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Edgar Allan Poe and his contribution to American literature
Edgar Allan Poe and his contribution to American literature
Edgar Allan Poe and his contribution to American literature
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Shakespeare and Poe
“While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.” (Poe 145) Although Shakespeare antecedes Poe, the two poets use poetic devices in their poetic manuscripts. Works of poetry have poetic devices that intensifies a story; with added intensification, it makes the poem unique. In analyzing the two poets, William Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe, one can remark that the two use similar and contradictory poetic devices in their writings.
One poetic device is descriptive language; it creates a fascinating story, and it is also uncircumscribed as the limit is how descriptive the author wants it to be. Since both Shakespeare and Poe use descriptive language, they both convey specific moods with their works. However, they both translate contrasting moods and messages, and they make the readers feel the essence of the story in different ways. “Ah,
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Shakespeare and Poe both use controlled patterns of meter; controlled patterns of meter are the stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem, and this results in a symphonic and poetic melody when reading the poem. “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary.” (Poe 145) From this quote, one can say that it has a controlled pattern as the syllables go in a pattern; meaning that the stressed and unstressed syllables are alternating. Besides the similarities, unlike Poe, Shakespeare used less stanzas in his sonnets, and he also writes with a variety of patterns. In Shakespeare's sonnets, one can tell that there is more than one rhyming scheme. On the other hand, Poe uses more stanzas as he is creating a more elaborate story; his works are usually more than 4 stanzas, and he writes his stanzas in the same way in “The Raven,” for example, ABCDDD. Even though the two poets use pattern in their writing, they used it in different
Who is your favorite author? Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, Ray Bradbury, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Dr. Suess? Have you ever wondered what their strengths and weaknesses are and which authors are better. Some of these authors have written more than 40 books in there life time. Edgar Allen Poe and Ray Bradbury are very similar yet very different. You can use a compare and contrast format to figure out the similarities and differences of these two classic American Authors.
Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne are considered two of the most influential writers in American history. ¨Although they never met face-to-face the two writers are inseparably linked because of the style of their works.¨(Velella) Their unique style was different then a lot of other writers which separated them from the rest. While Longfellow and many others wrote about happiness and spiritual connection with nature Poe and Hawthorne wrote about darkness and how they thought humanity was evil creation.
Edgar Allan Poe has a style that is dark and morbid. His tone is very gloomy and obscure. The tone of “The Cask of Amontillado” is almost tame compared to the tone of “The Black Cat”, his other work we covered. The tone of that work is almost maddening. “The Cask of Amontillado” tone is very sinister and methodic. Whereas “The Black Cat”, has a pulse to a cadence and rhythm though no clear pattern is established. Poe’s style of writing seems so personal, as a reader I had to remind myself this was fiction. His first-person style of writing is so detailed and intricate it is very easy to become invested in the world he creates. “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Black Cat” both have themes of revenge where the supposed victim is untimely
The Romantic era writers, Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe, had many similarities but even more differences, in both writing theme and style. This is very evident in their works, “Rip Van Winkle”, by Irving, and “The Fall of the House of Usher”, by Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of America's most influential writers. His stories and poems have touched the lives of countless people. His works, however, are influenced by his own life. The events of his life led him down the dark road of depression and morbidity.
Redfield, J. S. "The Genius of Poe." Foreword. The Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. A.C. Armstrong & Son. New York: A.C. Armstrong & Son., 1884. xv-xxvi. EPUB file.
For a writer, stylistic devices are key to impacting a reader through one’s writing and conveying a theme. For example, Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates use of these stylistic techniques in his short stories “The Masque of the Red Death” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The former story is about a party held by a wealthy prince hiding from a fatal disease, known as the Red Death. However, a personified Red Death kills all of the partygoers. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is about a man who visits his mentally ill childhood companion, Roderick Usher. At the climax of the story, Roderick’s twin sister, Madeline, murders him after he buries her alive. Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories employ the stylistic decisions of symbolism, dream-like imagery, and tone to affect the reader by furthering understanding of the theme and setting and evoking emotion in readers.
