The nineteenth century audience of Edgar Alan Poe might have found his tall tales believable and scientific. This is because the science of the time was becoming increasingly popularised and accessible en-masse however the rigid style of science made it easy for false information to be distributed. By exploiting this flaw, Poe created believable scientific prose for the common audience and introduced a level of satire for the intellectual reader. By analysing his narrators, form and attention to detail, we can explore the scientific significance of his prosaic ambiguity.
Poe’s narrators seem deliberately equivocal to create distrust in the narrative, and it is within this distrust that one can see Poe’s criticisms of science. The first example is the narrator from ‘MS found in a bottle’ who, as a physical philosopher, cannot imagine and thus his narrative relies solely on fact, ‘I observed a very singular, isolated cloud, to the N. W. It was remarkable, as well for its colour, as from its being the first we had seen since our departure from Batavia’ . This literal description of the cloud shows us that scientist can see only what is there and makes no connotation, metaphor or simile of the beauty of the cloud. This could suggest that Poe sees science as restricted in its view of the world. This can be confirmed when the narrator enters the supernatural ship and his reasoning is constrained. The narrator declares ‘I have made many observations lately upon the structure of the vessel […]. What she is not, I can easily perceive – what she is I fear it is impossible to say.’ This shows that the narrator can only describe what the ship is not thus suggesting that the narrators’ reasoning is useless in new circumstances. This seems...
... middle of paper ...
...ents of character or choose to peruse a deep satire.
In conclusion, we can see that it is difficult to know whether one should believe Poe’s narrators. The nineteenth century audience, being less aware of Poe’s satirical motives, would have believed the Physical Philosopher and Mesmeriser narrators because of a class system that made sure respectable gentleman approved science. Moreover, the popularisation of science made it so that people were more open to new ideas. However, as a modern audience we cannot ignore the satirical methods of Poe that allows us to see his criticism of science at the expense of a realistic story. Therefore, it is reasonable to surmise that the stories have a degree of realism and that the satire has an overall message that needs to be illustrated, so one could argue that the representation of science is believable for both audiences.
Frederic is very much alienated from the science of his day. He finds it obscure and frightening, involved in inhuman and ritualistic experiments, and motivated by goals that are fully detached from the needs of ordinary people. His dread and loathing of the coldness and ruthlessness of the aloof scientist come from the Gothic horror of writers like Edgar Allen Poe and Mary Shelley.
Edgar Allen Poe is known for his dark yet comedic approach toward the his theme of his stories. Likewise, Poe’s themes have gathered many fans due to his impression of reasoning in his stories. The author uses thinking and reasoning to portray the theme. Poe’s unique diction comprehends with the theme of the story. Poe has a brilliant way of taking gothic tales of mystery, and terror, and mixing them with variations of a romantic tale by shifting emphasis from, surface suspense and plot pattern to his symbolic play in language and various meanings of words.
The writing style of Edgar Allan Poe shows the writer to be of a dark nature. In this story, he focuses on his fascination of being buried alive. He quotes, “To be buried alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these [ghastly] extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.” page 58 paragraph 3. The dark nature is reflected in this quote, showing the supernatural side of Poe which is reflected in his writing and is also a characteristic of Romanticism. Poe uses much detail, as shown in this passage, “The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken outline. The lips were of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were lusterless. There was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony rigidity.” page 59 paragraph 2. The descriptive nature of this writing paints a vivid picture that intrigues the reader to use their imagination and visualize the scene presented in the text. This use of imagery ties with aspects of Romanticism because of the nature of the descriptions Poe uses. Describing the physical features of one who seems dead is a horrifying perspective as not many people thing about the aspects of death.
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.
Edgar Allen Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother and father where both actors, David and Elizabeth Arnold. They had financial difficulties, which soon caused the father to abandon the family. Poe's mother soon had another child; however, she was having physical conditions causing her death on December 8, 1811. Becoming orphans, both Poe and his sister were split up in family friend’s houses. Poe went to live with the Allan's. As Poe grew up he started having problems with his John Allan, his foster father, which caused future problems. Poe's first step to start a career was attending the University of Virginia in 1826. "Allan failed to provide Poe with enough money for necessities such as furniture and books and Poe soon ran up a tremendous gambling debt and began drinking, despite his very low tolerance for alcohol" (Loveday 2). After a time he moved to Boston, "The Great Literature Capital." What was helping Poe start of his career, where the big hopes of one day becoming a writer despite the harsh life he had since he was little. Poe's work has had an impact on literature. Throughout his most famous pieces of literature, "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Raven," and "The Cast of Amontillado," we see common factors that influenced these types of works through his plots and characters. "Madness, alienation, and mankind's long love affair with morbidity were the his subjects, and he didn't mind admitting to being more to being more than half in love with easeful death, to mangle a line from his favorite poet, Tennyson," (Allen 2).
