Take a break and laugh!

Hey guys, I am sure that you are all working very hard on your papers for this class, and fretting about how you will get it done along with all the other things that are due etc. etc. etc! I just wanted to share this clip on Youtube with you all. I think we can all appreciate it as English majors! This has nothing to do with Poe, I just thought that everyone in the class could use a laugh at this point in the semester. This is a comedy skit about proofreading that is done by a teacher ( I think he is an English teacher) and these are all things that we are guilty of! I hope you enjoy it, and listen closely! Good luck to everyone finishing up final papers!

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjhOBiSk8Gg&feature=related

Poe,Your Life is Calling

I am not sure, but is this a summary of Poe's life to some extent? He begins with his father thinking him a genius. This was mentioned in the Norton about how John Allan used to take Poe with him to show off his talents. He talks about being fifteen when he first begins to write, the dissolution of their relationship and so on. I also find it interesting that he mentions Aristotle and Milton as people that he copied. His dream of owning a literary magazine is how he ends the story, with him owning everyone that ever criticized him. He even talks about plagiarism and how he was introduced to being a critic when he began "Thomas Hawk'ing. It is amazing that everything in this story can be related back to Poe's life and stories. He even uses direct quotes from his stories; "I will make a man of you"(783) is a direct quote from Hop-frog. Was Poe attempting to explain away his life through this story?

The Cask

I have read The Cask of Amontillado many times, and I actually discussed it in one of my recent classes. I was thinking about that and remembered that we had talked about the ending and how it ends with Montresor calling in after Fortunato. Is it remorseful? Does he only realize once his wall is almost finished that he needs Fortunato in his life? ("to these words I harkened in vain for a reply.") Everyone has established that Montresor is an unreliable narrator and because of the fact that we don't know what crimes Fortunato committed against him some assume that he is crazy. What do you think? Also I remember talking in class about reasons why there is no response from Fortunato. Is he dead? Is this his final "win" over Montresor? The fact that he is not speaking could suggest that Fortunato has the upper hand because he is still controlling the situation. This may be far-fetched but it does say that he had sobered up... What do you think?

Cultural Presentation

Fondest Greetings!
Hope everyone had a good weekend. Well, tomorrow is the event you have all waited for...my Cultural Presentation! I'm just kidding...but here is a little preview.

Instead of Poe himself, I am going to be talking about one of the characters that he created, and how this character was personified, swiped, and portrayed. This character is the "Red Death" from his not-so-famous tale, "The Masque of the Red Death."

Here is the video I will be showing.




Have a good Day!

"Hop -Frog"

" I now see distinctly," he said, "what manner of people these maskers are. They are a great king and his seven privy-councilors--a king who does not scruple to strike a defenseless girl., and his seven councilors who abet him in the outrage. As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester--and this is my last jest" (908).

I don't know about anyone else, but I think this passage from "Hop-Frog" shows the reader, Poe understood the wrongness of slavery and misogyny.

I was disturbed after reading "The Black Cat." I was bothered that the story was not told from the battered wife's perspective, but from her abuser's.

What make "Hop-Frog" so powerful is that it is told from the point of view of the abused. Poe's use of the kingdom imagery and symbolism speaks volumes on what I think Poe was trying to tell us about, Southern knights of old, mentality. What do you all think? Was Poe a secret abolitionist, and supporter of women's rights?

Colors in Red Death

Room 1: Blue
Room 2: Purple
Room 3: Green
Room 4: Orange
Room 5: White
Room 6: Violet
Room 7: Black with Scarlet (Deep Blood Red) Panes
GOLDEN Ornaments
EBONY Clock
RED Death

Psychologically, each of these colors signify different emotions. So I'm thinking that since Prince Prospero left the "external world" and secluded himself and his one thousand selected people and that the people are not allowed to grieve or think, the colors signify the other emotions or feelings aside from the constant pleasure they are supposed to feel. Near the end, the Prince is standing in the blue room. Blue can stand for peace, confidence, and strength. The Prince seems to have confidence standing up to the intruder in the corpse mask. Then when this figure moves so quickly through each room, it is as if he is showing that emotions mean nothing to him, he can easily pass them by. Which results in him being in the black room, the symbol of power, evil and death, after killing the Prince. And after that he kills off everyone else which is obviously killing off all their feelings and emotions. The red in "Red Death" plainly attributes to the blood and killings but what else? Maybe anger? If so, anger at what? The fact that the Prince essentially ran away from the country away from the "Red Death"?

These are just some quick thoughts to start off with. I'm not sure where I'm headed yet except trying to figure out why did Poe use so many colors and those specific ones? And what emotion does each one represent, if any? What does everyone else think?

Imagery and Sensation in "The Pit and the Pendulum"

I found it a bit troubling that the narrator in "The Pit and the Pendulum" was constantly in and out of consciousness yet he was able to perceive images and feelings that were concrete and solid in form. It is not even until page 493 that the narrator even opens his eyes. I don't think it is the fact that the narrator has the ability to sense things while he is in and out of consciousness, it is the idea that he is the only person that the reader can rely on for deatail in the tale. Can we trust his descriptions? He obviously makes mistakes when trying to feel out the measurement of the room he is confined to. When I read this story the first time, I found all the sensational writing appealing because I omitted where it was coming from. This time I had to stop myself and say, "wait all of these descriptions and images are the perception of a delusional person." Are they all that great anymore? I still think Poe shows his ability to describe an image with the utmost of talents to capture the reader, however is this tale to be considered another one of Poe unreliable sensationalist stories? Every time you turn around it is like Poe is asking you to trust a mad-man or a delusional drugged out narrator! That little trickster.

En Evening With Edgar Allan Poe --Vincent Price

Truth and senses in "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat"

While reading "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat" one after the other I found interesting similarities and differences between the two. In the first story mentioned, the tale begins with the word "True (555)" and throughout the entire text Poe is pushing the notion that the story is true and that the narrator is not mad. It is also stated that "the disease had sharpened my senses (555)" which is interesting. What disease? The eye itself or did it physically do something to our narrator?

In the next story the narrator states "I neither expect nor solicit belief (597)" which is opposite the view of the first. However, this narrator, like the first, does not want us to think he is mad but brings in his senses in a different way; he says, "Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not (597)."

I wanted to bring up these points in hope that someone else may have seen another connection that I missed between the two stories. What do you think Poe is trying to say here? Perhaps something about the uncertainty of verbal stories. Maybe if the stories were written down they would be more believable but since they are coming straight from the mouth's of the criminals/"madmen" the reader/listener should suddenly be wary of the truth? Also, what do you guys think about the senses that Poe brings up in both stories?

"Premature Burial"

This story especially reminds me of the book review by Margaret Alterton. This story was written during the time that people were reading “medical jurisprudence” and learning of new advances as well as strange occurrences in medicine. Death was becoming big business. As stated by ABC, embalming was becoming widely accepted and the need to “send a loved one off well” was becoming a fashion statement as well as religious one.
According to Alterton, there were many instances in the journal citing stories about people being buried alive. It was this phenomenon, that doctors were inspired to dig up graves for experimentation and a chance to find someone buried alive. It also led to numerous murders where people were buried alive and then dug up to prove that this “medical marvel” really occurred.
It is amazing that the narrator was completely consumed with death and being buried alive, that he took precautions to ensure against it. Yet it was only after sleeping in such a condition as to cause him to believe that he had been buried alive did he realize that he had a life to live and he then began to do so. Was Poe speaking out against those who were so consumed with death that they could not enjoy the life they had?

Appearance of Death

"The boundries which divide Life from Death, are at best shadowy and vague." (666) In "The Premature Burial," Poe plays with the idea of appearance of death and life. I thought this kind of strange because it is pretty normal to make sure a person is dead before they are buried. He uses the phrase "supposed to be" and similar wordings to describe the people he talks about being "dead." I was wondering how someone does not know that someone is dead? On page 668 the narrator describes a lady, "at least her condition so closely resembled death as to decieve every one who saw her." Are these numerous deceptions just used as an excuse to not feel guilty that people were being buried alive or were they there just to let the reader that these types things happened sometimes and thus creating a preface to what happened to the narrator himself?
I also noticed the introduction of the "Destiny of man." (676) So is being buried alive to be considered the destiny of the person that it happens to. The support that we have on this idea is the narrators very own story. He uses the support that even though he took all the proper precautions so that it would be impossible for him to be buried alive, he was still put in that position. How ironic was it that he got sick while away from home? So my question is do you think that it really is a persons destiny? I don't or else he would have died and so would the rest of them (not just a few). You can't mess with destiny (if you believe in it) becasue it will change the course of the rest of one's life.

