Edgar allan poe

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EDGAR ALLAN POE

(1809-1849)

Edgar Poe was an American romanticist. But, unlike many English romantic writers he had no special interest in the feudal times. As the history of America had not known a feudal period, it was natural that Poe and other American writers took slight interest in the Middle Ages. On the other hand, neither had Poe that revolutionary spirit of protest, which made the poetry of Shelley and Byron. But, as some romantic authors in England and other countries, Poe was fond of the mysterious, the horrible and the supernatural. His life was most unhappy, his health weak, and his mind often took an unhealthy pleasure in playing with the awful and the mystic.

The contemporary reader is interested in Poe not so much when he tells of horrible and impossible things, as when he mingles scientific facts with fantastical impossibilities or displays accurate reasoning and his knowledge of human psychology. Thus in “The Adventures of one
Hans Pfall” he tells us about the adventures of a man, who made a wonderful balloon and flew to the moon. In other stories he solves the mystery of a crime by careful observation of psychology and analysis of the details of the case. This makes him one of the principle founders of the modern detective story.
But Poe was also well-known as a poet. He had a peculiar manner of writing. He considered that the poem should be short, should have the force of “monotone” and should serve to one purpose which he himself called “totality effect”.