Edgar Allen Poe’s Great Works

By: Rachael Hammel

From Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Emily

Bronte and Charlotte Bronte; all were apart of the European Romantic Literature Era.

Who on the list is missing? Born on January 19, 1809 on the other side of the world, an

author became very well known for his many poems and stories. Although this author did

not live in Europe, he was considered to be a big part of the American Romantic

Literature Era. What did he possess in his writings that made him so famous? What was it

in his works that drew the reader in? Annabel Lee, A Dream within A Dream, The

Masque of Red Death, The Raven, and A Tell Tale Heart are just a few of his many

works. Throughout Edgar Allan Poe’s writing career, he wrote many poems and stories

which have a central or main theme that have to do with, in some way, death.

Many people say that Annabel Lee is one of the most beautiful poems written by

Edgar Allan Poe. Unfortunately, it was the last poem written before his death in 1849. It

talks about a love between Annabel Lee and the speaker of the poem. The heavenly

angels were jealous of their love and decided to put an end to it by effectively killing

Annabel Lee. However, the speaker makes it clear that the two souls, that is his and

Annabel Lee’s, remained united even though she was dead. The main theme in this tragic

poem is that true love will never fail no matter how many trials the two people go

through. Or even if death separates the two souls they will still be together because of

their bond. If you look through Poe’s history, you can see that his wife died a few years

previous to when this poem was written. So, it is logical to believe that Poe wrote this

poem in memory of his deceased wife.

 “All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream?” In Poe’s poem, A

Dream within a Dream, Edgar Allan Poe questions God about if it is possible to hold onto

anything in life or to fulfill a dream, when in reality, life is a dream. In lines nineteen and

twenty-one, it appears that he is pleading with God asking him why he was letting this

happen to him. “O God! Can I not grasp….O God! Can I not save…?” Poe was

approximately sixteen when he penned this poem on paper. His inspiration came from

when he was secretly engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster, and her parents sent her away

when they found out about the engagement. Also, Poe had quite a large amount of

gambling debt to deal with at the time. So, A Dream within a Dream seems to be an

outlet for Poe to express his feelings on what he was going through in life.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of Red Death, there are many symbols that

relate and help the theme of the story develop. At the beginning of the story, The Red

Death is ravaging through Prince Prospero’s land. In hope that he would not become a

victim of the plaque, Prospero gathered together his friends, knights, dames, and friends.

“But when his minions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand

hale and lighthearted friends from among his knights and dames of his court, and with

these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys.” While they were in

seclusion, Prospero held a masked ball for his friends. (This was of course when the

disease ravaged most furiously abroad). To everyone’s surprise, there was an unwelcome

guest that came. And in time, everyone caught the disease and eventually died. The

symbol for the Red Death, is quite literally death. Each of the room’s in the palace that

Prospero hides his court represent each of life’s stages. Each of the lamp stands represent

the lives of the people that are hiding from the Red death. The main idea or message from
the story is that as hard as we might try, death will come for us eventually. Poe invented

the “Red Death” for his story. However, there actually was something called the Black

Death in the early 1300s that still occurred until recent times.

While a man sits well into the night half asleep and trying to forget Lenore, who

was his only love, he hears a tapping on the door. When he opens it up? The speaker

doesn’t find anything. Then, the man sits back down once again feeling sorrowful. Yet,

he still hears the tapping. So, he goes to the window and flings open the shutter. There

sits a raven. The raven flies into the room and perches himself on the bust above the

man’s chamber door. Suddenly, the man has an impulse to talk to the bird. He asks it’s

name and it replies, “Nevermore”. Continually, the man keeps asking the bird question

but it only responds with the word, “Nevermore.” The man’s questions keep getting

deeper and more sorrowful, but still the bird only answers, “Nevermore”. Eventually, the

speaker begins to loose his sanity. “The Raven” was published on January 29, 1845 a

mere four years before Poe’s death. As you can see, it is evident that Poe is in a great

depression that never seems to be lifted. He is yearning for his lost love, Lenore, in the

poem.

Another short story of Poe’s that is rather famous is called A Tell Tale Heart.

Much like his other stories, A Tell Tale Heart has a story about death and pain that was

caused to someone. At the beginning of this terrifyingly engaging story, there is a man

who is trying to convince the reader he is not mad because he can recount his tale so

calmly. He goes on to say that he had nothing against the man but that he had felt a desire

to kill him. As you continue to read, the speaker says it was his eye that made him kill the

innocent man who had never done him any harm. It states, “It is impossible to say how
first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object

there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.

He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it

was this! He had the eye of a vulture –a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it

fell on me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees – very gradually –I made up my mind to

take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” Every night for seven

nights, the man would sneak into the older man’s bedroom and wait silently and conspire

to kill him. On the eighth night, he was a little louder than usual and the older man woke

up and asked who was there, the younger man, the speaker, stayed silent and didn’t move

a muscle. Awhile later, the speaker decided to take a chance and open up the lantern just

a little. As the single ray flooded out of the lantern, it fell upon the eye that the speaker

loathed so much. Quietly, he still stood still with the lantern’s ray looking at the eye.

Suddenly he heard it, the old man’s heart was beating. Suddenly with a loud yell he

opened up the lantern all of the way and sprung at the old man, dragging him of the bed

and killing him. With the dead body, he cut it up into pieces and hid it in the flooring of

the chamber. Later, he heard a knock at the door. When he went to open it, there were a

couple of officers looking for the older man. They were there because a neighbor had

heard a shriek in the middle of the night. The speaker explained to the officers that the

shriek had been his own and he brought them into the house so that they could search the

premises. The officers didn’t find anything out of place, and then suddenly the killer

starts to hear the steady beating of the old man’s heart. He is filled with guilt and then

admits to doing the deed to the officers while showing them the body. This is a story that

is remarkable in itself but also at the same time a creepy. The speaker has no fault with
the man yet he has a desire to kill him because of a physical defect. The theme of the

story is that when you do something wrong and try to cover it up, guilt will overwhelm

you and you should come clean.

As seen, the poems and stories by Edgar Allen Poe shown all have to do with

some aspect of death. Between yearning for his lost loves, trying to evade death, and then

trying to hold on to what he can’t. Poe gives an intense and harsh meaning to death. As

you study further and further into his works, you can see that he has an almost obsession

with death. He also tried to commit suicide and died at a fairly young age. Death must

have been a big thought in his mind that preoccupied him greatly. But his works are one

of the most well known in America, so his writing about death did pay off in the end and

he became very well known for it. He talked about something that mostly puzzles

mankind, so he drew people in by discussing death.