PS Audrey we had talked about Poe's short tales containing poetic elements, I wanted to point out the last paragraph of this tale, page 679, is that poetic or what?

Perverseness in "The Tell-tale Heart" & "The Black Cat"

I think the "imp of the perverse" functions differently in these two tales, but I am not quite sure. In "The Tell-tale Heart" the narrator kills the old man because of "the eye" (555), and he makes no mention of how he knows what he is doing is wrong. Also, his confession comes at a time when he is so close to being in the clear. He is driven to confess by his guilt, which cause him to confess at the wrong time. The narrator in "The Black Cat" kills the cat because of the "spirit of perverseness" (599): "It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself...to do wrong for the wrong's sake only--that urged me to continue and finally consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute" (599). There is no direct confession, he just comments on the structure of the house which draws attention to where he has put his wife, and then we get the sound of the cat.

Lastly, he says "But may God deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend!" (606). In "The Imp of the Perverse," the narrator says "And we might, indeed, deem this perverseness a direct instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it not occasionally known to operate in furtherance of good" (829). So, in "The Black Cat," is this "Arch-Fiend" the cat (as I first thought), or is it the "imp" of the perverse? Or, does the cat represent the "imp" of the perverse? If the cat and the "imp" of the perverse are the same thing, then I guess that means the perverse drove the narrator to murder and gave him up to the police. I think if you treat the cat and the "imp" of the perverse as two separate things, then that changes your reading of the story.

cultural appropriation

some other goodies:

here's a neato:

Treehouse of Terror -- "The Raven

That Darn Cat

He almost got away with it! There are many similar themes between The Tell Tale Heart and The Black Cat, one being the fact that the murders are found out by what are seemingly other sources than themselves. I just wanted to pose the idea that in The Black Cat, that maybe it wasn't the cat screaming from inside the "tomb" that gave away the crazy man, but it was in fact he himeself by even opeing his mouth when the detectives were getting ready to leave the house. If he had not said anything he would have been cleared. Does the two tales portray the concept that an act of the perverse will come back to haunt you because your guilt is so vast after committing it?

Poe and Hitchcocok

Here are the videos from my cultural appropriation. I didn't show The Birds, so you may find it pretty interesting.

The Imp of the Perverse

The Imp of the Perverse starts off sounding like a philosophical essay. After a few pages, suddenly it's a story out of the blue! This seriously threw me off. I couldn't get my head around having no transition from essay-style to story-style and yet we're expected to agreeably accept this and somehow understand that the first part relates to the narrator's tale.

When I re-read the essay-part (as I'll now call the first few pages), I realized it was like a prologue to the story-part. With all the talk about impulses , logic, and reasoning, I feel as though the narrator is trying to justify himself to the reader before the reader even knows what actions he carried out. It's like a little kid who has done something bad and builds up their parents for what's happened with the underlying message being 'It's not really my fault' when it really is. The line "Had I not been thus prolix, you might either have misunderstood me altogether; or with the rabble, you might have fancied me mad," clinches it for me. He's stuck in a prison, which I gathered from "fetters" and "tenanting this cell of the condemned." But he's telling us that basically it's not his fault at all. Its the fault of the "Imp of the Perverse" which he spent the past several pages trying to explain to us.

Now really, to me as the reader, all that wordiness does the opposite of what the narrator is trying to achieve: it proves he truly is mad. It reminds me of Shakespeare's quote "the lady doth protest too much." At times though, all the essay-ish words made me lost and confused and I found myself having to go over lines I had just read.

My question to everyone would be, what do you think is the point of this story? The philosophical perverse mind of a murderer who kills with poisoned candles? And I want to know, do you think it was really necessary to carry on as long as he did before getting to the story?

In both Mesmeric Revelation and The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar both men suffer from tuberculosis and are kept alive after death through hypnosis. I looked it up and found these stories were written in August 1844 and December 1845 respectively. January 30, 1847 Virginia died of tuberculosis. My question seems to be do you think that these stories were written as Poe wish for a way to keep Virginia alive? Or for Poe to get his feelings out about the immortal soul, as if to say Virginia may die but its not the end, to make himself feel better?

Its interesting that if these stories are in a way referencing Virginia and his feelings about her situation, then why are the two characters who die men? As a proponent for the death of a beautiful woman you would think he would use a woman as the victim. Could it be that this would bring the event too close to home for him?

And again, if this references Virginia then why did Valdemar die so grotesquely? Do you think Poe had absolutely no hope of Virginia being kept alive?

Did anyone else have any thoughts on these two stories? Honestly, a lot of Mesmeric Revelation went over my head. I had to read analysis online to understand what was going on. So any other thoughts on this would be great for my understanding of the text.

A Portrait of Power

In this story, I see Poe making a statement concerning the power of the artist. Whether the artist is a writer or a painter. The power of words seemed to be the theme of the last stories that we read. He used newspapers as proof to make hisstories believable, yet he was showing the editors the power they held and their obligation to the public. I think Poe is linking the power of creative artists together. The power of the painter to convey the essence of a subject would go along with this story. The picture holds the same power as words and is no less important. Poe believed that the artist has obligations to the audience that is involved with the medium. In this story it was the power of the artist to literally paint the life from his bride in to the portrait. "And he would not see that the tints which he spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her who sate beside him" (483). The artist was unwilling to see what he was truly creating. He did not know the power that he held. Without regard to the effect he would have on others with his work, he worked for his own satisfaction. Is Poe saying something about art for the sake of art? Once he had completed the portrait, he realized the power he held as a painter, artist; which was evident when he cried.."This is indeed Life itself!" (484) when he gazed upon his own work. He saw that he not only created for himself, but that his art transcended into therealm of reality. It became a living entity, separate from the artist, the creator. The subject of the art becomes immortalized through the art, not theart through the subject.
April 2, 2008 4:55 PM

"The Oval Portrait" & The Nature of the Artist

Reading "The Oval Portrait" made me think that Poe is doing something with the nature of the artist. Although I'm not such a big fan of the "suffering artist" narrative, I like how Poe has made the subject of the art suffer, rather than the artist. I guess you could argue that the artist suffered too since he was so obsessed with his work, that he didn't notice that his subject had died. Not only did he not notice, but "he would not see that the light which fell so ghastlily in that lone turret withered the health and the spirits of his bride..." (483). It's not as though he couldn't see, but he chose not to. I guess what I'm getting at is: Does Poe want to say that artists are selfish and obsessed people that get so wrapped up in their work, they choose to ignore everything around them? Also, the artist "already [had] a bride in his Art..." and his wife hated "only the Art which was her rival..." (483), so was their relationship never possible because the artist was and will always be tied to his art? I also wonder what we are to make of the woman since she hated his art, but she stayed with him anyway, even though she became the subject of his art. Maybe she thought since she became the subject, somehow he would see past his art and see her.

Here are a couple of images I came across when I googled "The Oval Portrait:"
static.flickr.com/52/109300294_cb0fd6a717_o.jpg
http://www.amazon.com/Edgar-Allan-Poes-Oval-Portrait/dp/0966026616

Quote from Poe about the Balloon Hoax

In "The Beautiful Cigar Girl", the author briefly mentions The Balloon Hoax. He quoted Poe as having said: "I never witnessed more intense excitement to get possession of a newspaper. As soon as the first copies made their way into the streets, they were brought up, at almost any price, from the newsboys, who made a profitable speculation beyond doubt. I saw a half- dollar given, in one instance, for a single paper, and a shilling was a frequent price. I tried in vain during the whole day to get possession of a paper".

It seems to me as if Poe thought this to be a game, which backfired on him, because, according to "Cigar Girl", editors thought him to be untrustworthy after this story was published.

...a diddle would be no diddle without a grin.

I really liked how this satire on swindling was very easy to read and fun. I also liked that he explained about all "ingredients" of diddling in the beginning and then ended up giving us an example of each throughout the story. Even though it was fun to read, I found myself kind of at a loss for the point of the story. Was anyone else feeling this way? I kind of find myself getting bummed out at the end of some of his work because I enjoyed it all the way through-- but then it ends up being a story that doesn't even stick with me to want to bring up over dinner or anything. Am I missing something? Feel free to yell at me if you disagree! I liked reading it, I'll definitely stick to that, but is there more to it than that?

