widow's eighth husband.

The next scene, which renders the dreamer blind, and the consequent loss of the new "lady of my love" forced the gentleman to come to the decision that it was "high time to die," as "fortune had so determined to persecute" him. What saves this poor wretch was a crow that steals "the most indispensable portion of his apparel." The airborne thief caused his pursuer to jump off a cliff in blind desperation, and was only saved by a timely rope that was strung from a passing balloon. The Angel of the Odd soon made himself known to our sad hero, and the little devil promptly dropped a bottle upon the head of the man who still hung on to that rope, but now pleaded for mercy.

"Und you pelief, ten," he inquired, "at te last. You pelief, ten, in the possibility of te odd?"
I again nodded my head in assent.
"Und you ave pelief in me, te Angel ove te Odd?"
I nodded once more.
"Put your right hand into our left hand preeches pocket, ten, in token ov your vull submizzion unto te Angel ov te Odd."

The gentleman does such a thing and, as you can expect, fell like an anvil. He awakes from his "dream" in the ashes of his house's fireplace. He looks around his home and finds it the wreck that it was in his unconscious state, where ocean and fire alike ravaged his modest domain.

My head grovelled in the ashes of my extinguished fire, while my feet reposed upon the wreck of a small table, overthrown, and amid the fragments of a miscellaneous dessert, intermingled with a newspaper, some broken glass and shattered bottles and an empty jug of the infamed kirschen-wasser. Thus revenged himself the Angel of the Odd.

And thus ends this twisted tale, where dream is distorted with reality; and where the odd and the random and the inexplicable make the only kind of sense to the human mind capable of reason. We find the original subject of this story to be a typical rational man (a typical modern man) who arrogantly views everything through the lenses of his narrow-mind; we find him to be quite changed after experiencing the extra-profound effects that only such a spiritual event can allow. Only after suffering such calamities to his faculty of reason can a man truly come to his senses, and thus the irony.

The Pit and the Pendulum

Down - certainly, relentlessly down! It vibrated within three inches of my bosom! I struggled violently - furiously - to free my left arm... Could I have broken the fastenings above my elbow, I would have seized and attempted to arrest the pendulum. I might as well have tried to arrest an avalanche! Sown - still unceasingly - still inevitably down!

Depending on such reliable, interminable concepts as death and time, Edgar Allan Poe presents the reader with a story that is rich in dark and moving imagery. The grim atmosphere effectively created greatly assists this macabre tale in expressing the profound ideas that impel the story along, and ultimately provide the conclusion with that visceral feel of completion only made possible through the identifiable themes that Poe masters.

Greeting the reader with vivid descriptions from the protagonist and sole single character in the story, Poe recounts vague memories through the newly convicted prisoner of the cold trial that commissioned his sentence. With acute imagery of rare literary beauty, the prisoner "describes" his state of consciousness.

I had swooned; but still will not say that all of consciousness was lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to define, or even to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest slumber - no! In delirium - no! In a swoon - no! In death - no! even in the grave all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream.

After somewhat conquering the mystery surrounding the state of his consciousness, and following the mastery of his fear that the darkness surrounding him was of a tomb, the prisoner conjures the courage to investigate the nocturnal premises in which he was caged. Our speaker knows that he is a victim of the Inquisition, presumes that he is caught in the belly of the great Toledo, the infamous Spanish prison. During the course of his slow and awkward searches about his dungeon, the prisoner met with a fortunate mistake: "...the remnant of the torn hem of my robe became entangled between my legs." Thusly falling on his face, the inmate nevertheless makes a critical revelation: though his chin rested upon the stone of the floor, the rest of his face, in spite of being at a lesser elevation, touched nothing but air; further, a pungent stench of decay irritated his nostrils from below. The prisoner escapes the chasm of the pit.

The victim of human device makes his way back to the wall, and there falls to fast sleep. Upon waking, he finds before him a pitcher of water and a loaf meat. He quickly succumbs once more to the realm of unconscious. Upon waking for the second time, the prisoner deduces that the food and water must be drugged; and, after making an indeterminate survey of his recently, partially illumined dungeon, the prisoner also discovers that he is strapped "on a species of low framework of wood." Similarly unfortunate, the speaker's liberty was restricted so much that only by great exertion could he reach and attain the meat lying by his side. Even further, the prisoner lost sight of the water pitcher, and he noticed that the meat was mixed with fierce spices so that the absence of that pitcher of water was missed dearly.

