Edgar+Allan+Poe

Edgar Allan Poe The Compositionist Architect of Tragedy and Loss
 * Poe's Life
 * -Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809 and died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849.
 * In 1809, Thomas Jefferson was president, and the same year Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born.
 * In 1811, Poe’s mother died. Mr. and Mrs. John Allan adopted him.
 * In 1831, Edgar Allan Poe went to New York City where he had some of his poetry published
 * In 1835, Edgar finally got a job as an editor of a newspaper because of a contest he won with his story, "The Manuscript Found in a Bottle".
 * In 1836, Edgar married his cousin, Virginia. He was 27 and she was 13.
 * In 1837, Edgar went to New York where he wrote "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" but he could not find any financial success.
 * Virginia died in 1847, 10 days after Edgar's birthday
 * On September 27, Poe left Richmond for New York. He went to Philadelphia and stayed with a friend named James P. Moss. On September 30, he meant to go to New York but supposedly took the wrong train to Baltimore. On October 3, Poe was found at Gunner's Hall, a public house at 44 East Lombard Street, and was taken to the hospital. He lapsed in and out of consciousness but was never able to explain exactly what happened to him. Edgar Allan Poe died in the hospital on Sunday, October 7, 1849.

Works Read During __English 2350__: Studies in American Literature >> >> “And at such moments was her beauty --in my heated fancy thus it appeared perhaps --the beauty of beings either above or apart from the earth” >> >> To the narrator, Ligeia’s eyes were unique and exquisite as he goes on to describe them in great detail. He seems to be describing the feeling that he got when he looked into them instead of just how beautiful they were. >> >> “The expression of the eyes of Ligeia! How for long hours have I pondered upon it! How have I, through the whole of a midsummer night, struggled to fathom it! What was it --that something more profound than the well of Democritus --which lay far within the pupils of my beloved? What was it? I was possessed with a passion to discover. Those eyes! those large, those shining, those divine orbs! they became to me twin stars of Leda, and I to them devoutest of astrologers.” >> >> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Ligeia gets sick and turns from what the narrator has been describing in all of her beauty to a morbid woman who is fighting death. The narrator describes her as fighting with death and not giving in because of her will to live. >> >> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">“There had been much in her stern nature to impress me with the belief that, to her, death would have come without its terrors; --but not so. Words are impotent to convey any just idea of the fierceness of resistance with which she wrestled with the Shadow. I groaned in anguish at the pitiable spectacle. would have soothed --I would have reasoned; but, in the intensity of her wild desire for life, --for life --but for life --solace and reason were the uttermost folly.” >> >> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">After conveying her undying love for the narrator and Ligeia requests that he read some poetry that she wrote just days before. Following this reading Ligeia stands to her feet and shouts to god her last testimony of life. She then gets back and bed and whispers her last words as the narrator leans in to listen before she dies. >> >> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">“And as she breathed her last sighs, there came mingled with them a low murmur from her lips. I bent to them my ear and distinguished, again, the concluding words of the passage in Glanvill --"Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will." >> >> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">The narrator is beyond heartbroken by her passing and conveys that he didn’t know just how deeply he felt for her until it was to late. He then states that he can no longer live in their home and moves to an abbey in England where he apparently meets Lady Rowena. They were married and he first mentions the chamber of their wedding. >> >> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">“Let me speak only of that one chamber, ever accursed, whither in a moment of mental alienation, I led from the altar as my bride --as the successor of the unforgotten Ligeia --the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion, of Tremaine.” >> >> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">The narrator then goes on to describe the chamber in great detail. His tone hints of darkness with each description of the room and its contents. It was filled with the most expensive of décor and full of artifacts from all over the world. The room was massive and was not to the narrators liking. The room was fit for a king with lots of gold and a bed worthy of royalty. The narrator describes the drapes in the room as “giving a hideous and uneasy animation to the whole.” Which really conveys how the narrator felt about the room. The narrator then starts to describe his relationship with Lady Rowena. At first he says that “I loathed her with a hatred belonging more to demon than to man.” And he states that she feared his temper and loved him but just a little. He then starts to recollect his love for Ligeia, remembering her beauty and even starting to call out her name in his dreams. At this time, the narrator also mentions that he is indulging in opium as it become of habit. This statement causes lot of controversy for some readers in that his trips could be blurring the line between reality and imagination. Lady Rowena then becomes ill and is taken over by her sickness. She is unable to recover fully each time she is stricken with the illness and it becomes worse and worse. She starts to say things about the chamber and how it was starting to haunt her. >> >> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">“She spoke again, and now more frequently and pertinaciously, of the sounds --of the slight sounds --and of the unusual motions among the tapestries, to which she had formerly alluded.” >> >> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Then the narrator describes a night where Rowena awoke to the terrors of the room. She claimed to see and hear things that the narrator could not. However, the narrator goes to get her some wine and see’s a ghostly shadow on the floor as he feels the presence of something unusual around him. He then returns to her bed and giver her the wine while trying to calm her. As she drinks the wine he notices three or four drops of a ruby colored liquid fall into her cup as from some invisible spring above her in the room. He doesn’t mention this to her and seems to justify it in his mind as something he imagined due to her distress, the time of the night, or the opium. From that instant her condition got severely worse and by three days later they were preparing for her burial. The narrator then starts to reflect on Ligeia and her passing with vivid details of her beauty. That night he is startled a noise coming from Rowena. He is then tortured by Rowena’s dead body coming to life over and over, each time more lifelike than the next but only to fade away into a cold lifeless corpse. After each time he sits back on his couch to think vividly of Ligeia. After a number of times going through this the corpse comes to life and stands before him. He was stuck in silence and unable to move from the shock of what he saw. >> >> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">"And now slowly opened the eyes of the figure which stood before me. "Here then, at least," I shrieked aloud, "can I never --can I never be mistaken --these are the full, and the black, and the wild eyes --of my lost love --of the lady --of the LADY LIGEIA.""
 * <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 190%;">Ligeia
 * [[image:http://www.yopi.de/image/prod_pics/4278/f/4278342.jpg width="364" height="366" align="center"]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">“Ligeia” is a short story written by Poe in 1838 that follows a narrator and his beautiful wife Ligeia. The story has a different twist at every turn as well as vivid imagery and emotional depiction. The narrator starts off by saying he does not remember how he met Ligeia or even her last name however, he does remember where she is from. He then goes on to describe just how beautiful Ligeia is with some of the most dramatic imagery and analogies.