The woodcut "fake balloon"

This is the picture of the woodcut fake balloon that Poe wanted printed with his story in the news paper....(read the post below for more deatails).

The Balloon Hoax

I know so of you may be wondering why this story was called "The Balloon Hoax," I know I was until I remembered that the book that I read for my book review had a little blurb about it, so I thought I would share it with you: "Texts become increasingly removed from the form of thier original publication, and these removals affect interpretation. The appearance of the printed page, however, shapes the reader's understanding of the text it contains. "The Balloon Hoax" provides a useful example. In most modern editions of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, its text is uniform with the rest of the pieces in the collection. Each story appears in the same-sized type with identically spaced margins and the work among other short stories removes any doubt about its fictional nature. So does its title. Originally, it was not called "The Balloon Hoax." It only gained that title in the oral culture after its fictional status became known. Containing the word "hoax," the title lets readers know the story is undoubtedly a product of Poe's imagination. The story's first appearance in print was designed to make it closely resemble a factual account. Poe convinced Moses Y. Beach, editor of the New York Sun, to publish it as part of an Extra Sun. In terms of format, the story looked similar to any of the day's newpaper articles. It had a dateline as well as a multi-part headline characteristic of urgent news with bold-faced capitals, bold italics, and exclamation marks. The story was set in multiple columns, and the paper included other items, as any paper would. It also contained a woodcut illustration of the model balloon on which the full-scale one purportedly was based. The woodcut image made the technology Poe described more tangible and added further credence. When it first appeared, the hoax was a success, and many people accepted it as truth until they heard reports to the contrary." So now that you know... why do you think Poe went through so much trouble to make it look so truthful? I think maybe it was to become more noteably recognized as a writer maybe??? Anyways I hope this was all new to you guys!

racist poe?

Was anyone else bothered at Poe's depiction of Jupiter in "The Gold Bug"? Jupiter was very loyal to his "Massa Will" but in return, was portrayed as a superstitious, unintelligent idiot (his speech was difficult to understand and he did not know his left from right). Is this Poe's view? Before reading this story, I still questioned whether Poe was a racist or not, but now I am almost sure he was. Anyone else agree?

A few of my words on "A Few Words on Secret Writing"

When I read "A Few More Words on Secret Writing" it made me think that there really is no such thing as "secret" writing. Poe seems to think that there will always be someone who will be able to figure out a cipher. Also, Poe points out that the key to solving these ciphers "is found in the general principles of the formation of language itself, and thus is altogether independent of the particular laws which govern any cipher, or the construction of its key." It seems that if the solution is in "the formation of language," then we all have the ability to solve a cipher. While he does point out that "to those skilled in deciphering" these puzzles are easy to solve, it seems like it is possible for anyone to possess these skills.

Poe reiterates this idea at the end when he says that if you want to find "rules for the solution of cipher," we will be disappointed: "Beyond some hints in regard to the general structure of language...he will find nothing upon record which he does not in his own intellect possess." Some may argue that Poe's work is cryptic, but if we look to the "formation of language" as he suggests, then we may able to decipher what he is trying to say. As Poe points out in this essay, the "difficulty of reading a crytographical puzzle is by no means always in accordance with the labor or ingenuity with which it has been constructed." We are not aware of how the puzzle or its key was constructed, so that is not where the difficulty in solving it lies.

A Few More Words About Secret Writing

OK so I liked the essay on secret writing, it cleared some things up for me. I liked that he says that no human can produce a cipher that cannot be solved by another human, but also acknowledges that not all of us think on that level, I think he was talking about me in that statement! I can't focus on those kinds of things long. However, I did have a notebook with my best friend in middle school in which we would write in code language so that our parents wouldn't know what we were talking about (not that we were talking about bad things just boys and who we didn't like that week and other stuff). I guess we just thought it was cool. Poe brings out a new/old reason for secret writing which is for the communication between two individuals that are trying to literally keep things secret. I wish he would have given more examples as to when people would have used these ciphers, like what would be said in them and so on. "It is not to be supposed that Cryptography, as a serious thing, as the means of imparting important information, has gone out of use at the present day. It is still commonly practised in diplomacy; and there are individuals, even now, holding office in the eye of various foreign governments, whose real business is that of deciphering. We have already said that a peculiar mental action is called into play in the solution of cryptographical problems, at least in those of the higher order. Good cryptographists are rare indeed; and thus their services, although seldom required, are necessarily well requited." I like that he associates intelligence with being about to crack the codes here in this quote. He also addresses that there are not many who can accomplish the complex ones. I am thinking again about the National Treasure movies becuase Nicholas Cage is beast at solving those ciphers. I was basically jsut wondering if there are any instances in which codes and ciphers are still used today. I can't think of any along the lines of what Poe was describing, the only ones I can think of are ones just for fun like puzzles in the news paper and puzzle books people do on vacation.

Cultural fun!

For my cultural appropriation, I did Music and Poe. The television medium portrays Poe as poor, sickly and deranged. But what about musicians who are inspired by Poe? I will be discussing CreatureFeature's take on Poe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b704tlVZqs

" Time out of mind"

Today, I was reading "The Gold Bug" and I came upon the sentence:

You are well aware that chemical preparations exist, and have existed time out of mind, by means of which it is possible to write on either paper or vellum, so that the characters shall become visible only when subjected to the action of fire. (584)

I was shocked to read this and almost jumped out of my chair. You see a few years ago, I wrote a poem using the phrase "time out of mind" and a teacher who did not like me ( not at this school) came over and snickered to me "you stole that from TS Eliot. As she walked away I thought, no I didn't I stole it from Dylan. When I told this to another English teacher she said no Poe used it first in Fall of the House of Usher." Later when I read William Wilson, I saw that Poe also used this very phrase in that story also.

So Today when I read the above quoted passage I went running to google and I found that Poe used it in at least 7 different stories and poems, including:"Devil in the Belfry," "Fall of the House of Usher," " Morning on the Wissachccan,"" Erueka, "" Mellonta Tauta,"" William Wilson,"" Gold Bug," and "Notes to Hans Pfaal. "

So my question is- did I actually steal it from Dylan, who stole it from Eliot, who stole it from Poe who stole it from himself, again, or by using it as much as he did, did Poe actually make it a common phrase thereby giving it to any and all who chose to use it? I also thought that maybe by using it as much as he did, the phrase could actually be seen as a signature phrase to be used solely by Poe thereby showing that anyone who uses this phrase is actually referring to the fact that they have read Poe.

I want to know what you all think on this- is it ever ok to used a phrase- any phrase , your own or someone else's, and if it is, then when?

Cultural Appropriation

HeyHey,

In class I will be doing my cultural Poe presentation on representations of Poe in children's media, especially cartoons. As soon as I figure how to post the videos into the blog I will do so that way you all can watch more than what I will be showing in class. Hope you all enjoy!!

even or odd

The character Dupin and his supernatural abilities are nicely exhibited in 'the purloined letter.' with the contrasting paris police working opposite, we see the height of these extraordinary abilities. his reference to the child's game, 'even and odd' shows how his state of mind and the police's differ. Dupin has this cognitive psychological perception where rationality isnt always going to take you toward the answer fastest.
Poe interjects also this issue of mathematics vs poetry. Where the prefect sees a poet as a fool, Dupin, one who has been 'guity' of taking personal interest in poetry, does not make the prefect's mistake. because the prefect judges Minister D's intellect, he assumes that D would hide it like any normal person (like himself) would-- merely hidden in a minuscule spot in the apartment. already he has eliminated the option that it could have been so obvious as on the desk.
poe writes: "The mathematics are the science of form and quantity; mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity...Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general truth. What is true of relation--of form and quantity--is often grossly false in regard to morals, for example."

I think this is a nice example, like sonnet--to science, of an acknowledgment for the logical mind, though perhaps poe finds it completely useless to 'general truth' without moral, emotional, and certainly the INTUITION, which not surprisingly, poe often seems to hold very close throughout his writings. thoughts?

Truth in Journalism?

