Questions tagged [edgar-allan-poe]
For questions about the 19th-century author Edgar Allan Poe and his writings, which include both poetry and short stories, some of which have had widespread influence in their genres. Questions about his poems and short stories should be tagged [poetry] and [short-stories] respectively.
36
questions
7
votes
1
answer
254
views
Why did the Pit and the Pendulum lack historical authenticity?
The Pit and the Pendulum is set in Toledo, Spain during the height of the Spanish Inquisition which began in 1478.
In the story, Poe references the Jacobin club, which was an influential political ...
- 1,051
12
votes
1
answer
3k
views
Why Pallas in "The Raven"?
In Poe's famous poem "The Raven", the eponymous bird, after tapping on the narrator's window, steps smartly inside and perches upon a bust of Pallas.
Why Pallas? As far as I know, this ...
- 71.1k
6
votes
1
answer
803
views
Does "Landor's Cottage" have a real-life match?
I'm currently doing some research on E. A. Poe's Landor's Cottage (1849).
This short story—really a description by an unnamed narrator of an ideal(ized) locale—is "a pendant to 'The Domain of ...
- 163
4
votes
1
answer
120
views
Short story by Poe where the killers of an evil king escape by ladder
I believe there is a short story by Poe in which an evil king is killed, and the killers escape by a ladder to the roof. What is the title of this story?
I read this story several decades ago, in a ...
user5699
3
votes
1
answer
474
views
What do the yellow banners in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Haunted Palace" symbolize?
The story "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe contains a poem, "The Haunted Palace", which starts like this:
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels ...
- 187
5
votes
1
answer
96
views
What's the significance of leap years in Poe's “The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade”?
Edgar Allan Poe's story “The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade” (link to full text) has this curious sentence. This is about Scheherazade volunteering to marry the king, despite knowing that ...
- 1,730
0
votes
1
answer
100
views
Can Edgar Allan Poe’s Alone be analyzed in the light of Existential Loneliness? [duplicate]
Can Edgar Allan Poe’s Alone be analyzed in the light of Existential Loneliness? The very first lines
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not ...
- 1,535
8
votes
1
answer
421
views
Why does Poe's "Arthur Gordon Pym" become so Technical and Scientific all of a sudden?
I was re-reading Edgar Allen Poe's magnificently disturbing novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, this last month and began to wonder why suddenly, starting with Chapter 14 and going ...
- 790
1
vote
1
answer
97
views
What does Edgar Allan Poe mean by "supererogation is not presumable of any Divine Act"?
I am reading Edgar Allan Poe's Eureka: A Prose Poem, "an essay on the material and spiritual universe". I have come across a sentence where I can't get what the author is trying to say. It ...
- 503
8
votes
2
answers
551
views
Edgar Allan Poe's "Alone"
The short poem "Alone" by Edgar Allan Poe was written in 1829 or 1830, when he was a young man, but only published in 1875 long after his death. Its full text is as follows:
From childhood’s hour I ...
- 71.1k
4
votes
2
answers
122
views
What does Hanns Heinz Ewers mean in this quote about Edgar Allan Poe?
There are men who radiate a special charm. They attract without wanting to, —one must believe in their personality, and then there is a certain quality which repels. One is not conscious what it ...
- 103
6
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Where is the Poe quote "Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them" from?
While researching an answer for the question What does Dupin mean about a seal formed of bread?, I was looking up material related to the author Edgar Allan Poe and his use of puns. I found this quote,...
- 23.3k
5
votes
2
answers
340
views
What does Dupin mean about a seal formed of bread?
In Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Purloined Letter", a minister known only as D-- has a letter which he is keeping for the purposes of blackmail, and the police prefect G-- comes to Dupin for help ...
- 71.1k
4
votes
0
answers
230
views
Was Lovecraft influenced by Poe's "The Black Cat"?
While researching a question about Lovecraft, I was reading the article Stephen A. Black, "Literary Biography and Psychological Criticism: In the Matter of H. P. Lovecraft", Canadian Review of ...
- 71.1k
3
votes
0
answers
644
views
What is the meaning behind Poe's "The Assignation"?
Has anyone read and analyzed Poe's "The Assignation"? I read it and have a preliminary understanding of it but failed to perceive greater nuances by far.
2
votes
1
answer
243
views
How are old horror short stories classified?
When I was young, I had a few books with compiled horror, mystery or macabre short stories. I want to go back and read some of these short stories, and was able to find a few.
I was able to find many ...
3
votes
0
answers
296
views
Significance of the name Annabel Lee?
"Annabel Lee" is one of many pieces of writing by Edgar Allan Poe which explore the theme of a beloved woman who died young. As with other such works, most famously "The Raven", critics have ...