Having little else to occupy his time, the prisoner's eyes turn to the high ceiling and there eventually observe a pendulum, and it was moving in an almost imperceptibly slow motion. Following an unknown passage of time, the trapped man made the damning distinction that the pendulum descended, "and the whole hissed as it swung through the air."

The next sections of the story make up a great part of the profundity that makes this story such an abstruse experience. After realizing this doom that comes inevitably down to sever him in two, the prisoner goes into several different emotional stages of being. The tortured soul first persists in prayer as the first strands of insanity creep into his unstable mind. "Having failed to fall (into the pit), it was no part of the demon plan to hurl me into the abyss, and thus (there being no alternative) a different and milder destruction awaited me. Milder! I half smiled in my agony as I thought of the application of such a term."

Next, the prisoner grows "frantically mad," and he attempts desperately to break the bonds that restrain him so, but to absolutely no avail. Upon calming, the prisoner smiles; he "lay smiling at the glittering death, as a child at some rare bauble." The motions of madness are made more apparent as the scimitar still goes down, down, down. But as the doomed man, lonely and half-crazed, puts in his mouth the remainder of meat which the rats below had kindly left him, the prisoner experiences an odd experience - hope.

As I put a portion of it within my lips, there rushed to my mind a half-formed thought of joy - of hope. Yet what business had I with hope? It was, as I say, a half-formed thought - man has many such, which are never completed. I felt that it was of joy - of hope; but I felt also that it had perished in its formation. In vain i struggled to perfect - to regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile - an idiot.

Despite this wild and anachronistic "surge" of "hope," the prisoner soon returned to his chattering frenzy revolving around his demise. "I took a frenzied pleasure in contrasting its downward with its lateral velocity. To the right - to the left - far and wide - with the shriek of a damned spirit!" Following more of the same degenerate samples of insanity, the prisoner is gifted with an inspiration flash of reason.

Scarcely had I dropped my head back into its original position, when there flashed upon my mind what I cannot better describe as the unformed idea of deliverance to which I have previously alluded, and of which a moiety only floated indeterminately through my brain when I raised food to burning lips. The whole thought was now present - feeble, scarcely sane, scarcely definite - but still entire.

The final solution was thus: a horde of rats were lingering below the convict, and they were waiting for his total cessation of movement, which would mean assured death and an assured meal. Knowing this strategy, the rejuvenated spirit upon his own wooden cross became quite still. After a moment of uncertainty, "one or two of the boldest" leapt upon the living corpse. "This seemed to be the signal for a general rush. Forth from the well they hurried in fresh troops." With inhuman strength of mind, our wretched prisoner stood resolutely still as the rats gorged upon his flesh, but also upon the straps which bound him. Though the steel pendulum had already "divided the serge of the robe," the victim of everything was made free by his unwitting rodent rescuers, who scurried away as their former dinner slid "beyond the reach of the scimitar."

However. Yes; despite the surreal resistance of this inmate, despite his hold on reason and a will to live in the face of madness, despite all of this, there is still a however. Learning now that the walls became suddenly and unbearably hot, and also that they were quickly closing in from ever side, indeed, forcing this rare man to the first device: the hellish pit in the center; learning all this, the survivor of rat claws and jaws burst into salty tears. But, just as his fall into the abyss were to happen, the prisoner finally finds his last saviour in the human hand of an angel.

There was a discordant hum of human voices! There was a loud blast of as many trumpets! There was a harsh grating as of a thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! An outstretched arm caught my arm as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It was that of General LaSalle. The French arm had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.

Utilizing the prisoner's uncertain mind to effect a dark, dynamic vision of the great plight it finds itself ever fighting, Poe invents an atmosphere upon which he can give the reader his intended themes. By creating a character that is embroiled in fascinatingly personal strife and malignant horror, Poe can more easily present us with such pervasive ideas as madness, and a relatively novel account on the relations between time and death. The madness is caused by the prisoner's approaching death, which is obvious to him, and by the fact that he is utterly powerless to do anything about it. However, there is another, more subtle theme that is the reason for his salvation: hope. Conquering the fatalistic tendencies of a frantic mind, a trace of hope leads the prisoner to realize that there is a solution, and it comes through the consumption of food, and the use of his mind. It is also interesting to note the three methods of a man's survival: the accidental stumbling before the pit; the desperate theory that proves tangible; and an external saviour. But interlacing this primitive theme of survival is the eternal instinct of man: Wille zum Leben, the will to live.

