Edgar Allan Poe (1501 words)

Edgar Allan PoeWhen picking a topic for my research paper. I thought of many different ideas. I started to think about my interests is reading literature, and I decided to write about my favorite author Edgar Allan Poe. This paper is going to look at Poe from a psychological perspective. There seems to be few attempts to look at the psychological causes of humor in Poe’s work, and how his personal life may have had an impact on his writings. Many of Poe’s tales are distinguished by the author’s unique grotesque ideas in addition to his superb plots.

In an article titled ?Poe’s humor: A Psychological Analysis,? by Paul Lewis, he states:
?Appropriately it seems to me, that to see Poe only as an elitist whose
jokes could not be grasped by a general audience is to sell him short.

He does not deny this elitist side of Poe; but he holds for a broader,
more universal less intellectual humor that screams out from the
center of Poe’s work. (532)
This article provides important insight to understanding the nature of the humor and its relationship to the overwhelming horror in some of Poe’s work.

Lewis’ believes that humor and fear have a special relationship in Poe’s tales. Humor, taken to its limits, leads the reader to fear. He says, ?Over and over, when humor fails, we are left with images of fear: the raven’s shadow, the howling cat, the putrescence corpse, or the fallen house. (535)
According to Lewis, in The Black Cat and Ligeia, he argues that are first impressions of the narrators are half comic. ?We are led gradually away from this humor into an expanding horror of men driven to acts of obscene cruelty. The combination with humor and horror occurs differently in Hop Frog where cruelty and joking co-mingle. (537) To agree with Lewis, I feel what happens in this tale is not just that cruel jokers are destroyed by a cruel joke but that joking itself gives good way to horror, as the cruelty of joke destroys its ability to function as a joke.

The appeal of Lewis’ article about psychological insight of Poe rings true. I agree that fear and humor are linked together in Poe’s tales. I have seen it in hospitals, and at funerals, or even when humor helps pass the time during a threat of a destructive storm or when a flood threatens us. The evening news almost every day will verify this conclusion.

What Lewis says about Poe, then, ?Is not that we need to examine Poe’s psyche, but that we need to take more seriously Poe’s understanding of how the psyches of his readers would operate.? (602)
Best known for his poems and short fiction. Edgar Allan Poe deserves more credit than any other writer for his transformation of the short story to art. He virtually created the detective story and perfected the psychological thriller. He also produced some of the most influential literary criticism of his time-important theoretical statements on poetry, short story, and Poe has had a worldwide influence on literature.

Poe’s parents were touring actors; both died before he was three years old, and then taken into the home of John Allan, a prosperous merchant in Richmond, VA, and was baptized. (Wells 39) His childhood seemed uneventful, although he studied for five years in England. In 1826, he entered the University of Virginia but stayed for only a year. Although a good student, he ran up large gambling debts that he refused to pay. Allan prevented his return to the university and broke off Poe’s engagement to Sarah Elmira Royster, his Richmond sweetheart. Lacking any means of support, Poe enlisted in the army. According to Robert Wells, an author, ?Poe had, however, already written and printed his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems(1827)?. (150)
Temporarily, reconciled, Allan secured Poe’s release from the army and his appointment to West Point but refused to provide financial support. After six months Poe apparently assembled to be dismissed from West Point for disobedience of orders. His fellow cadets, however, contributed to the funds for the publication of Poems: by Edgar A. Poe…Second Edition(1831). ?This volume contained the famous To Helen and Israfel, poems that show the restraint and the calculated musical