THE life and

WORKs OF
EDGAR ALLAN
POE
The life of edgar allan poe

A prominent figure in Gothic literature and

the inventor of the modern detective story,
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is an
American writer, poet and critic whose very
name brings to mind images of murderers
and madmen, premature burials, and
mysterious women who return from the
dead. And just as the bizarre characters in his
stories have captured the public imagination,
so too has Poe’s own tragic life story.
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❖ He was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809,
but within three years both of his parents had died, and Poe went
to live with John Allan, a tobacco merchant, in Richmond, Virginia

❖ In 1826 Poe left to attend the University of Virginia, where he

excelled in his classes but accumulated considerable debt, and
soon took up gambling to pay his expenses. He was so poor that he
burned his furniture to keep warm.

❖ Forced to drop out, his life then went from bad to worse - upon
coming home, he learned that his fiancée had become engaged to
another man in his absence. Heartbroken and frustrated, Poe
moved to Boston.
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 ❖ In 1827, he published his first book ‘Tamerlane’
and soon after he joined the U.S Army, but was
thrown out after 8 months
❖ Broke and alone, Poe moved to Baltimore in his
aunt Maria Clemm’s house and her daughter,
Virginia, soon became the object of Poe’s desire,
whom at the age of twenty-seven, he married,
although she was not yet even fourteen.
❖ Poe became an editor in a magazine and
developed a reputation as a harsh critic,
writing vicious reviews of his contemporaries

Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe 4

❖ Dismissed from his job due to heavy alcohol consumption, he
moved to New York where in 1845 the publication of “The Raven”
made him a household name.
❖ His luck didn’t last long - in 1847 Virginia died of tuberculosis and
after her death Poe's lifelong struggle with depression and
alcoholism worsened.
❖ One day in 1849 he mysteriously disappeared and was found after
five days in the a bar in Baltimore. He died four days later, in
October 1849, seemingly from brain swelling, but his death still
remains an unsolved mystery.

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The literary impact of edgar
allan poe
❖ Poe was the father of the modern-day detective
story and also the short story as it is today.
❖ A proprietor of gothic literature, he wrote
primarily of the macabre.
❖ He introduced explored the themes of death,
loss, mystery, loneliness, insanity and
heartache.
❖ He is also credited with the invention of the
horror genre.
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 GOTHIC LITERATURE in general

❖ writing that employs dark and picturesque scenery,

melodramatic narrative devices, and an overall atmosphere
of mystery, terror, fear, and dread.

❖ Gothic writers have also used supernatural elements and

touches of romance to further imbue their works with
suspense and mystery

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 EDGAR ALLAN POE’s
style of writing
❖ gothic horror style of writing which sprung from the
darkness that engulfed his own life,
❖ his most recurring themes deal with questions of
death, including its physical signs, the effects of
decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the
reanimation of the dead, and mourning.
❖ Poe also wrote satires and humor tales, and to
achieve comic effect, he heavily used irony.
❖ He also used his writing to express political
sentiments, particularly regarding racism and slavery
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 pOE’S MOST IMPORTANT
WORKS
During his lifetime, Poe didn’t enjoy the fame that he now has. His
works were largely obscured for some 50 years after his death
owing to copyright restrictions held by his executor. Some of his
most important masterpieces now known include:
❖ “The Raven” and ‘Annabel Lee’
❖ “The Cask of Amontillado”
❖ “The Masque of the Red Death”
❖ “The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
❖ “The Tell-Tale Heart”
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poetry

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 The raven - 1845
"The Raven" is a grotesque first-
person narrative poem notable for its
musicality, stylized language, and
eerily supernatural atmosphere,
written during a difficult period in
Poe’s life when his wife, Virginia,
was suffering from tuberculosis and
he was struggling to make money as
an unknown writer.

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 SUMMARY OF THE POEM
“The Raven” follows an unnamed narrator
on a dreary night in December who sits
reading "forgotten lore" by a dying fire as a
way to forget the death of his beloved
Lenore. At midnight, he hears a tapping on
his door. When he opens the window, a
raven flies in and perches on a bust of the
goddess Athena. The speaker is amused at
first by the sight of the raven, but then he
begins to ask the raven increasingly
desperate questions about whether he will
ever see or hold Lenore again.
The bird always answers, "Nevermore",
even to the narrator’s desperate pleas to
leave him alone and the narrator sinks
further down into depression and into his
grief. Finally, the narrator tells us that the
Raven has continued to sit atop his
chamber door above the bust of Pallas, and
that he -the narrator- will live forever in its
shadow - the grief and loneliness he feels
in the wake of the death of Lenore shall be
lifted nevermore.
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 analysis OF THE POEM
❖ Highly lyrical poem that is is made up of 18 stanzas
of six lines each that follow ABCBBB rhyme scheme