The Fall of the House of Usher

I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter depression of the soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium - the bitter lapse into everyday life - the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it - I paused to think - what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?

Blending such distinct themes fear and nostalgia, our esteemed author forges a story of unbridled terror and rampant confusion. Employing his usual talents of dark and abyssic imagery, Poe commands a stifling atmosphere that is both inviting and daunting at once. But with this highly personal effect, Poe can fluently make his frightening presentation of the tale a powerful event.

Not deviating from his prevalent style, Edgar Allan Poe portrays the central character (nameless, as usual) from his own point-of-view. This character, let's again assume that it is male, has been asked by a childhood friend to visit him in an attempt to relieve him of his maladies through fellowship and good company. Drawing near to the House of Usher, the language is immediately consumed by weighted and real foreboding, some of which is included in the first quotation above. Yet it is only after we, the readers, experience this horrific introduction that Poe gives us the reason for his solicitous venture, which is, of course, the demise of his old friend, Roderick Usher, the very proprietor of the house his former companion now entered.

After witnessing phantasms and overcoming personal superstition, and after a shady interview with the house's physician that was suspicious in its brevity, the valet which led his guest "threw open a door and ushered me into the presence of his master." Though Mr. Usher was warm and vivacious in his greeting, quick inspection of his countenance proved his health to be otherwise. Further discussion with Roderick Usher revealed to his friend troubling aspects of his character; not the least of which was a habitual trepidation, and an eccentricity "which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium." These were not entirely unfamiliar to the visitor, who had known of these barbarous traits in his friend as a child, but they were obviously much exacerbated in the present.

The most disconcerting characteristic of this Usher, however, was his untamed terror. "'I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results... I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.'" In this we can without doubt recognize Mr. Usher's fear of fear. Whether it is the root cause of his "pitiable condition," though, is still uncertain, for Usher himself then tells his returned comrade of his heritage and its wretched history; the morbid state of the family's mansion can perhaps be seen as an embodiment of its inhabitants' own misfortune.

Yet another reason for Roderick Usher's decline is also explained. He had been very grieved by the lasting illness of his only remaining relative, his beloved sister Madeline. No sooner nor later did Usher speak this when the lady herself passed them by, but without giving any notice to the House's new resident. "I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread; and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings." This is a distinction found especially in the first half of the story: the visitor frequently expresses his ignorance of how to explain and describe his emotions; he is dumbfounded by how the House and the strangeness therein evokes in him such weird and alien feelings.

The visitor and what would be his patient, Roderick Usher, soon partook in activities meant for remedial purposes. they read together, painted and the comforter listened to songs that came of Usher's guitar playing and the vocals that often went along with the music. One such lyric was recorded in all accuracy by the listener, and here is but a segment:

In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace-
Radiant palace - reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's domain-
It stood there!
never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.

...
But evil things in robes of sorrow
Assailed the monarch's high estate...
... And travellers now within that valley
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door;
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh - but smile no more.

This lyric contains a very prominent theme, and it relates very suitably to Roderick's condition. This poetry is nostalgic and melancholy; the stately palace of the olden day has, by whatever curse that has since befallen it, deteriorated and become decrepit, and this sickness is seemingly spread to the members of the family themselves.

Very soon after perusing the manuals of an old, forgotten Gothic church, Roderick Usher suddenly informed his friend of Lady Madeline's death. Obviously influenced by the church manual, Usher intended to preserve his sister's corpse "in one of the numerous vaults within the main walls of the building," and there she was to remain for a fortnight.

Following the death of the second-to-last Usher, Roderick fell into a state of new and unprecedented disrepair, and his features were further evidence of his own decay. One night, in which the visitor could not fall asleep, his host entered his chamber quarters bearing a lamp and looking especially wan, and "with a species of mad hilarity in his eyes." Calmly telling his guest that he shall see what is outside, Usher, whilst guarding his lamp, threw open a casement and the both of them were very nearly driven from their standing.