In both stories, Rue Morgue and Marie Roget, I feel Poe was trying to make a criticism on the media, the first tabloids. The papers never got it completely right. It is again an argument on truth. Especially in Marie Roget. The various newspapers had all the clues but they didn't release them in any way that made sense of the matter. They made their own assumptions without any facts to back it up. People trust newspapers and they have abused their power to sell their own agenda. As an editor of various newspapers do you think there is an argument against this type of journalism? The term yellow journalism didn't actually get penned until almost the end of the 19th century. Do you think Poe was trying to destroy it before it even began?

In the Murders in the Rue Morgue I found it interesting that Dupin was able to overcome all of the violence by using his brain to solve the crime. The orangutan's master habitually used violence to control the animals actions which caused the horrible murders to take place. I found it interesting that Poe took this approach using an animal as the murderer instead of a person. Besides this story being more about the investigators than the victims and the process of solving the crime, it is an entirely different approach than we have seen Poe take. I'm not sure what, if anything, he's trying to say by comparing these two types of power (brain vs. physical strength) so feel free to chime in with your thoughts, but it seems that since Poe is experiencing the first police forces and the media was covering stories in a gruesome way, he is commenting on the approach they are taking as being too violent and not using their heads when they should. This would go along with a part that is mentioned in the text about someone looking at an object too close and only seeing a few parts really well but in the end they lose sight of the whole. By using a character like Dupin who takes a different approach to problems and really gives everything, no matter how insignificant it may seem, his utmost attention and is able to store it in his mind.

More Dead Women

I just had a couple of question about "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." I was wondering if anyone else thought that the victims could have easily been changed to the male gender? This was actually the first time I had ever read this tale, and I found it quite different from those that we have read before in class with women dying. I thought it strange that the women weren't really described as much as I would have liked, or I guess as much as I thought they would be. I think my expectations were more along the lines of a sickly beautiful woman dying. It was refreshing not to have to read another of those and see Poe venture out into a detective scene and not spend to much of his energy on the description of the women that were murdered. I liked that they were described in a fashion that left room for the reader to picture what happened (another of Poe's wonderful sensationalist readings). I think that because Poe didn't spend ample time describing how beautiful and lovely the women were they could have easily been men in this case. I think it would have been harder to accept that a monkey killed two men in the apartment but I think you catch my drift. Another thing I liked about this tale is that it is not really even about the murders, its about how they are solved and the relationship between the narrator and Dupin. It kind of reminded me of modern day CSI shows (which I am guilty of watching) where the story is not truly about the person that has been killed it is about the people sloving the crime and the drama in their lives and how the murder challenges them to become a changed person at the end of the episode. Any thoughts?

Cultural Appropriation

For my cultural appropriation, I will show parts of a 1995 t.v. version of "The Cask of Amontillado." I will focus on the costume choices of Montessor and Fortunado, as well as which actions are narrated vs. which are not in the t.v. version.

Hauntings

Hello all,

I hope you don't mind if I post on a old story, Pym. I know, that when we read it, I said that it was boring and that I didn't like it. But it haunts me.

I had this dream last night about roses and when I woke up I realized that I was thinking of Parker- the hybrid- the only surviver of the Pym story.

I've been thinking all day about this word - hybrid- not half breed, or mulatto or any of the other ugly terms for people of mixed races but hybrid.

So I asked my self what Poe was trying to convey by using that word in particular. Poe the racist that is, and I came away changing my mind about dear old Poe.

You see hybrid roses are the ones that we all know today. The old fashioned ones were puny and didn't smell very good. But today's hybrid roses smell wonderful and are strong. The old ones got root rot and died out.

Parker the hybrid survived. While Augustus got root rot.

So I guess I have changed my mind about this story after all. As boring as it was to read, it haunts me.

Medicinal Poe

So I have realized that I have made myself the resident medical guru of the class--which was totally unintentional but well, it's what I know. Ergo, you guys get to read a medical post. Kind of. This concerns Poe's A Tale of the Ragged Mountain. I basically found it slightly strange that the main character was not only given morphine to take for pain (I am used to this being administered in hospitals under strict supervision--though I realize that this is now and more than likely during the then, morphine was not as strictly supervised). What really struck me was that he was able to leave the house and wander into the woods while basically high off of it. From someone who has had surgeries and required the medicine, I can attest that it is extremely difficult to think let alone move when on morphine. But, this is a story and such things are allowed to happen. Besides, he could have always been taking a low doseage--who knows. What concerned me was his adventures on the mountain. I want to know if describing what it is like to be high off of morphine is what Poe wanted the reader to experience--and if so, did Poe ever have to take the drug in his lifetime? I know he was an alcoholic but never heard anthing about him using drugs like morphine--maybe I am putting my foot in my mouth with this post but the entire time reading Agustus' adventure made me wonder--how could Poe know what it would feel like to be on morphine? I guess my main question is what was Poe's goal with this story because I'm at a loss. Then again, I could have simply gotten lost in my own little world of medicine and missed the entire story. Like I said, this blog could result in me opening my mouth and inserting my foot during class tomorrow should we discuss this but, I felt the need to blog it any how. Thanks for reading my lil ramble guys!

Back to Pym We Go...

Hi, everyone.
I have something really cool to share now that I'm back, in addition to my book review, which is also being done tomorrow. The theme of it is, 'Poe, Race, and Arthur Gordon Pym.'

Again, I wanted to talk about and compare/contrast "Descent into the Maelstrom' with Pym. How does Descent work or not work in the context of what we have been reading regarding Poe so far? Would one consider Pym to be a failure, Descent a success, and why? It is simply because its shorter and we're able to tolerate it more? How does this fit or not fit into the Poe canon? Would YOU put it in the Poe canon--why or why not?

Corinne's Cultural Appropriation

On Thursday I will be presenting my cultural appropriation on the Classics Illustrated adaptation of "The Pit and the Pendulum." I thought I had planned it right so that it would actually be the reading for this day. I hope that most of you have read it in the past, but if not that's okay too! I will basically be talking about how the media form of the graphic novel/comic book imapacted the scenes and stories as opposed to how I pictured them when I was reading. I will also talk a little bit about the colors used in the strip, as well as what Classics Illustrated's goal was by publishing the strip. I will also have a little bit of history of Classics Illustrated to share. I have posted a couple of pictures just to give you a preview of what you will see!

Truth in The Man That Was Used Up

I wanted to bring up the topic of truth. I know we’ve talked about this in class already with other stories such as The Tell-Tale Heart and Pym, which I think is why I’ve been closely looking for this idea to pop up in Poe’s stories. In The Man That Was Used Up I found this theme throughout the entire text. In the first paragraph I got the feeling that the narrator was unsure of what was happening when he met the General. Poe says:

“I cannot just now remember when or where I first made the acquaintance of that truly fine-looking fellow… Some one did introduce me to the gentleman, I am sure - at some public meeting, I know very well - held about something of great importance, no doubt - at some place or other, I feel convinced, - whose name I have unaccountably forgotten.”

I read this and was curious about the reliability of the narrator. Not until a little further into the text did I understand that the mystery of this man Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith (did anyone else find this name excessive??), captured the narrator and perhaps made all other detail of that night superfluous. Going through the story when everyone was telling the narrator about the General, I was getting frustrated, as others have mentioned, about the repetitiveness of their comments. They wouldn’t answer a question but they would continue to repeat whatever it was they had heard. I assumed that no one had ever really met the guy or maybe they would have disclosed his secret. This made me more interested in him and what would be revealed at the end. The ending was very interesting, not really what I expected, but again, a little on the questionable side. At this time could one really have all the bodily attachments he did and still be alive??

Raquel posted that she thought it may be saying something about colonialism and I didn’t see this when I was reading, but I really like that answer. Surely Poe was making a comment about a situation that requires one to give in order to get. But this is a bit much, don’t you think? Would you be willing to make the sacrifices that the General did? And how do you think he (the General) really feels at the end of all this? I guess in order to progress as a people someone has to make the sacrifice but I wonder if it's really a choice that they would make for themself if the pressure wasn't there.