❖ Rich use of alliteration- Doubting, dreaming dreams

(repeats the same consonant)
❖ Use of assonance, words with similar syllables, for
example – napping, rapping, tapping, dreary, weary,
remember, December, ember.
❖ Emphasis the "O" sound in words such as "Lenore"
and "nevermore" in order to underline the
melancholy and lonely sound of the poem
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 Important themes
❖grief and its isolating power over a man’s ability to live in the

present
❖psychological terror- the events of the poem are undeniably ghostly
and threaten the narrator’s psychological state
❖hopelessness of the speaker’s situation—he will never again reunite
with his beloved Lenore, physically or spiritually.
❖undying devotion - even though Lenore has died, the narrator still
loves her and appears unable to think of anything but her.
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 Symbols and figurative language

1. The titular raven represents the speaker’s unending grief over the
loss of Lenore, as ravens traditionally carry a connotation of death
2. Pallas refers to the Greek goddess of wisdom, Pallas Athena, which
visually represents the way the speaker’s rationality is threatened
by the raven’s message.
3. The chamber is the setting of this poem, and it symbolizes the
speaker’s attempt to shut himself away from his grief.

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Gustave Doré’s Hauntingly Beautiful 1883 Illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”
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 Annabel lee-1849
The last complete poem ever written by Poe, it
was published shortly after his death and like
many of Poe's poems, it explores the theme of the
death of a beautiful woman, possibly inspired by
the death of Poe’s wife Virginia. The poem is
known for its unique melancholy tone and its
representation of love in its purest form.

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 SUMMARY OF THE POEM
‘Annabel Lee’ begins with a fairy tale tone
(It was many and many a year ago/ In a
kingdom by the sea) and tells of a young
man (the speaker) who many years ago,
lived happily in a kingdom with his
beloved, Annabel Lee. They loved each
other since childhood, but their love for
each other was so intense that even the
angels in heaven became envious and
killed Annabel Lee by sending cold winds.
Though the speaker is devastated after
the heart-wrenching demise of his
beloved, he never stops loving her. Their
two souls, being one, will always be
united even when their bodies are apart
and their love extends beyond the grave.
Every night, he sees her beautiful face in
his dreams and sleeps near her tomb, and
the poem ends on the note that true love
is undying and resides in the soul.
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 ANALYSIS OF THE POEM
❖ A haunting ballad of six stanzas with a wealth of
hypnotic rhythm and song-like rhyme ( ABAB)
❖ It has a fairytale air which can also resonate with
all who have been in love or felt tragedy and loss.
❖ Repetition of words and phrases to create a
mournful effect - the name Annabel Lee
emphasizes the letter "L"
❖ Strong visual imagery to make the readers imagine
a cold and desolate place, marked by death

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 Important themes
❖Love: The basic theme is that of true love being able to transcend
death; nothing can keep two souls apart, not even supernatural forces.
❖ Death and grief: like many other of Poe’s poems, the poem
explores the theme of death and the way grief attaches itself to a
person and refuses to let go, colouring every aspect of life
❖Memory and reminiscing: the poem emphasizes that memories,
especially extremely pleasant memories, are often idealized versions of
reality, which may not have been exactly true

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 Symbols :

A prominent symbol in the

poem is the sea which is large,
lonely and cold and is a
reflection of the emptiness and
desolation that the speaker feels
now that he has lost his
Annabel Lee.