It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and beauty. A whirlwind had apparently collected its force in one vicinity; for there were frequent and violent alterations in the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press upon the turrets of the house) did not prevent our perceiving the life-like velocity with which they flew careering from all points against each other, without passing away into the distance... "You must not - you shall not behold this!"

And so the visitor proceeds to read to Usher the romance of "Mad Trist." During the reading of the familiar tale of Ethelred, three times does the reader the sounds that Ethelred hears in the tale, and three times does the reader hear the identical sounds reverberating from within the house. At the third instance, quite perturbed, the visiter leaps to his feet. Hearing a faint murmur, he bends over to hear the words being softly uttered by Roderick Usher. After deciphering through the gibberish, Usher's friend hears him describing how the sounds that were in the story of Ethelred were also the sounds of some "she" making her escape. "Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!"

At this, the gusty wind tore apart the door and there stood Lady Madeline, with blood upon her white robes, and similar evidence of a "bitter struggle." After leaning to and fro on her feet for a moment, Usher's sister Madeline fell upon him, making his body the second corpse; Roderick son of Usher died of the terror he both feared and anticipated.

Thoroughly tormented, the visitor fled with vigilance this house of ruin. Finally daring to look behind, the escapist was made witness to the fall of the House of Usher in its final, most literal stage.

While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened - there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind - the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight - my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder - there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters - and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed suddenly and finally over the "House of Usher."

The death of the Usher family was not in the literal deaths of Roderick and Madeline Usher; the real death of this forsaken strand of nobility was the passing of the palace's master in the lyric that Roderick sung. The "robes of sorrow" that killed the king plagued the family with a faint memory of their former glory; this is the nostalgia that forever curses and taunts the descendents of the Usher king. The tragedy that was this story, the end of the aristocratic chain, was only the final act in some doomed destiny.

Roderick suffered from the prophecy that he himself divined. While the exact details eluded his understanding, the knowledge that he was to expire because of terror was enough to cause his ruin, or even further it along at a more rapid rate. It was this manic fear of fear that dispelled any chance of a full and healthy recovery (not that one was possible, due to the family's curse). Poe exercises these themes to weave another story rich in nocturnal splendour and blackened imagery: he uses madness to enable the reader to transport himself into the darker reaches of his own mind; perhaps into the realm of madness itself (such is the power of good prose and verse). Indeed, through hysterical characters and events, the alert reader experiences hysteria himself.

Poetry

The Raven

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the graven and stern decorum of the countenance it wore
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

One of Poe's more prolific poems, "The Raven" is about the suffering of one man, and it is about his winged visitor. The first stanza makes the reader aware of the speaker's inner turmoil, and then announces the presence of the visitor through the "rapping of my chamber door."The rhyme scheme that is sustained throughout the poem is an interesting ABCBBB, and with an internal rhyme scheme always in the first and third lines. Also of note, the B rhyme remains the same in every line: wore, more, shore, et cetera.

The second stanza more thoroughly acquaints the reader with the speaker's deep melancholy: "Vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore." Quite clearly, his suffering is induced by the loss of a special love interest. After experiencing wild and thrilling tremors of fear at the "uncertain rustling of each purple curtain," the speaker called out to the unknown, which did not answer. "-here I opened wide the door; Darkness there and nothing more."

The fifth stanza, featuring lines twenty-five through thirty, has our bewildered speaker "Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing... But the silence was unbroken." Curiously, he then whispers into the dark the name of his lost "rare and radiant maiden": Lenore, and the dark answers in kind: "Lenore." The nervous speaker, inquisitive and blunt, now opens the shutter wide and in flies a stately raven, and "with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door - perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door - perched, and sat, and nothing more."

Coming now to the eighth stanza, we can see that the bird has a cunningly effect on the man by the words of the first line ("beguiling my sad fancy into smiling"). And yet we can also, more easily, see in how he addresses his sable visitor that he has deemed it as something of a black omen sent from Hell, or something similar. The following six lines that make up the ninth stanza express his valid confusion and surprise at the tangible speech that is emitted through the birdlord's mouth.

The tenth stanza contains more pessimism from this depressed soul. "other friends have flown before - On the morrow he will leave me as my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said 'Nevermore'." Following this, and within what would be called the eleventh stanza, the doubting and reluctant host ventures to question the extent of the Raven's extraordinary nature, and then claims that the bird knows only one word, and that from the habit of a former master.

