Edgar Allan Poe: Root of Literary Modernity (Part I)
Friends, surely, you will have enjoyed as readers or spectators of horror or police stories that do not know that Poe's contributions have their origin. In this post I will try to introduce you to the contributions of this writer. This brings me back to the great issue of the development of modern literature.
While modernity was gaining ground in Europe with romanticism, in America, specifically in the United States, two figures, with their particular writings, were also driving the birth of the modern age in literature: Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman. This article is dedicated to the first (in the next issue we will talk about the second).
Edgar Allan Poe (Boston, 1809 - Baltimore, 1849), being for some critics and scholars, the most important writer given to us by the USA, is the initiator of literary modernity in this part of the planet, which will affect the whole West. His work includes diverse genres: poetry, narrative (stories and novels), essay, literary criticism, journalism. His influence goes beyond the strictly literary sphere of his time and of future ones, and even reaches the plastic arts, cinema and comics.
It is not my intention to present a biography of the author; there are many; the most famous is perhaps the one written in 1856 by the poet Charles Baudelaire, who was the first translator of much of his work in France (and from there to the whole of Europe). Baudelaire - the greatest promoter of modern poetry - values Poe as "one of the greatest poets of this century", referring to the 19th century. His biography: Edgar Poe, his life and works is not only a great tribute to one of his greatest influences (Octavio Paz said: "Baudelaire discovers his fellow man in Poe"), but also a way to delve into Poe's vital tragedy.
Let's look at some basic facts and features of his life and work before moving on to develop the theme of the post.
Edgar Allan Poe had a life marked by the drama of abandonment and death since his childhood: abandonment of the father and death of the mother when he was barely three years old; adopted by a couple, with his stepfather, a well-to-do merchant (from whom he took his surname: Allan), he could never get along at all; subjected to difficult circumstances of life with his brother, who died while Poe was still very young. He was continuously constrained to debts and very hard situations by the economic market, lamentable state that will be maintained during his life.
In 1827 he published his first book, a poetry booklet entitled Tamerlane and Other Poems. In order to earn a living, he devoted himself to journalistic collaborations, which included his own literary creation. In several magazines and newspapers for which he worked, he left stories, poems in verse and articles on various subjects. He is said to have been the first known American to try to live exclusively by writing. In 1833 he had his first literary success with his short story "Manuscript Found in a Bottle. In 1836 he married his cousin Virginia Clemm, who died of tuberculosis in 1847. Some biographers conjecture that the marked presence in his poetic and narrative work of a woman's death could be related to the loss of women in his life (mother, stepmother, wife).
In 1838 he published The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, a fantasy adventure novel; in 1840 his book Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, which would be published in Baudelaire's translation as Extraordinary Tales; and in 1845 his poem "The Raven", which became a great popular success.
The life of economic, family and other calamities had led him to gambling and alcohol, suffering states of depression and physical health, accentuated by the death of his wife.
On October 3, 1849, Poe was found in the streets of Baltimore in a state of delirium. He was taken by a friend to the hospital, where he died on October 7. It is said that on his death he uttered these words: "May God help my poor soul! Even today the exact cause of death remains a mystery.
To close this synthesis, it is worth quoting the well-known intellectual Marshall McLuhan, who in an essay about Poe pointed out: "(...) he never lost contact with the terrible pathos of his time. Long before Conrad and Eliot, he dedicated himself, along with Baudelaire, to exploring the heart of darkness. Poe himself in a letter synthesized: "My life has been caprice, impulse, passion, longing for solitude, mockery of the things of this world; an honest desire for the future.
His poetry includes the poems "The Raven", "Ulalume", "A Dream Within a Dream" and "Annabel Lee". His complete story has been classified by one of his best connoisseurs, the writer Julio Cortázar, in: Terror Tales; Supernaturals; Metaphysics; Analytics; Anticipation and Retrospection; Landscape; and Grotesque and Satirical, which indicates the richness of his narrative work. They can be named here: "Manuscript found in a bottle", "The fall of the House Usher", "William Wilson", "The crimes of the street Morgue", "The well and the pendulum", "The oval portrait", "The beetle of gold", "The black cat", "The heart of the informer", "The stolen letter", "The truth about the case of Mr. Valdemar", "The barrel of amontillado".
Among his essays and critical texts: "Philosophy of composition", Eureka, "The fundamentals of verse", "The poetic principle", "Charles Dickens", "Hawthorne", Marginalia.
What are the features of Edgar Allan Poe's work that make it the root of literary modernity?
We often do not know where certain ideas, styles, inclinations, characteristics in artistic manifestations come from, which we can even practice. Poe's contributions and influences are various and of a certain complexity, which we will try to expose with the support of specialized studies (recorded in the references at the end).