Age of Invention

One thing that I was wondering as I read was WHY did each person that the narrator spoke to talk about it being such a wonderful age of invention that they live in? Poe starts with the General himself telling the narrator "we are a wonderful people, and live in a wonderful age." Then he goes on to list what exactly makes this such a wonderful age and all the technology of the time. Basically the different inventions. Then the other characters later actually use the word "inventive" to describe the time period they are in but why mention that when they are being asked about the General and not the age they live in? Is it because inventions and this new age helped the General survive the battles against the Bugaboos and Kickapoos? Or is it because they know the General's secret of his mechanical body parts (and obviously that is a new invention) so they are hinting to the narrator about this? No one ever seems to answer the narrator in a straightforward fashion about the General and they all have similar yet almost disjointed comments. But one thing that most of them did seem to definitely mention was this wonderfully inventive age. Yet I don't see the reason for it except what I tried to guess at.

Descent as Pym Lite?!

Hi, everyone!
I will miss you tomorrow...I'm going to be Charlottesville visiting my cousin.

In any case, I wanted to wonder if anyone saw what I did in "Descent into the Maelstrom." It was as if Poe said, "Okay...Pym didn't work out the way I wanted it to, so I'll do something similar only make it more tolerable." It made me think, 'This is Pym Lite!' I honestly enjoyed it.

I also enjoyed Mountains. You really see the more personal, 'I know what I am talking about here...' Poe.

THE MAN THAT WAS USED UP

Is it me or is Poe completely enthralled by teeth? He went on and on over the perfection of Brevet Brigadier General John A.B.C. The pace of the story was a lot refreshing after Pym, I really wanted to know what the narrator was trying to find out. Yet, I was becoming quite frustrated with the repetition of the “history” of the man, which was never told! How is it that everyone he cornered about the General had the exact same thing to say? Then I had to wonder, did they know the truth and if they did, where was the narrator that he did not know the story, since he was awed by the man when he met him? Poe presented a man that was so physically perfect that it caused instant doubt as to the reliability of the narrator. How is it that he was able to “give the beggarly scoundrel such a thrashing as he will remember to the day of his death”, but couldn’t obtain the truth of the General? Maybe I am naïve, but I was shocked that the General was only a partial man, physically, was anyone else? Also, I have to wonder what statement Poe was actually making. The General had lost just about everything; his eye, teeth, palate, arm, leg, shoulder, was Poe simply telling a story? Or was he asking if colonialism was worth the cost that had to be paid by the people who actually did the colonizing? The Brevet Brigadier General, fought a battle with the Kick-a-poos and the Bugaboos. It had to have been common knowledge, so why didn’t the narrator know? Was he easily distracted, or did he ignore the “world” events as they were happening and so become ignorant of events, historical or otherwise?

Double Take: William Wilson

Okay I will break the ice here. It's Monday evening and no one has posted on William Wilson! I was kind of waiting to post about this one to see if anyone had any brillian comments about it, as I know you are all geniuses, and I was hoping to gain some insight from your thoughts. This did not happen so I am going to shoot in the dark and ask a few questions about this tale. Please help!
If the narrator was so tormented by this "William Wilson" then why did it take so long for him to do anything about it?
If they were the same person, then how did the butler guy announce to the narrator that he had a guest the night that he was drinking wine? Did he just imagine that? Was he truely alone the whole time and bouncing from looney bin to looney bin in different countries?
What do you make of the competitiveness of the narrator and how does it contribute to his split personality? I think that it makes him more able to keep this other personality because he feels like nothing he does is good enough and the other personality sustains this feeling for him.
Were you surprised at the ending to find out they are the same person? I wasn't! If the story was shorter I might have been a bit more surprised but by the ending I kind of saw it comming, but that didn't take away from the story for me. How about you?

Again, I liked the descriptions and sensations that the tale included, that seems to be a theme from across the board this week. I also really liked the last couple of pages the most of all, they just seemed to invoke so much feeling, which I think aided in the stabbing scene!

The Man of the Crowd vs. The Man Watching the Crowd

I noticed two significant things about this tale: 1) It seems to appeal to the visual culture again like some of the other Poe works. The images are not direct that the narrator is giving, but the reader can still imagin them. For instance he doesn't give eye color and hair color he gives types of clothes and demeanors of people, because it is what he can see from the window. While the narrator was standing in his room looking upon the crowd and giving descriptions of everyone, I could close my eyes and see what he was describing. I think that the careful choice of words and the calculations of the sentences make this tale force the reader to follow what the narrator does. I liked the descriptions and the images that the narrator was sharing with us. 2) At the end of the tale the narrator says, "This old man," I said at length, "is the type and the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone. He is the man of the crowd."(396) I think that in the way that the man of the crowd is described by the narrator, the narrator can identify with the man of the crowd. In a way the narrator could be a genius of crime seeing that he had followed this man around and wasn't even noticed. He also watches the crowd and knows everything about the way it moves, thinks and functions, therefore making him a genius of how to affect it. He also says that the man refuses to be alone, and I think that the narrator does to. He may stay in his room a lot and watch the crowd, but without that crowd he would probably go insane. It is like he lives for watching the crowd and studying how it works. In a sense, yes he is alone and confined, but he is only alone by distance and location, not by the people he associates with.

What do you think Poe was trying to achieve with his wonderful descriptions? I just loved them!

Pym and Lovecraft in film

I came across two interesting films based, or at least indebted too, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. The first is an animated short titled The Secret of Arthur Gordon Pym:



The second is a 1930s film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness:



Neither is really long/strong enough for a cultural appropriation presentation so I thought I'd post them myself.

Godot

And who likes Waiting For Godot? (I always did).
There we have another abstract piece of literature where at the end God is supposed to show up. In class today, people seemed to agree that it is God who appears at the end of Narrative of A.G.P.
What does our hybrid Peter's involvement here say? I wonder if what we have here is saying something about God's creation of man.

The French and Us, Can We Agree?

I would like to maintain that I was a little disappointed, or at the very least perplexed by one thing in our class discussions, this week and last, and that was the general sentiment around me of disapproval of the unrealistic aspects of Narrative of A.G.P.

Professor Harrison is right to point out that I am taking a French interpretative approach; so much so that before he even mentioned it I just started to remember The Little Prince, because grownups just don’t understand! All of you, I now sadly suspect.

Basically, just because it said at the beginning that it was true, does this mean for us at home here in VA, (also the home of Poe himself, please regard) that it has to appear realistic in order to be more valuable?

RSVP, tell me your reasons why it is that it matters whether or not certain parts of this narrative need to be there. Other than the fact that it takes up our time to read about hatchets that are picked up then tossed aside, or descriptions of penguins and Islanders, is there a good reason why something particularly shouldn’t be there? Because if it is in there, then I guess Poe had his reason for it, (which we are left to interpret).

Also, during our discussions I recall discussions of days past, at the beginning of the semester we wondered to ourselves if Poe wrote what he thought people wanted to read, or was it what he wanted to write. Did Poe write what he wanted others to read?

I would write a Narrative adventure story of getting lost at Sea, and stranded on a deserted Island. If I do, I’ll try to make it as realistic as possible for those of you who will be inclined to read it.

Longitude, Latitude

Was anybody else slightly bored with all the longitude and latitude numbers and exact locations, beginning in chapter xiv when Gordan boards the Jane Guy? I did not find it necessary to know that Nightingale Island is latitude 37 26' S, longitude 12 24' W, and that Prince Edward's Island is latitude 46 53' S, longitude 37 46' E. This goes on for about 10 chapters- I felt like I was waiting for something to happen, but all I got was a bunch of geography.

A Question on Pym

I just want to know if anyone knows what happened to Tiger. I lost him. The last I saw him he had just saved Arthur Gordon, and had bitten the neck of an attacker , and was standing over him(the attacker) growling.

I figured they would have eaten him, but unless I missed it when skimming the boring days, - he just vanished from the story.

Can anyone tell me what happened to him?

Thanks,
Audrey

Augustus' Death

Is anyone else severely disappointed in Augustus' death? I am. He was such an integral part of the story to me. The one who inspired Gordon, the one who figured out a way to sneak him on, the one who saved his life. Gordon previously stated that he used journal entries to put in information that is not all that important, and yet he discloses the death of his best friend in journal form? I was mad at him for that (Aug. 1, page 1106-07). Just wanted to see if anyone else felt that way.