"But the Raven still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling," and so the victim of a desecrated love affair questions the purpose and reason for his unexpected arrival. First, the host thinks, the Raven may be sent by God to cure his memories of the lost Lenore; 'Quaff, of quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!' Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore'."

"Prophet!"Said I, "Thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!"
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by Horror haunted, - tell me truly, I implore -
Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

This, the fifteenth stanza, is rife with Biblical references, but the main point being conveyed here is the man's growing desperation; he describes his home (whether the home is the house they now dwell in, his mind, or the earth in general is unclear) as something horrid and desolate, and then asks if there is respite beyond in his question involving "balm in Gilead." But when the Raven gives its usual answer, the madman's madness becomes all the more apparent, in the most moving stanza that is the sixteenth:

"Prophet," said I, "thing of evil! - prophet still if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

At this answer, at the words coming from a prophetic bird that denies the future with Lenore that the suffering soul within the miserable man wishes for more than anything else, the insanity is made plain in a series of exclamation marks that heavily punctuate the seventeenth stanza. Here below are the final two stanzas to this epic poem, which should give the reader a sufficient taste of the madman's blackness.

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting -
Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hat spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!

Powerful, is it not? The suffering that the man has endured for an unknown length of time will, according to the Raven, never cease, die, nor leave him. But what or whom exactly is the Raven? It is clear to me that the bird is a distinct and personal manifestation of the turmoil within the madman's mind. This personification of sorrow is the phenomenon of the darkest depths of the human mind coming forth and making itself seen in reality. Edgar Allan Poe utilizes this spectral creature to make the tormenting nature of a love long lost come to life in an understandable shape and form.

In this mysterious poem that depicts a weird relation between man, the mediator, and the mind, Poe opens a dimension of distress that makes an entrance into this dimension. It is fairly easy to recognize the dominant theme here: unrelenting sorrow leads to unmitigated madness. But there is ever more to it than just this. This poem explores a man and his soul, whom are both tortured by an overwhelming agony suffered in this life, but it also explores the need for a cure. The speaker questions most passionately the possibility of a "balm in Gilead," and if Lenore would return to him in a life beyond the grave. Human nature, the endless quest for something better and something more is excellently expressed in "The Raven"; but it is also imperative to make note of the power that that such unadulterated sorrow can have on the human mind. Indeed, knowing Poe's pitiable history, the work I have just explained to you may well be the product of a besieged and embattled mind itself!

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and to be loved by me.

Thus the very first stanza of an effective love poem, and one of Poe's more encouraging pieces. It exploits a different sort of rhyme scheme, especially with the stanzas made up of varying lengths. The first stanza, made up of six lines, has a ABABCB scheme, while the third stanza, made up of eight lines, displays a ABCDBEB. Clearly, the B rhyme is dominant; and there are only four different words that it entails: "sea," "LEE," "me," and "we."

The speaker quite obviously enjoys a rare and splendid love with this maiden by the sea; this Annabel Lee. In fact, he boasts, the love is so exceptional that even the angels coveted their mutual bliss. This is the reasoning that the young swain uses to explain the sudden and untimely demise of his Annabel Lee; "The angels, not half so happy in heaven, went envying her and me - yes! - that was the reason...That the wind came out of the cloud by night, chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE."

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

In this stanza, the fifth, the speaker is implying that the love that he and Annabel lee shared is much stronger than the passions that their elders could possibly enjoy. Perhaps this is only more of his impetuosity and arrogance, but the important thing to remember is his youth and how passion has a tendency to blind a young man's eyes. It is, however, imperative to note that, in the speaker's concrete view on this affair, not any supernatural force, not angel nor demon, could ever divorce his soul from that of Annabel Lee.

The sixth and final stanza presents the reader with beautiful imagery and a bitter-sweet conclusion to the poem. Every night, we learn, the speaker experiences vivid dreams of Annabel lee, and every night does this forsaken youth lie down beside his deceased love, "- my darling - my life and my bride, In the sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea."

Though this is undeniably a poem with a definite positive tone to it, Edgar Allan Poe still gives us a certain and distinct darkness that lends the piece a fine melancholy; and yet there is the beautiful theme of immortality present, as well, hidden amidst a tale of rash youth and untimely death. But there is one dominant idea that legitimizes the entire poem, and that is one of unspoiled, unadulterated passion for another human being, and this is what makes every other theme in the poem so very profound. It is this love that immortalizes Annabel Lee, if only in the heart and soul of her earthly love. Though human rules still hold power over the body, the ethereal and eternal nature of such divine love only makes their mortality abstract; and suddenly, death has new meaning.

