Edgar Allan Poe

  • Thread starter Thread starter mark_samuels
  • Start date Start date
paeng said:
I taught Poe for several years, and later introduced a bit of Hawthorne ("Young Goodman Brown") in some fiction classes. After reading "The Minister's Black Veil," "Rappaccini's Daughter," and "The Artist of the Beautiful" for a Gothic lit class, however, I found the latter author more impressive.
Click to expand...

Hawthorne is an extremely impressive and competent writer, especially in his observations of human nature (I adore The House of the Seven Gables. This book helped me finally to recognize a psychopath neighbour, who had abused my goodwill for years, and always wanting more, finally tried to manipulate our family into giving away our house and property to his latest (in a long line of temporary) “my good friend“ and at the same time being his latest victim to make indebted. Our evasive reluctance to agree to his bustling enthusiasm and impelling motivations, finally made him loose his face and put him in a boiling rage. And the “friend“ later came to us, twice, and apologized, and said he had recognized our neighbour for a narcissist. But we know he is something much worse than a narcissist - a smirking, ruthless, conscienceless user of others.).

Hawthorne must be called a genius in his own right. But I don't think he is comparable to the grand genius of master artist Poe.
 
Last edited:
James said:
M. R. James is the only supernatural horror author I'm aware of who didn't like Poe. Any others? It's impossible for me to imagine why any fan or practitioner of the genre wouldn't worship the man. Plenty of great writers think Lovecraft and others sucked. Is Poe hate even a thing? I mean, it must be. Somewhere.
Click to expand...

I love Poe's poetry, but I don't care much for his fiction; his obsessions with dead lovers and repetitive style make great poems, but for me, they dry out his prose and overwhelm many of his stories. I know these features are exactly what draw many people to his work, but, you know, different strokes...

I'd imagine that many authors and horror fans are at least lukewarm towards Poe, but unlike Lovecraft, he's been fully inducted into the English canon, so expressing dislike for him risks having your intelligence and taste called into question. Additionally, many authors probably reflexively list Poe as an influence rather than admit they only read one or two of his stories back in primary school.
 
James said:
M. R. James is the only supernatural horror author I'm aware of who didn't like Poe. Any others? It's impossible for me to imagine why any fan or practitioner of the genre wouldn't worship the man. Plenty of great writers think Lovecraft and others sucked. Is Poe hate even a thing? I mean, it must be. Somewhere.
Click to expand...

Henry James famously disliked Poe and claimed that enthusiasm for him as a mark of a juvenile character. The repulsive Harold Bloom also gave a negative appraisal of Poe and his influence on American letters.
 
The substance of Poe is refined; it is his form that is vulgar. He is, as it were, one of Nature's Gentlemen, unhappily cursed with incorrigible bad taste. To the most sensitive and high-souled man in the world we should find it hard to forgive, shall we say, the wearing of a diamond ring on every finger. Poe does the equivalent of this in his poetry...
Click to expand...

That's Aldous Huxley, writing on Poe, in response to James's query. Not quite Poe-hate, but fairly harsh criticism. I'm not sure what he thought of the prose.
 
To clarify: Huxley wasn't writing in response to James's query - I was. Although Huxley was writing. In response to his reading of Poe. I just wanted to clear up that confusion before anything terrible came of it.
 
An aside, re. "The repulsive Harold Bloom also gave a negative appraisal of Poe and his influence on American letters."

I've always looked askance at Harold Bloom since he plagarized Lindsay's "A Voyage to Arcturus" in his own work, "Downward to Lucifer." (I write "plagarized" since he refused to give credit even though it was completely derivative and in fact an homage at first, apparently.)

Still, Bloom is brilliant and I have approached his writing like one would with one of Lovecraft's fictional sorcerers; possessors of great knowledge but somehow tainted in an undefined, creepy way. I LOLd at Evans post calling him "repulsive."
 
Last edited:
Um, that wasn't plagiarism, it was misprision! :)

Nearly everything Bloom's detractors say about him is true, yet somehow he isn't diminished. All I can say is: Read Bloom!
 
qcrisp said:
The substance of Poe is refined; it is his form that is vulgar. He is, as it were, one of Nature's Gentlemen, unhappily cursed with incorrigible bad taste. To the most sensitive and high-souled man in the world we should find it hard to forgive, shall we say, the wearing of a diamond ring on every finger. Poe does the equivalent of this in his poetry...
Click to expand...

That's Aldous Huxley, writing on Poe, in response to James's query. Not quite Poe-hate, but fairly harsh criticism. I'm not sure what he thought of the prose.
Click to expand...

Is it harsh if it's true? I mean, the diamond ring on every finger analogy is spot on - the Symbolists claimed Poe because they found his gaudiness endearing, and Poe's bluntness helped separate the horror genre from Gothic romance.
 
'There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge/ Three fifths of him genius and two fifths sheer fudge.''

James Russell Lowell



Lowell wasn't that good at all.
 
I found those hoax stories very trying. Why did he bother with the story of the man making gold? Hope he doesn't do more like that later on.

Maybe interesting to obsessive hard science fiction fans?
 
Poe was my gateway drug to weird and horror fiction, not to mention the detective and science fiction genres. I was obsessed at a young age with The Fall of the House of Usher, loved the Roger Coreman movie, and read my first paperback, bought for 50 cents at Woolworths, of Tales of Mystery and Imagination. I moved on later to Lovecraft and company, but I always have a fond memory of Poe with all his faults. I still have a shelf of his works, almost an altar with his bust in bronze with my most prized possession being a copy of TOMAI illustrated by Harry Clarke.
 
Hecatombs For Hecate said:
qcrisp said:
The substance of Poe is refined; it is his form that is vulgar. He is, as it were, one of Nature's Gentlemen, unhappily cursed with incorrigible bad taste. To the most sensitive and high-souled man in the world we should find it hard to forgive, shall we say, the wearing of a diamond ring on every finger. Poe does the equivalent of this in his poetry...
Click to expand...
That's Aldous Huxley, writing on Poe, in response to James's query. Not quite Poe-hate, but fairly harsh criticism. I'm not sure what he thought of the prose.
Click to expand...

Is it harsh if it's true? I mean, the diamond ring on every finger analogy is spot on - the Symbolists claimed Poe because they found his gaudiness endearing, and Poe's bluntness helped separate the horror genre from Gothic romance.
Click to expand...

I think you can use a phrase like "the harsh truth", so, even supposing it's true, it might still be harsh. Having said that, I'm not sure how easy it is to establish that Huxley's appraisal is all truth with no admixture of personal judgement. Difficult, I would say.
 
"The Gruesome Medieval Masquerade That Inspired Edgar Allan Poe"

In March 1849, Edgar Allan Poe published a short story with one of the most macabre dénouements in his entire body of work. Called Hop-Frog, it was the tale of an eponymous court jester who endures repeated humiliations from an abusive king and his ministers before finally exacting his revenge. Like other works of the great horror master, it may have been inspired by historical events—in this case, by a particularly grisly episode from 14th-century France.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top