Otázka: Edgar Allan Poe
Jazyk: Angličtina
Přidal(a): Lucie
Edgar Allan Poe
E.A. Poe was an american writer, editor and literary critic. He is best known for his poetry and short stories, particulary his tales of mystery and macabre. He is widely regarded as a cetral figure of romantism in the USA and american literature as a whole, and he was one oft he country’s earlist practitioners of the short story. Poe is generally considered the inventor oft he detektive fiction genre and is further credited with contributing tot he emerging genre of science fiction.
He was born Edgar Poe in Boston on January 19, 1809, the second child of English-born actress Elizabeth and actor David Poe. He had an elder brother William Henry Leonard, and a younger sister Rosalie. His childhood was not happy. His father left his family, and a few months later his mother died. He was then transferred to foster care of the Allan’s family, but he did not create a close relationship with his foster parents.
Because of his problems with alcohol and drugs was he expelled from the University of Virginia.
Poe was unable to support himself, so he enlisted in the United States Army and same year, he released his first book titled Tamerlane and Other Poems. While he was in the army, his foster Francis Allan died as a result of illness. Poe learned about her death only after his return home.
Two years later, after the death of his elder brother Henry, Poe fell into deep depression and began more earnest attempts to start his career as a writer.
At age twenty-six he married his 13-years-old cousin Virginia Clemm. Virginia died because of tuberculosis eleven years after their marriage. Biographers and critics often suggest that Poe’s frequent theme of the „death of a beautiful woman“ stems from the repeated loss of women throughout his life, including his wife.
Poe died at age 40 in Baltimore. The cause of his death remains a mystery. Speculation has included heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, cholera, and rabies. One theory dating from 1872 suggests that cooping was the cause of Poe’s death, a form of electoral fraud in which citizens were forced to vote for a particular candidate, sometimes leading to violence and even murder.
The Raven
„The Raven“ is a narrative poem first published in January 1845. This poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven’s mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man’s slow fall into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. Sitting on a bust of Pallas, the raven seems to further instigate his distress with its constant repetition of the word „Nevermore“ for all questions, which the man ask to him. The narrator’s final admission is that his soul is trapped beneath the raven’s shadow and shall be lifted „Nevermore“.
The poem was inspired in part by a talking raven in the novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ‚Eighty by Charles Dickens.
Quotes from The Raven
„Darkness there, and nothing more.“
„Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming deams no mortal ever to dream before.“
„The secret of a poem, no less than a jest’s prosperity, lies in the ear of him that hear it.“
Tales:
- The Black cat and Other Stories (1843)
- The Raven and Other Poems (1845)
Poetry:
- The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)
- The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)
Other poems:
- The Fall oft he House of Ushers (1839)
- The Pit and the Pendulum (1842)
- The Light-House – Poe’s last incomplete work