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 Short
stories

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 What makes poe’s stories unique?
❖ Poe specialized in writing stories with a first-person narrator. And that narrator
is almost always highly unreliable — they’re either mad, a violent criminal,
or both.
❖ He explored themes like loss of control — either control of one’s mind, or of
one’s actions due to insanity or intoxication— and imprisonment — either in
a literal prison, a tomb or within one’s own mind
❖ The settings of Poe’s most popular stories are vague and add an element of
suspense in an already eerie atmosphere
❖ In general, Poe’s horror stories center on a single shocking incident.
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 The Cask of AmontilLado
-1846
This is a story set in an unnamed Italian
city at carnival time in an unspecified year,
about a man taking fatal revenge on a
friend who, he believes, has insulted him.
Like several of Poe's stories, and in
keeping with the 19th-century fascination
with the subject, the narrative revolves
around a person being buried alive – in this
case, by immurement.
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❖ The story begins with the narrator, Montresor, stating that he has been
insulted by his acquaintance, Fortunato, and that he seeks revenge, deciding
to use Fortunato’s fondness for wine against him
❖ During a carnival, Montresor approaches Fortunato and lures him to his
vaults with the promise of a cask of Amontillado. He has strategically
planned for this meeting, and carefully leads them further down into the
catacombs
❖ They drink and converse, and it is revealed that Montresor’s family was
once wealthy and admired.
❖ They progress towards a dark crypt full of human bones, where Montresor
takes advantage of drunk Fortunato and chains him to a wall, brings in stone
and mortar and starts burying him alive, at the end revealing he exacted his
revenge 50 years ago
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 ANALYSIS OF THE STORY

❖ The terror of “The Cask of Amontillado,” resides

in the lack of evidence that accompanies
Montresor’s claims to Fortunato’s injuries
❖ The story features revenge and secret murder as a
way to avoid using legal channels for retribution
❖ Poe uses a particular kind of unreliable narrator
to add emotion and depth to the story
❖ It is unknown whether Montresor tells his story
to a priest, a friend, or simply to himself
❖ Constant use of irony and foreshadowing
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 Themes
❖ Revenge: Edgar Allan Poe explicitly
signals that revenge will be the focus of
"The Cask of Amontillado"
❖ Folly of pride: Pride is a central
motivation in this story, and foolish
pride is one of the themes that affects
both main characters throughout
❖ The dangers of alcohol: Fortunato's
intoxication and his love of wine is
what enables Montresor to carefully
manipulate him and lead him to his
death
Symbols
❖ Fortunato’s name: means the fortunate
one, can be regarded as an ironic
symbol as of course Fortunato ends up
being anything but fortunate.
❖ Fortunato's jester outfit: This
symbolises the foolishness of its wearer
in letting himself be lured to his death
by Montresor
❖ Catacombs: symbols of death
❖ Montresor's family crest and motto: a
physical representation of revenge
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 The tell-tale heart- 1843
One of Poe’s best known stories, and even
though it is one of his shortest, it is
nevertheless a profound and, at times,
ambiguous investigation of a man's paranoia.
Related by an unnamed narrator who
endeavors to convince the reader of the his
sanity while simultaneously describing a
murder he committed, it explores themes of
guilt, time and madness.

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❖ The story is told by an unnamed narrator, who insists on being sane, but is
suffering from "over-acuteness of the senses".
❖ He lives with an old man who has a clouded "vulture-like" eye, which
distresses the narrator so much that he plots to murder the man.
❖ Each night for a week, he slowly opens the door to the old man's chamber
and looks in on him sleeping, and on the eight night, he creeps in and
spying the vulture eye, he lashes out and kills the old man, taking great
precautions to cover up the crime.
❖ No sooner has he done this than there’s a knock at the door: it’s the police.
He is confident that they will not find any evidence of the murder, but the
narrator then starts hearing a ringing in his ears which he believes is the
old man’s beating heart and losing grip on his last shreds of sanity, he
snaps and confesses his crime.
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 ANALYSIS OF THE STORY
❖ “The Tell-Tale Heart" uses an unreliable
narrator, who most likely suffers from
monomania or paranoid schizophrenia
❖ Poe gives no context for the start of the story,
but the narrator is most likely in jail for
murder and talking to someone from within
his cell.
❖ The narrator's sex isn't clearly indicated
either; though many assume the narrator to be
a man
❖ Use of supernatural elements to intensify the
feeling of guilt and paranoia 30
 Themes Symbols
❖ The eye: the vulture eye of the old man
❖ Madness and sanity: it explores the
represents death and reminds the narrator
close relationship between rationality
of his own mortality which he wishes to
and irrationality
escape
❖ The pressure of guilt: a guilty
❖ The Tell-Tale Heart: the heart
conscience weighs heavy- what the
represents emotion and passion, but in
narrator thinks is the heart of the old
this story, it is a symbol of guilt
man, is his actually his own heart,
pounding with guilt ❖ The house: by trying to hide the body of
the murdered old man beneath the
❖ The passage of time: the marking of
floorboard, the narrator is symbolically
the passage of time is used to increase
trying to hide the guilt of his crime in his
tension.
subconscious. 31
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Made by Jana Pashovska and Iskra Talevska

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