- 71.1k
2
votes
1
answer
393
views
What is the meaning of this sentence: ...for there was nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man
It is a line of one of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, and it says:
We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as much of the
entertaining as of the contemptible about the man...
I ...
Amethyst
3
votes
1
answer
6k
views
Meter and number of syllables per line in "The Raven"
After reading some analysis of "The Raven", I've become confused about how syllables are counted. For example, in the second line:
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore
A few ...
- 39
2
votes
0
answers
137
views
Why all the fuss about Doctor Dubble L. Dee?
In Poe's short story "Three Sundays in a Week" (which can be read in full here), the protagonist and his intended bride need to outwit his uncle, who has decreed that they can only get ...
- 71.1k
14
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Which German book was Poe referring to?
The opening line of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Man of the Crowd" is as follows.
It was well said of a certain German book that "er lasst sich nicht lesen"- it does not permit itself to be ...
- 71.1k
3
votes
1
answer
149
views
Were the footnotes included in the original text of the 1002nd Tale of Scheherazade?
The short story "The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade" by Edgar Allan Poe details a great many wonders of the more modern world being described by Scheherazade to her husband, in ...
- 71.1k
4
votes
1
answer
2k
views
What's the point of the sandy beach in "A Dream Within a Dream"?
The main thrust of Edgar Allan Poe's poem "A Dream Within a Dream" concerns the existential angst of the narrator, and his fear that "all that we see or seem" is nothing but "a dream within a dream". ...
- 71.1k
12
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Is there any indication that Poe feared live burial?
Many of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories feature burial while alive; in one case, the subject of the story actually suffers from taphophobia before his own live burial. (Wikipedia helpfully includes a ...
- 5,940
13
votes
1
answer
678
views
Was Stevenson's Treasure Island influenced by Poe?
I read on Wikipedia that:
During the same period, Edgar Allan Poe wrote, "MS Found in a Bottle" (1833) and the intriguing tale of buried treasure, "The Gold-Bug" (1843). All of these works ...
- 71.1k
5
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Is the old man still alive at the end of The Tell-tale Heart?
In The Tell-tale Heart, we see the madman does kill the old man:
But for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not bother me. I knew it would not be heard through ...
- 23.3k
8
votes
1
answer
5k
views
Why is there a focus on the atmosphere in The Fall of the House of Usher?
In The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allen Poe has several spots where he talks about the gloomy, cloudy, atmosphere:
As I looked at the house, it seemed to me that it was being wrapped in a ...
- 23.3k
8
votes
1
answer
5k
views
What is the message of Poe's "Eleonora"?
I recently read Edgar Allan Poe's short story "Eleonora", a thinly veiled self-portrait in which the protagonist falls in love with his younger cousin, who later dies and leaves him alone. ...
- 71.1k
14
votes
2
answers
9k
views
What does the raven symbolize (besides death)?
Whenever I ask a friend about the symbolism of the Raven from The Raven, they always seem to say death.
Is that the only thing the Raven is meant to symbolize?
- 6,588
23
votes
0
answers
587
views
Was Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum at all inspired by A Predicament?
Poe's satirical short story A Predicament tells the story of a woman who is slowly decapitated by the minute hand of a large cathedral clock. In all its ridiculousness, it was supposed to be a horror ...
- 5,864
18
votes
2
answers
6k
views
What does 'Gilead' mean in The Raven?
Poe's poem The Raven contains the following words in the fifteenth stanza:
[...] tell me truly, I implore—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!"
What does 'Gilead' mean ...
- 71.1k
13
votes
1
answer
12k
views
Why did Montresor want to kill Fortunato?
In The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor traps Fortunato in the catacombs, but his motives are not explicitly explained. Montresor does allude to some wrongs committed against him by Fortunato. Is it ...
28
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Did Poe plagiarise someone else's work when writing "The Raven"?
I've read that Poe's been accused of lifting significant elements from many authors including Elizabeth Barrett, Charles Dickens, Leo Penzoni, and Thomas Holley Chivers (and "unknown," of course). ...
- 4,890
33
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Did Lenore merely leave or is she dead?
Edgar Allen Poe's poem The Raven has the narrator mourning the loss of his love Lenore. But it's actually not entirely clear to me if Lenore merely left the narrator (for whatever relationship-related ...
14
votes
1
answer
730
views
How did Madeline Usher survive without food or water?
In The Fall of the House of Usher, Madeline Usher is put in the vault for a week, without food or water, in a coffin. This is in addition to the fact that she had been sick, and so wasn't at her ...
- 23.3k
34
votes
1
answer
2k
views
How many of Poe's stories are interconnected?
I'm currently (slowly!) working through the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe. Three of his stories are detective tales featuring Dupin, a possible inspiration for the more famous fictional detective ...
- 71.1k