A Dream Within a Dream

Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

"A Dream Within a Dream is a poem that questions both the nature of our earthly existence, and how we might perceive it. The speaker of the poem is addressing someone who proposed to him that his days have been nothing but a lifelong dream. Structured by way of rhyme in heroic couplets, the poem's tone is inquisitive, desperate and fearful by turns, though there are only twenty-four lines to this piece. The oscillating tone can in itself be likened to the speaker's desperation, and his longing for an answer; he needs to know that his entire existence means more than just another dream.

The second stanza, the only other one, clearly displays the desperation already mentioned, but it also leaves the reader with a sense of uncertainty; even more so than the first stanza did. The speaker alludes to humanity, Earth and our very existence; he speaks of "Grains of golden sand": they are few in number, and yet they slip quickly through his fingers - "While I weep - while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp?" Everything he knows is mortal and prey to the ravages of time, and he despises this. When one discovers that all things are transient, one is all the more likely to determine that "All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream."

Poe leaves us with these same two lines, but arranged in the form of a question. This can say something to the effect that. although we search and scramble for answers, we can and will only be left with more questions.

O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

To Helen

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

Here, in "To Helen," we find a nostalgic speaker expressing the way in which the beauty he generously appraises transports him to "the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome." Ships, likely borne of Phoenicia, bear the weary, way-worn wanderer" to his home. The "Naiad airs" of this exotic Helen are powerful enough to bring the speaker back to the Classical world, his original home (thus the metaphor of the ship bearing weary wanderers home). Helen is likened to a statue, which further suggests the speaker's deep nostalgia, but also her immortal beauty.

Visceral and definite imagery is employed in a captivating display of Classical perfection and symmetry; the reader is blessed with the distinct pleasure of seeing before him the world presented in Poe's poem. The two themes of unspoiled beauty and nostalgia are obvious, but together they form a third: a theme of peace. In this poem, uncharacteristic of Poe, the tone is of a positive nature. the imagery is not at all dark, but full of light and scenes of olden glory, instead of the usual tale of death and mystery Poe usually tells. No, rather than themes of depth and decay, an idea of peace is solidified in the speaker through his worship of this Helen, an anachronism that allows him entrance into the Age of Wonder. Once among the gods of old, once amidst the peoples of his kind, the speaker finds his home, and there is no better peace to be found than in the heart of a weary, way-worn wanderer who has finally found his long way home.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand!
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

To One in Paradise

Thou wast all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine -
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.

"To One in Paradise" literally addresses a certain beloved whose earthly existence has expired, but, more importantly, it also addresses the terror of one's inability to overcome the misfortunes of his past. There is a rhyme scheme, but it is, in usual Poe fashion, inconsistent. The Bostonian poet uses nature imagery and personification of such concepts as hope and future to portray a tormented man who has lost all belief in a good tomorrow.

The first stanza clearly demonstrates the speaker's devotion to that for which his soul did pine, and also, perhaps, his lonely devotion: "all the flowers were mine"; from this I comprehend that he is the only one really missing her. The second stanza begins the wail of despair: "Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah starry Hope that didst arise but to be overcast!" The saying "too good to be true" has a key validity here. Furthermore, the speaker hears Future calling to him, saying "On, on!" The forlorn spirit is, sadly, stranded and secluded in the past, "Mute, motionless, aghast!" In the third stanza, the speaker confirms his despondency by firmly stating to the reader that his life is indeed over; as sure as the thunder-blasted tree shall never bloom, nor the stricken eagle soar, his life cannot again commence. The fourth and final stanza contains a rhythmic beauty both rich in melancholy and lush romanticism. These six lines are the passage of a spirit from the human world to the dreamscape; mortal life has forsaken the wretched man, and so he has forsaken mortal life for the dreamscape. In this way does he entertain visions of his lost one, even if he has lost every connexion with reality.