> > <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">“But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only, > That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. > Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered - > Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before - > On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.' > Then the bird said, `Nevermore.'” > > <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%; margin-left: 0.5in;"> “And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%; margin-left: 0.5in;"> Shall be lifted - nevermore!?”
 * <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 190%;">The Raven
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%; margin-left: 0in;">“The Raven” is a narrative poem that was written by Poe in January 1845, and is known as one of his most famous works. The poem tales a story of a lonely man who sits reading “forgotten lore” as a way of forgetting the loss of his love, Lenore. The man hears a rapping at his door only to find a raven that perches itself inside his camber and with each question its only response is “Nevermore.” The narrator is not afraid of this talking raven, however he says to himself:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">This is an important quote when analyzing this story in that the narrator mentions how the raven will surely leave him just like his friends and hopes have before. This poem is depressing and dark in a way that you see the misery the narrator is going through. After attempting to learn more about the raven, the narrator brings up his lost Lenore asking the raven if he will ever see her again. The raven responds “Nevermore”, which is alarming to the narrator and causes him to yell at the raven to leave him. The raven doesn’t leave and stays perched above his door. The narrator asks to be left with his loneliness, however the raven stays perched with its shadow cast on the floor as the narrator ends the poem saying:


 * <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 190%;">The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
 * [[image:http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/0141023511.02._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V1124103562_.jpg width="500" height="500" align="center"]]
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 170%;">The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket was written in 1838 and is the only novel written by Poe. The story relates the tale of a young man named Arthur Gordon Pym, who stows a way on a whaling vessel called the Grampus. Pym finds himself in a number of adventures and misfortunes, including shipwreck, mutiny, cannibalism, and the loss of his best friend. He is eventually saved by the crew of another ship called the Jane Guy which is heading for the south pole. The book ends sort of open ended which might be a sign of how Poe felt about the story since he once was quoted on saying "it was a very silly book."
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 170%;">Being his only complete Novel, Poe relies on descriptive and dark language to enhance the narrative and give the reader vivid images of all the terrors Pym faced. His detailed and gruesome descriptions of scenes such as when they saw the Dutch ship with the partially decomposed corpse "smiling" at them because the birds had been eating away at his face, paint a garish and haunting picture in the readers mind.

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