Narrative A. Gordon Pym +/- Continuity

In the narrative of A. Gordon Pym, Poe used several different constructions in order to compose his text. He used the normal composition that we are used to from reading his other tales, a journal format, and a highly explanatory format. He often abruptly stops one technique and begins another. After discussing the plight of Dirk Peters, Poe digresses into an explanatory form of composition where he attempts to speaker directly:

Because I shall have frequent occasion to mention him hereafter in the course of my narrative – a narrative, let me here say, which in its latter portions, will be found to include incidents of a nature so entirely out of range of human experience, and for this reason so far beyond the limits of human credulity, that I proceed in utter hopelessness of obtaining credence for all that I shall tell, yet confidently trusting in time and progressing science to verify some of the most important and most improbable of my statements. (1044)

He then proceeds to fall back into a narrative voice to depict the events on the deck of the Grampus.
Poe furthers his disregard for a continual narrative voice by describing the days beneath deck. He begins using a journal method of composition. Arthur begins each day’s events by stating the month and then the day. I find the change in the meaning of the definite article ‘I’ from defining the narrator in the aforementioned example to defining Arthur as he describes his days beneath of the deck to be distracting and problematic.

In the preface, “Arthur” warns the reader of the inconsistencies in the text by writing, “even to those readers point out where his portion ends and my own commences; the difference in point of style will be readily perceived” (1008). I do not accept this excuse as an adequate reason for the inconsistencies in the text. I find the change of defining articles, format, and compositional qualities to be tiresome and a nuisance. The complexity of the storyline requires a strong narrative voice that can accurately and sufficiently depict events.

I readily understand that not all share my view on continuity. What are your opinions on the flow of the text? Do you find the changes of voice and compositional format distracting? Does warning the reader of a discrepancy excuse it from happening?

"Narrative of A. Gordon Pym"

This weeks reading assignment : Narrative of Gordon Pym, is quite a departure of anything we have read thus far. However, a few things stand out and discussion worthy.

First of all this narrative seems to me to be a story about the initiation rites of males. However I was somewhat disturbed by the homo erotic aspects. On the first page, Poe describes the relationship between Gordon and Augustus as "Intimate." "Here I became intimate with the son of Mr. Barnard, A sea Captain," (1009). Now I know that that word can mean that they were just close friends, and if that were the only words used to describe their friendship I would dismiss it, but he commonly uses sexualized words with double meanings such as ejaculate for said, and so forth.Then there is the strange relationship between Peters and Augustus. The question here is -do I have a dirty mind- or does anyone else notice this homo eroticism?

The second thought I have on this novel is that personally I was a bit disappointed by this story. So far that is, it's boring. I keep hoping for a beautiful young dying woman to pop out from a hiding place. Maybe that would liven things up a bit. As it is, this story seems very imitative and shallow. I am also sadden to see that Poe is in fact a racist and that is one of the myths about him and is true. -Other thoughts?

The last thing I want to discuss, is the strange shift in writing styles - from that of a narrative to a journal. This was the same thing he did in MS in a Bottle, except this time he noted the shift in the story. My question is why would he do this- why would he say this part of the story is so boring that I will only note it in a journal. I found my self not wanting to read the journal part as he already said it was boring.

As far as gender is concerned- this story is a good example of it's construction. I think this story would have been far more interesting if both Augustus and Gordon were females, and Gordon's Grandmother were the ones holding the inheritance purse strings. What do you all think?

The Poetic Death of a Beautiful Young Woman

Not an ugly woman, not an old woman, not a man.
Hey, it worked for Poe, ...I mean didn't it?

I am noticing us going back to this topic every so often in class, we are concerned about this. My input: in response to Professor Harrison's suggestion that he was influenced by the culture or society around him; I mean yes, and at the same time, looking at it today we might as well be asking ourselves if Poe has influenced the culture with his imaginative invention of the death of a beautiful young woman.
What surrounds this concept? Is society responsible for Poe's intense fascination with violence against beautiful young women, or is Poe responsible for his own fascinations, as well as a larger network around him, by having an influence over the world.
?
I continue to remind myself that my understanding of Poe is biased by the time gap between us.

The Tell Tale Heart

If you ask me, I will say that I think Poe's narrator brings up a very good point. I am nervous as well, I am actually a very anxious person, I'm definitely a worrier. And I'm not crazy. I mean I am not feeling inspired to plot any murder for any reason, but for the sake of it, I can see how nervousness and madness are unrelated. And for other reasons, my argument stands that Poe's narrator indeed is not mad.
It's been said that beginning the story with the word 'True' is an admission of guilt. I don't feel that there is any reason to argue that, and his further admission that he is not mad could be simply an honest, guilty admission that he is not innocent or guilty by reason of insanity.
I've also heard the rumor that Poe suffered from some level of monoxide poisoning, a side effect of which is heightened senses similar to what Poe describes in the story. The poisoning theory also explains why Poe's facial features look the way they do in some of his photographs. Richmond is surely a place where something like this could happen.
He says he is patient, maybe that is fair to say. I am in no position to say what constitutes madness, but I could believe that it would exist in the form of patience or impatience. So I don't believe that his level of patience is evidence of anything here.
Whatever the problem here is, we know that Poe's narrator does not want anyone to label him 'mad'. He has his reasons. (Or she. The narrator could be a female and reverse interpretation of Poe's idea of the death of a beautiful woman).
The narrator needs a good lawyer and some counseling.

The Tell Tale Heart (1954 cartoon)

I am pleased with my decision to choose this clip to share during my time with the class.
(Repeat of what I said in class):
This clip was made by Ted Parmelee and some of his people~the same guys who made Rocky and Bullwinkle. Columbia Pictures distributed the film.
It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Subject; Cartoons. In 1994 it was put at #24 on the list of 50 Greatest Cartoons. It was the first film to receive an X rating in Great Britain, the year it came out. But, I reiterate, I am most impressed with it's 2001 addition to the National Film Registry, selected for it's cultural significance.

I love the artwork and the cinematography of the film, I enjoyed watching it, especially in class on the big screen which I am so happy now that we did end up getting to use. I thought it was well done and enjoyable, and I encourage you all to look at it again. However I personally would like to concentrate on its addition to the film registry. Especially that it was selected because it was deemed culturally significant, I think that says a lot.
I am going to find out some more about it's inclusion into the film registry and get back to you. For the time being, I will say that I feel that it is a good representation and an appropriate addition to the registry, but a part of me agrees that to really have cultural significance for what it is, a remake of one of Poe's most popular works, it should have included much more of Poe's story. But my argument stands as thus for now: that the clip is a brilliant interpretation of The Tell Tale Heart, and every moment of the clip perfectly supports itself, the gothic theme is retained throughout, the imagery appeals in a brilliant way to the viewer, it is truly a classic. I'm glad I got to show the clip, so let me know what you thought!

I hope someone in the class finds a more alternative reinterpretation of Poe, we see a lot of stuff that stays true to the classical vision we already have. I liked the Poe we saw from the clip in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, I also enjoyed the Poe who now writes inspirationally about rainbows and love.

After thought on Morella and names

After class today I was very curious about the idea of names and how, in our culture especially, it is normal to find a boy with the same name as his father, grandfather… but it is not normal to find a girl with the same name as her mother. Instead, girls may be named after a relative or is given part of the mother’s name but it is never exact. After some unhelpful internet searching the only thing I got was Junioretta or Juniorita. I was not happy with this but decided the lack of information is because maybe women do not want to name their daughters after themselves and this would only be practical if men started taking the names of their wives.

Another thought I was having and one that took me a little further than junioretta...

I was very interested in the concept of names after our MORELLA discussion in class today. I was surfing the web when I came upon an interesting take. I found this information on wikipedia but confirmed it with several other websites as well (this doesn’t make it soo bad).

Ren (name): As a part of the soul, a person's name (ren in Egyptian) was given to them at birth and the Egyptians believed that it would live for as long as that name was spoken, which explains why efforts were made to protect it and the practice of placing it in numerous writings. For example, part of the Book of Breathings, a derivative of the Book of the Dead, was a means to ensure the survival of the name. A cartouche (magical rope) often was used to surround the name and protect it. Conversely, the names of deceased enemies of the state, such as Akhenaten, were hacked out of monuments in a form of damnatio memoriae. Sometimes, however, they were removed in order to make room for the economical insertion of the name of a successor, without having to build another monument. The greater the number of places a name was used, the grater the possibility it would survive to be read and spoken.

Another definition I found for REN is this:

Ren - The true name, a vital part to man on his journey through life and the afterlife, a magical part that could destroy a man if his name was obliterated or could give power of the man if someone knew his Ren - naming ceremonies in Egypt were secret, and a child lived his whole life with a nickname to avoid anyone from learning his true name!