Do you remember in elementary school when you read Annabel Lee or The Raven? Remember how afterwards you and your friends would run around and say “Nevermore”? Even today when you see those lines you remember they day you were first introduced to Poe. This is a reality for most people. For some reason Edgar Allan Poe never leaves us. He stays with us for years upon years not only as individuals but as a society. Edgar Allan Poe’s influence can be seen throughout pop culture as well as other famous and historical people, places, and ideas.
Edgar Allan Poe was an excellent horror, suspense, and mystery writer of the eighteenth century. His use of literary devices and different literary techniques makes this writer important to American literature. This paper will show how Edgar Allan Poe has made an impact on Society and American literature as well as how Edgar Allan Poe developed the short story. I will also discuss and analyze some of his works and techniques he uses in his short stories and poems.
Poe utilizes a gradual change in diction as the poem progresses. Initially, he begins the poem with melancholic diction when the narrator is falling asleep: “while I pondered, weak and weary,” “nodded, nearly napping,” and “of someone gently rapping” (1-4). The utilization of alliteration in these lines supply a song-like rhythm, which is soothing to the reader. This usage of diction conveys a mellow tone. Further into the poem, when the increasingly agitated narrator becomes vexed at the raven, he lashes out at the bird. Here, he states, “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! / Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath 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!” (98-101). Here, his uses archaic words and phrases such as “thee,” “Night’s Plutonian shore,” and “thy soul hath”. This usage of unorthodox language creates a theatrical, dramatic, and climactic effect, which leads to an impassioned tone. By presenting both tones, Poe is able to show the contrast between the two. This transformation from a tone that is mellow to one of frustration and anxiety represents the spiraling downward of the narrator’s mental state.
One of the other literary devices that Poe focuses on is personification. Personification is used to give a life like description of an object. Personification is one of the literary devices that bring his writings to life. For instance, “…weighty rod of brass, and the whole hissed as it swung through the air.” (The Pit and the Pendulum) is a great example. Anadiplosis, bomphiologia, chronographia and enargia greatly influence Poe’s writing style. Poe uses these and many other types of literary devices to bring his writing to life. Using the imagination he was able to create theses works of true art. Poe made his stories so eloquent that you had to use your mind to read them, which made them popular in America. Even today, scholars still read his work and try to understand the mind of Poe. (Poe)
Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Philosophy of Composition." Literary Criticism of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Robert L. Hough. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1965. 20-32. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. Timothy J. Sisler. Vol. 54. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 July 2014.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of America’s most celebrated classical authors, known for his unique dealings within the horror genre. Poe was a master at utilizing literary devices such as point of view and setting to enhance the mood and plot of his stories leading to his widespread appeal that remains intact to this day. His mastery of aforementioned devices is evident in two of his shorter works “The Black Cat” and “The Cask of Amontillado”.
American authors thrived in the 19th century more than any other time in history. Two central figures of this American Renaissance were Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allen Poe. These two authors primarily wrote dark fiction about the subjects of death, love, and nature. Not only is the general subject matter between Dickinson and Poe similar, but there are also parallels between their speakers. Many of their works contain a first-person narrator who displays drastic psychological states and is aware of an overwhelming presence of death. This is most notable in Dickinson’s “I Felt a Funeral” when her speaker implies with the internal funeral that she is becoming mad and how in “Because I could not stop for Death” she shows mortality as imminent;
The Shakespearean playwrights Macbeth and Hamlet are both very well-known tragedies. They have many things in common but are different in some ways. Both plays involve greed but the characters are different. There are some characters that have the same qualities such as Hamlet and Malcolm who both killed for revenge. Macbeth and Hamlet are different in character even though they both killed. The tragedies are the same in that many people are killed but the reasons are very different. Macbeths need for power has caused him to lose control while Hamlets need for revenge causes him to lose his own life.