This poem captures the essence of Poe's common work, his travels to the darker depths of the human psyche, and moves it into yet another new direction: the migration of sanity to insanity by way of choice; the transience, fragility of human reason. The themes that I can perceive here are obviously that of a forlorn love: one love departs from the mortal world while the other is forced to remain. The romantic way of reading this poem would be to see the speaker's loss of rational thought his own choice; of his own full volition. Only in this way could he disentangle himself from the mortal, reasonable world in order to be with his beloved, and thus heal the divorce. Regardless, the poem beautifully explains the easy mortality of the human mind, and how it is ultimately no greater, lesser, even, than the eternal soul within, around, beyond; that which truly guides the individual to his destiny.

And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams -
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.

The Coliseum

Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemptible left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length - at length - after so many days
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst
(Thirst for the springs of lore than in thee lie),
I kneel, an altered and humble man,
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
My very soul thy grandeur, gloom and glory!

"The Coliseum," a poem with no rhyme scheme whatsoever, features a sole pilgrim, who has journeyed a long journey to this destination, the great icon of Rome, the Coliseum. As is usual for Poe, the first person point-of-view is utilized, giving this work the familial, personal feel that most of his work gladly possesses. The imagery is purely Classical; examples of Biblical, Greek and Roman characteristics fill the lines. Allusions to these historic ideals fulfill this poem as a fine instance of Classical worship.

The first stanza outlines the hardships of the speaker's pilgrimage, but his peace is more than attained by the method of "grandeur, gloom and glory!"; the habit of Rome. The magnificence of this triumphant slice of history, experienced only in texts thus far (or so I suspect), is now wholly available for the pilgrim's delight and indulgence, insofar as ruined stones allow, of course. He kneels before the remains altered; the journeyman's previous life is next to meaningless after surveying the surviving beauty of the better yesterday. He kneels before the remains humbled; he recognizes that his existence is extremely small when taken into context of the greater and inexorable history.

The vivid effects of the stones are further realized in the second stanza. Expressions of extremity are made in the first two lines: the speaker shouts the brilliance of "Vastness! and Age!"; he shouts the endurance of "Memories of Eld!"; and finally, he shouts the spectacle of "Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!" He wonders at the profundity, the realness of these supra-emotions. The pilgrim then makes the claim that these are "spells more sure than e'er Judaean king Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane" These potent remains have more legitimacy than Biblical doctrine.

Within the nine lines of the third stanza, Poe writes through the speaker of more specific aspects; the details of Rome. The traditions of the city are mentioned, and so are the virgins: "Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!" Caesar is seen coming unto "his marble home," beneath the liberty of night.

However, in the fourth stanza, the inevitable occurs: is this ruin all that remains? The thought itself is depressing, but especially so for this lonely pilgrim, who has experienced the visceral, personal effect that only an expedition to the site can properly bequeath. The speaker curses Time, and puts forth the question: "These stones - alas! these gray stones - are they all - All of the famed and colossal left By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?" The fifth and final stanza has a more-than-adequate, positive response to this. Mystical (but by no means unreal) Echoes answer from the journeyman and all around, assuring him of the immortality found in Classical wisdom; but only the inspired can retrieve the depth and guidance from the Ancient sources. The ineliminable endurance of History is inferred within the speech of the Echoes.

When reading "The Coliseum" time and time again, I am ever renewed with a distinct sense of hope; the final stanza of this poem should make this easy to identify with. After reading of the splendour that the wanderer experiences in the first and second stanzas, the fifth seemingly provides the reader with the idea that these glories of the past are not dead, but alive in the memories of our neglected yesterday. The theme of nostalgia is also clearly present, but it is used as an instrument in conveying the message of redemption and rediscovery; the ignorance of the modern world has led to its own decadence, and the road to redemption lies in the rediscovery of Ancient tradition. A rather far-fetched connotation one might think, but when Poe tells us of the omnipresence and the invincibility of the old mysticism, and when he mentions the heavenly attributes of this golden age, one is inclined to think of a great reformation of our current godless era. It is, however, a priority to remember the hope that this poem so richly exudes; when Edgar Allan Poe forsakes common motives of human weakness and mortality, it would be prudent to attend the sense to the primary point. After several and more readings of this poem, I can give no further comment aside from a slight measure of encouragement: life is not dead; life is widely ignored. The joys of the past cannot be experienced by the majority, but by the insightful few that do not ignore life, however much morbidity the world casts at them. To those insightful few, this poem and message of hope is for you.