This all fascinated me and I wanted to share it with you guys. It also seemed to go along with the thought that Morella soul went into baby Morella once the father spoke the name. This story was a very interesting way for Poe to show the power behind names.

Also, going back to naming your kids after yourself or spouse...

What do you guys think of this? Does it take away from who you are? Or does it prematurely place a personality on you? Dr. Harrison??? Do you feel that at any moment you could turn into your father or grandfather?? lol. This story gives me a different look on this topic even though I'm not sure what to take from it.

Body Parts!

During class today while watching Patricia's video, I was wondering why Poe always seems so consumed with making his narrators obsessed with a certain bodily aspect of a women/man/other character, that ultimately leads to the narrators madness, death etc. In each of the stories this week we have narrator insanely focused on teeth, eyes, hair or what ever the case may be. I personally think that it is a huge contribution of the the visual culture and audience that Poe is writing for. What do you all think? I don't want to be right on this one becasue my idea is boring!

Ligeia: madness, drugs, and teen movies

“I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia” is Poe’s opening line to his makeshift love story, “Ligeia” (LOA 262). After reading the text, I had built a mental analogy for the depiction Poe creates for his narrator: a pop-culture teen movie. The aforementioned line immediately reveals to the reader that the narrator is unreliable, due to his inability to remember the particulars of how he met his beloved Ligeia. The way that I connect the two, Poe’s “Ligeia” and a high school drama, is in the perspective and exaggeration used. In many teen movies, you find the common theme of: boy likes girl, girl doesn’t know boy exists; boy creates mental (imaginative) moments where he confesses his feelings; boy derives complex and completely made up personality traits about girl from her physical being (i.e. nice hair = good person), and eventually boy gets girl [boy and girl may be interchangeable at your leisure]. Although I believe that the woman Ligeia is a complete fabrication of the depressed and drugged mind of the unreliable narrator, I see a mirroring between the plot design and story layout of a teen drama.

The key element to both is the imaginary traits that one derives from the physical features of a person in an assessment of the personality. The speaker in “Ligeia” often speaks of her through physical terms “she was tall, somewhat slender” (263). “-- the skin rivaling the purest ivory, the commanding extent and repose, the gentle prominence of the regions above the temple; and then the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant and naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the full force of the Homeric epithet, hyacinthine” (LOA 263). Nowhere in the speaker’s recollection is a word in reference to her as an individual or to her personality. Instead, he goes to length to describe her physical attributes and to persuade the reader to see the morality of having rave-black hair.

Where the analogy begins to separate is in the examination of the state of mind of the speaker. A teen film often will depict the imagined characteristics of an individual based upon there physical appearance, but rarely is the subject of the emotion is revealed to be imaginary. I believe that Ligeia is a complete fabrication of the speaker. In a tangent about the ability of one to remember a single and important detail, our speaker reveals “in my intense scrutiny of Ligeia’s eyes, have I felt approaching the full knowledge of their expressions -- felt it approaching -- yet not quite be mine -- and so at length entirely depart” (LOA 265). It is my estimation that he the speaker is in capable of remembering, but has no real experience in which to draw the memory from. After the death of his beloved Ligeia, he goes on to purchase, with combination of his personal and her remaining funds, and abbey, “which I shall not name” (LOA 269). It is my estimation that he cannot name it, because it doesn’t truly exist.

Although I think that the main cause for the speaker’s delusions is some sort of chemical imbalance in his brain, he openly offers an alternate or supplementary reason for his absurdity. He exclaimed, “I had became a bounden slave in the trammels of opium, and my labors and my order had taken a coloring from my dreams” (LOA 270).

In my estimation “Ligeia” is the ranting of a drug addict with delusions of grandeur: love, wealth, life, and death. Such sentiments speak loudly and harmoniously with well accepted traditions in teenage cinema.

Poe and Linking

As I read Elenore, and then Ligeia, along with several other readings, I have noticed that Poe is really, and I do mean REALLY presenting the death of a lovely woman almost to an extreme. For me, this posed a couple of questions:

1. How much of this is related to Poe's own sadness and despair over the death of his beloved Virginia?

I personally think that many of them, in particular Elenora and Ligeia, which have the main female character wasting away from an illness, is all about Virginia.

2. How does this add to or take away from the Poe that we have all come to associate with his work?

Honestly, I feel it takes away from Poe's work some, because there are only so many variations on the same theme which can be done. Not to say that they are not wonderful stories and full of meaningful things, but unfortunately the public will only take so much of it.

3. How is Ligeia a 'What if?' sort of story, knowing what we know about Poe and his relations with Ms. Whitman? Is it even that?

For me, I think that Ligeia, Elenora, Morella, and a few other of the stories are linked. If we were to put them all together, we can get a picture of Poe's love and feelings for Virginia.

**added later**

In doing a little more background research on Wikipedia (sorry, Dr. Harrison...-_-) another question came into my mind.

4. Are the characters of Berenice, Morella, Ligeia, and Elenora perhaps bits and pieces or even parodies of some of the women in his life? Yes, I know that we have talked about Virginia, but what about Sarah Royster? Sarah Helen Whitman? In consequence, how does this add to or take away from Poe's work as well?

Cultural Appropriation

Crazy, depressed, psychotic, dark, creepy man. This is how a lot of general people view Poe right? And this is the issue we've been discussing in the past few weeks as to whether this is an accurate description of the author and poet.

Poe has become a popular icon in many other works of literature, music, and television. I was watching some old re-runs of Sabrina the Teenage Witch a few weeks ago and got excited when the episode I was watching had Poe in it! Then I got to thinking, how have other shows portrayed him? The same way most of the public sees him as depressed and scary?

I will be discussing this topic and I've put together the clips from that Sabrina episode just as an example. It can be found: http://gallery.mac.com/wunus#100059

Berenice v Eleonora- Poes relationship with Virginia

When I was finished reading Berenice, I thought wow that was a little autobiographical. "Berenice and I were cousins...Yet we grew differently...I living in my own heart, and addicred body and soul to the most intense and painful meditation...she roaming carelessly through life with no thought of the shadows in her path.." (226). Poe was intellectual and made it a point in his writings to show this (obscure references, passages in other languages etc) while Virginia was more naive and not into serious study. Poe continues "Disease-a fatal disease-fell like the simoom upon her frame..."(226). Then the main character becomes monomaniac (OCD? that was my first thought) and fixated on one thing until it drives him mad. I felt like if we looked at this from an autobiographical stance this is the dark picture of his relationship with Virginia and living with illness and addiction. The ending was horrorfic and was almost like the description of a mental patient who finally remembers the reason he went mad in the first place (which in this case was obsession over the teeth!).
Yet Eleonora paints a different picture. "She whom I loved in youth...was the sole daughter of the only sister of my mother long departed. Eleonora was the name of my cousin."(468). The setting is calm, serene and beautiful. The imagery had me wishing to be in meadow rather then my bland bedroom. The love that was felt from the narrator and Eleonora was at a pinnacle on page 470: "Hand in hand about this valley, for fifteen years, roamed I with Eleonora before love entered within our hearts....we sat, locked in each other's embrace, beneath the seperant like trees...We had drawn the God Eros from that wave, and now we felt that he had enkindled within us the fiery souls of our forefathers." The ending of Eleonora was not grotesque like Berenice but a reminder of the vows the narrator had made to Eleonora. Unlike Berenice, the death in Eleonora did not involve removal of teeth (the teeth!) or gross clods of dirt and blood sticking to the oblivious narrator but peacefully.
Did anyone else find these stories to be an examination of Poes relationship with Virginia? Perhaps one more than the other or were they both different ends of the spectrum of his grief over her death?

How to Write a Blackwood Article / A Predicament

I really enjoyed this story. It got a little gross but it definitely kept me interested. I just had a few questions which hopefully someone could answer for me.

Why is this narrator a female? Considering that almost all of his narrators are male, does this mean he is specifically satirizing female writers in this work? Why else would he have a female narrator?

Is there any truth to the instructions Mr. Blackwood gives Psyche on how to write? What does it tell of the narrator since she failed so horribly at utilizing his advice?