Although Poe had been influenced by European romanticism (he appreciated Hoffmann, Lord Byron, Shelley, Coleridge), and some of that influence can be seen in his work, which would already be part of the modern trend, he goes further, as he distances himself from romanticism by introducing a controversial trait that will dominate modernity to the present day: the separation between the empirical person (that is, each one of us) and the written work. Poe points to what will later be proposed as "depersonalization" in the text of literary creation, with Baudelaire and much of the modern and contemporary poetic line.
In his case, it is based on the rejection of sentimentalism that a certain decadent romanticism had propagated as a function of an awakened fantasy. As Friedrich says: "Outside France, Poe was the one who most decisively separated the lyric from the heart".
In this distancing from romanticism, he dispenses with mystical and metaphysical intentions, to prioritize attention to the literary text and its inherent demands, thus approaching the aesthetic vision of "art for art's sake.
- It develops the inclination towards death and the supernatural (obviously Poe's non-original feature; the influence of earlier Gothic writings is known), an essential aspect of modern literature, through the identification and promotion of the French poets of the time, pillars of modernity (Symbolism, which we will deal with later).
We find this trait both in his poems and in his stories. It reaches its greatest manifestation in Poe's poem par excellence: "The Raven", which presents the visit of a raven to a lover afflicted by the death of his beloved, Leonora. The black raven, standing on a bust of Palas Atenea, repeats the phrase "Never again".
(To be continued)
Bibliographic references
Cuéllar, Carlos (2009). El artista como musa: La influencia de Edgar A. Poe en el arte. Ars Longa, num. 18, 2009
Friedrich, Hugo (1974). Structure of modern lyric. Spain: Edit. Seix Barral.
Riquer, Martin de and Valverde, José M. (1979). History of Universal Literature (Volume III). Spain: Edit Planeta.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe
Authored by @josemalavem
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Excellent work, @osemalavem. Edgar Allan Poe is one of the writers of universal literature that I approached when I was studying. "El corazón delator" was the first story I read of Poe, a great story of death and suspense and of his poetry "Annabel Lee" is a beautiful poem that I like very much, especially when I listen to my daughter recite it in English. I look forward to the second part of this series. Thanks for this post and @adsactly for spreading it.
The choice of an interesting character
With this post we become interested in the character who initiated the modern detective story, a story that is usually filled with romantic drama and tragedy that requires detective knowledge techniques.
now we are not only enjoying one episode, some are even made in television series. The story with various detective stories is increasingly popular because the audience is invited to get involved, as if participating in solving the problem, moreover if at the end of the story there is the word "to be continued". this technique of how readers is invited to get involved and participate in senses in detective stories.
and we know from your post that the role of Allan Poe is so great in starting as a pioneer of the writers of modern detective stories. The we know that he live in the bad situation.
I am waiting for the next post.
Thank you @josemalavem
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Warm regard from Indonesia
Always grateful for your comments, @rokhani. Certainly, Poe is the initiator of this sub-genre of the police story, the detective, who has long played an important role in literary narrative, film and television. I will deal with it briefly in the next post. Greetings.
So... he was an unhappy man not different from many other people living at that time. Did he mend to be dramatic, see the world just black and ventilate his feelings this way or was it just coincedence people, way later, said he was a great writer (something that happened with many great artist, painters for example).
I never read anything he wrote, it is not in our culture, nor at the literature booklist for English. I wonder why.
I also wonder how come his depressions are "great", seen as artistic (I do believe certain burden, life experiences is needed to write with the heart) and if writers living now suffer from it they are locked up.
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Edgar Allan Poe, like many writers and artists in general, was tormented by several factors in his life, and his spirit was able to express it in his transcendental literary work. It is strange that he is not part of the studies of literature in his country. Almost all of his stories and poems are available on the Internet. I forgot to put a link to access them. I will do it in the second part of the post. Thank you for your comment, @wakeupkitty.
If there's one writer known for his scary, intriguing texts, it's Edgar Allan Poe. He is considered one of the storytellers of all time, as his literature revived the genre of police and terror, making him the master of science fiction. Very few writers have had like Poe the feeling of fatality, of tragic necessity, perhaps in our language and literature a Horacio Quiroga, but Poe's darkness is unique and inimitable. I must admit that I like him better as a narrator. His texts, La caída de la casa Usher, El Gato Negro (a masterpiece of the horror genre), Los crímenes de la calle Morgue (a history of the police genre), El corazón delator (a tale that mixes terror with the police) are my favorites and the best known. In poetry, I believe that El cuervo is his most read and exalted piece, although I must admit that as a poet I have read it very little. That chattering bird that remains forever perched on the pale bust of Palas, while the lyrical speaker is also a prisoner of his presence, can never be forgotten, "Never again". Pending the second part of this good work. Thank you for sharing, @josemalavem
The Raven gets all the popularity but for me, a dream within a dream evokes more despite the length.
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