These stones - alas! these gray stones - are they all -
All of the famed and the colossal left
By the corrosive Hours to fate and me?

"Not all" - the Echoes answer me - "not all!
Prophetic sounds and loud arise forever
From us, from all Ruin, unto the wise,
As melody from Memnon to the Sun.
We rule the hearts of mightiest men - we rule
With a despotic sway all giant minds.
We are not impotent - we pallid stones.
Not all our power is gone - not all our fame -
Not all the magic of our high renown -
Not all the wonder that encircles us -
Not all the mysteries that in us lie -
Not all the memories that hang upon
And cling around about us as a garment,
Clothing us in a robe of more than glory."

Edgar Allan Poe - A CORRUPT Perspective

"When it comes to the republicanism, there wasn't in the whole world an equivalence in nature - at least if we exclude the prairie dogs, an exception that - if anything - seems to prove that democracy is a very admirable system of government - for dogs."

I am sure that a high percentage of readers have noticed many common themes strung throughout Poe's insightful work. When you can notice and appraise these ideas as similar, independent constructs, you can also notice that these are part of a greater whole: Poe's determined mentality. There have been several relatively prominent themes that I have remarked on during the course of this essay, and these are as follows: time and death and mortality, the human mind and reason, bittersweet nostalgia and, finally, and a little strangely, the very human feeling of hope. The works themselves are related. When one reads "To One in Paradise," how can that someone refrain from also thinking of "Annabel Lee"? Yes, these pieces are in many cases very similar, but most certainly not identical; Poe takes a different route to the ultimate goal in each of them. When conceiving of these distinct themes found throughout his life's work, and placing them in the greater context of the whole, there can be no doubt that Edgar Allan Poe is as good of a Romantic poet as any that walked American soil.

What Poe does is recognize the many fallacies of ordinary man, and then confront them with no mercy; the end result is an answer than any literate individual can easily understand, and perhaps even go so far as to apply the truth to their life. When the prisoner of the Inquisition is struggling in his fight to retain his mind, Poe champions the autonomous, warrior spirit that prevails against the malign devices of many mortal, misguided men. When the despondent soul mired in an earthly existence while his Annabel Lee enters eternity finds her spirit residing close to her tomb, Poe shouts for joy at the reunion of a love that never did expire, but flourished, albeit in the realm beyond normal human cognizance. And when the pilgrim stumbles and cries before the remains of our glorious yesteryear, Poe rejoices with the echoes, and joins in with their cry of immortality: Not all our power is gone! Not all mystery! Not every memory! This leads us back to that peculiar and pervasive theme of Poe's: Hope. What business have we with hope? We, who live in an empty world of cardboard and blank concrete; a world without God or gods, why should we hope? Ah, but I remember well the salvation of that triumphant victim: ingenious thought that resulted from the innate will to live and a perfect, innocent hope.

Edgar Allan Poe endured very much pain in his own life. We can see in his work something of an idealistic replica of what went on in his mind, which also had no business with the pleasures of hope. We can also suspect that his writing was largely a tool for an escape from the personal miseries of his life; alcohol and laudanum only go so far. Obviously these are clearly not admirable character traits (though they are certainly understandable, everything considered), I am not sure if the product would have been the same had Poe not been that way. Human misery, coupled with abusive substances, makes for some of the best artwork ever produced.

Though his work can be a little too moralistic at times, it is most important to remember the contributions that he has made to the field of American poetry, and also even to Romantic poetry in general. The themes constantly stressed by Poe's prose and rhyme not only co-incide with a pure Romanticist ideology, but it is also very similar to the Corruptian philosophy, and a general joy of life and the celebration of existence of what life there remains. Edgar Allan Poe is not a novel phenomenon; he did not re-invent the wheel. However, what Poe did achieve was a reincarnation of an element of the eternal truth that is revealed every so often by someone like Poe. With the wheel of time spinning faster and ever faster, these occasions will become more and more infrequent as man loses touch with all spiritual essence entirely. This is why it is all the more imperative to celebrate modern men like Edgar Allan Poe that have the courage, idealism and genuine spirit enough to create something worthy of universal recognition. Let us join the Dionysian ensemble and revel in our existence! Let us dance upon the plastic graves of things already dead! Let us appreciate the work of genius; let us appreciate Edgar Allan Poe!

Written by Joel Meyer