In the article, “The Question of Poe’s Narrators” James W. Gargano discusses the criticize in “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe and tries to help the readers understand why Poe writes the way he does and identifies some of the quotes in his work. According, to Gargano, other authors view’s Poe’s work as “cheap or embarrassing Gothic Style” (177). The author is saying that Poe’s work makes the reader look at themselves not only the work. The author explores three main points. Some author thinks that Poe’s life is reflected in a lot of his work, uses dramatic language to show his style in work, and explains how Poe’s work manipulates his readers to understand.
Edgar Allan Poe primarily authored stories dealing with Gothic literature; the stories were often quite dreary. Poe possessed a very sorrowful view of the world and he expressed this throughout his literary works. His goal was to leave an impression with every detail that he included in his stories. Although Poe’s stories seem very wretched and lackluster they all convey a certain idea. A trademark of Poe’s is his use of very long complex sentences. For instance, in his work The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe tried to ensure that every detail was as relevant as possible by integrating a wide variety of emotion. In the third paragraph, of page two hundred ninety-seven, Poe wrote, “Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around…” This sentence illustrates the descriptiveness and complexity that Edgar Allan Poe’s works consisted of. The tormented cognizance of Poe led him to use a very gloomy diction throughout his writing. Edgar Allan Poe’s use of symbols and the way he conveyed his writing expr...
The story’s tone is one of romantic controversy, a dilemma at a high level of existence. The scientist’s love for his craft competes very intensively with his newfound love for his wife. It is also very psychological, strictly dealing with the raw mind of its subjects as if the ominous narrator told the story from inside their mind, rather than observe it from the outside. He describes the processes that one may take to reach a certain degree of knowledge and to find the elixir of life, which is described in this story as the ultimate goal of the scientific community. Also, the narrator is very opinionated about events in the story.
" Twentieth Century Interpretations of Poe's Tales. ED. William L. Howarth, b. 1875. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1971. 94. - 102. - 102.
Edgar Allan Poe’s haunting poems and morbid stories will be read by countless generations of people from many different countries, a fact which would have undoubtedly provided some source of comfort for this troubled, talented yet tormented man. His dark past continued to torture him until his own death. These torturous feelings were shown in many of his works. A tragic past, consisting of a lack of true parents and the death of his wife, made Edgar Allan Poe the famous writer he is today, but it also led to his demise and unpopularity.
Thomson, Gary Richard, and Poe Edgar. The selected writings of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Norton & Company, 2004
The Sonnet-To Science not only tells of the dangers in Poe’s time, but could easily be applied today.
Conclusively, Edgar Allan Poe’s distinctive writing style comes from his use of punctuation, sentence structure, word choice, tone, figurative language. Commas, dashes, semicolons, and exclamation marks appear frequently in his writing. Simultaneously, they affect the organization and length of his sentences. Word choice sets the tone. Literary devices imbue it with life. On comparing “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”, this is observed.
In "The House of Poe", Richard Wilbur elucidates his criticisms of Poe 's work. He firstly comments on a critic 's purpose, then how Poe 's stories are all allegories. He then addresses the possible opposition to his argument, and then begins his discussion of the common themes in Poe 's writing and provides examples from his stories. This dissertation will analyze Wilbur 's criticism by cross referencing Poe 's work and how it exemplifies Wilbur 's assessment. There is a great deal of evidence to support Wilbur 's theories, but a close examination of each one will determine how legitimate his argument really is.
Poe’s work and his introduction into detective genre have contributed greatly to the world of literature. He is sometimes considered one of the earliest writers of science fiction after October 14th, 1844 when Poe had made up a story in the New York Sun about an adventurer flying across the Atlantic Ocean in a hot air balloon (“Uncovering Edgar Allan…” 1). Most of his work usually involves science references. “Poe’s knowledge of science and engineering probably came from his studies at West Point where he was a cadet in 1830” (1). For example, Poe’s “The Murders in Rue Morgue” had a scene where the Sherlock Holmes-type character stares at the Orion nebula, now known as a birthplace of new stars and new solar systems (1). His work is not only based on science references, Edgar Allan Poe is a most influential figure for modern European lite...