Page 287 near the end of Mr. Blackwoods tutorial he asks her if there is anything else he can do for her. He asks this “while the tears stood in his eyes.” Do you think that Mr. Blackwood has been toying with Psyche? Most of his speech has been quite composed but then he gets really excited when discussing how she could die. Are these tears of happiness that he found someone dedicated to his work or are they tears of trying to suppress laughter? If they are tears of amusement then what does that say about publishers and other magazine execs?

The last few sentences have the headless Psyche lamenting over being alone. What do you think happens after she says “I have done”? Why is it "I have done" and not "I am done"? Do you think she accepts death or could Poe have any other business with her?

Not so pretty "Asphodel"

I was curious as to what an Asphodel was, first off because I work at a garden center and had not really ever heard of one, and secondly because they appear in both Berenice (page 228) and Eleonora (all over the valley). Here is what I found: (I know you hate Wikipedia Dr. Harrison, please forgive me)! "The Asphodel Meadows is a section of the Ancient Greek underworld where indifferent and ordinary souls were sent to live after death. Hades, the Greek name for the underworld (also the name of the god Pluto) is divided into two main sections: Erebus and Tartarus. Erebus was where the dead first entered the underworld. Charon ferried the dead across the river Styx where they then went into Tartarus. Tartarus is the section of the underworld where the dead would spend all of eternity in the place where judgment would order them. Tartarus is then divided into three subsections: the Elysian Fields, the Asphodel Meadows, and Tartarus. The Elysian Fields were for the good and heroic souls where they would be forever happy, similar to the Christian Heaven. Tartarus was where the evil and treacherous souls were sent to live out eternity in horrible punishment, similar to the Christian Hell. The Asphodel Fields is where the souls of people who lived lives of near equal good and evil rested. It essentially was a plain of Asphodel flowers which were the favorite food of the Greek dead. It is described as a ghostly place that is an even less perfect version of life on earth." (Wikipedia under the search word Asphodel) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphodel_Meadows

Kind of morbid huh? Not so much a pretty valley full of love and smiles.

"Eleonora"

Ok, first I was wondering if anyone else thought that perhaps the narrator was dreaming during the whole story. I didn't think this the first time i read it through, but then when I went back to the beginning, he describes what it means to be mad, or as he likes to refer to it as the "loftiest intelligence." He proceeds to say that "They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which excape those who dream only by night." And then in the next paragraph he calls himself mad, therefore concluding that he dreams in the day and night. So do you think he was dreaming up this story?
Next I want to approach the deal that was made between the narrator and Eleonora on page 471. It reminds me of the saying, "making a deal with the devil." Did anyone else thinkn that the "HIM" that would be doing the cursing was the Devil? Also I was curious as to why they didn't put what his punishment would be if he did betray his promise to her after she died. The description of what he wouldn't do was so detailed and then there was no description of what the curse would be if he had broken the deal. I personally think that if he had included what would happen to him if he broke the deal, it would have made for a better ending because then the audience would see what a relief it was to not be punished when he ends up marrying some other girl.
Lastly, I wanted to know if anyone else thought the Ermengarde (the new girl) was kind of like a reincarnation of Eleonora at first. I did, but Im not so sure now. The only reason that I thought this was because on page 473, in the last sentence of the first full paragraph he describes Ermengarde's as as "memorial eyes." Memorial of what? Did they just remind him of Eleonora or were they in fact her eyes? He is so bold to say on page 469 that the river was brighter than all "save the eyes of Eleonora."
I think that this piece is not typical Poe, it seems to happily ever after to me. Let me know what you think and what your ideas are!

"Lionizing"- A Defence!!!

After todays class, when I realized that this short piece is disliked by manny of its readers, i wanted to reiterate my defence of why this peice struck me on the blog so that the web surfers can read it also!

What I loved about this story is that its clever and amuseing; and I feel that it is a good example of what I have constructed to be MY "typical Poe". What struck me first in this piece is the similarities between Poe and the narrator- a man who is obsessed with his own nose to the point of snobbery, "I Turned up my nose and spoke of myself" (216, LOA). With this charector, Poe seems to be pokeing fun at himself and commenting on his harsh and elitest criticism of his literary peers. The connection was strengthened to me when the narrator is put out to fend for himself by his disaproving father-a notion that seems to come strait out of Poes own bibliography.

Poe uses this peice to comment on art and the marketplace; picking on popular writers that he feels are undeserving of the prais they recieve. Also, Poe comments on the problems with art in the marketplace and posibly the rise of mass/popular media with the over the top prais given to the "pamphlet on Nosology"

The hole story is ammuseing; filled with rediculous immigery and sexual inuendoes. How can you not be amused by the little "moral" given at the end of the tale?!? "I grant you that in Fum-Fudge the greatness of a lion is in proportion to the size of his proboscis-but, good heavens! there is no competing with a lion who has no proboscis at all" (217, LOA). This is odvoiously ment to get a laughf, and you could even do another marketplace read on it!

Now you know why this little piece worked for me...Im interested in hearing why others disliked it?

My appropriation

I chose to do my cultural appropriation on Poe in the form of a graphic novel. The story I've chosen to do is a Rick Geary adaptation of Poe's famous short story, The Tell Tale Heart.
In my presentation I will be walking you through how I dissected Geary's choices of color and style. I'm also going to be exploring how I feel he interpreted not only the story, but also his view on Poe and how he relates it to this particular graphic adaptation.
This was a fun project to do and I hope you all enjoy it tomorrow morning!

A Poe outing in Henrico County

Hey if anyone is interested I just found out there is a Poe Outing in Henrico County (not far from the city)! Tomorrow, Feb. 7, 2008, Tales from Edgar Allan Poe, ages 16 and up. 7-8:30pm at Walkerton Tavern. FREE. Call Cindy Rinker, 261-6898.

MS. Found in a Bottle

Here are a few questions/thoughts I have about MS Found in a Bottle

• The narrator describes himself as someone who lacks creativity and imagination, but when he comes aboard the other ship, he changes, and is even ashamed of his "former apprehensions" (198). What is Poe trying to say about living a life based in reality vs. grounded in imagination? (which seems to be the way the crew lives)
  
• What do we make of the crew? They do not see/notice the narrator when he comes onto the ship. Also, they are described as being old, and use strange and outdated tools (196). The crew seems to be wandering around in their own world and driven by their imagination and hope for new discoveries.
  
• At the end of the story, the narrator sees "the blackness of eternal night, and a chaos of foamless water..." (199), but he is able to look past that and see the prospect of new discovery. He is excited by the fact that they are headed to something new, even though it will lead to their "destruction" (198). While he is still able to recognize what is going on around him, his imagination overshadows his realistic thoughts.
  
• What is Poe trying to say with the ending? It would seem that Poe likes the idea of imagination and discovery (and isn't a big fan of science), but it doesn't seem to turn out so well for the narrator (or the crew). Or, maybe there is something to be said about the narrator's story being bottled up, and available for others to read.

A tale of Jerusalem

I wanted to explain more about my reasons for disliking the story. I mentioned it was frantic and I feel like when Poe builds tension he tends to make the dialogue "faster". However this whole story had so much dialogue it just seemed very fast paced. There was little description. There was also too many exclamation marks!!!! I have this thing against too much puncuation.

Another Poe pop culture fun-ness!

I saw Audrey's post and it reminded me about the link I wanted to post. It is called "Vincent" and it is by Tim Burton. It is about a young boys obsession with Vincent Price and Poe. Enjoy!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fxQcBKUPm8o

Basil Rathbone reads "The Raven"

I found this site- It doesn't have the entire recording but it does have Basil Rathbone reading "The Raven," and someone else reading "The Purloined Letter."

Audrey



http://town.hall.org/radio/HarperAudio/011594_harp_01_ITH.au

The Haunted Palace/Mind

I wanted to amend what I said in class earlier today about Poe using this piece to show a process or the experience of going mad. I would like to replace that thought with the idea that maybe he was alluding to the harsh reckoning of society. I was thinking about the last thing Dr. Harrison said and it became clear that he could have possibly been speaking of the reality that no one can run from, and the idea that everyone at some point has or will experience some terrifying thing that they cannot escape from. I don't think that it has to be something gruesome or scary but the experience will effect the person in varying ways depending on what we are truly afraid of or gets under our skin the most. It is almost Poe in a Dr. Phil sort of light. He is getting inside our mind and showing us what it is that we are afraid of and why we can't escape then concluding that we never will completely abandon the idea. It will always be in our "palace/house/mind/head/consciousness."