The MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS by Edgar Allan POE
The romantic move left great artists in the world of literature, one of the most prominent internationally is Edgar Allan Poe. Writer, poet, critic and journalist, he was not only one of the great exponents of the romantic movement and Gothic but he is considered the father of the detective story as well as a great master of the story short. In a PROFESSOR we want to teach you a little more about him, and for this it is essential to know his work. We show you a small summary of Edgar Allan Poe and his most important books.
Index
- The Tell-Tale Heart, one of Edgar Allan Poe's best books
- The barrel of amontillado
- The Black Cat, one of Poe's most famous books
- The Fall of the House of Usher
- The crimes of morgue Street
- Annabel Lee, a poem by Edgar Allan Poe
The Tell-Tale Heart, one of Edgar Allan Poe's best books.
Much of the work of Edgar Allan Poe is not novels, but stories, which can be found grouped in a book of collected stories or separately as a single volume. One of the most important stories is
"The Tell-Tale Heart",first published in 1843 in the literary periodical The Pioneer.The main protagonist of this story is the guilt / desire conflict after the commission of a murder. The plot revolves around a young worker who haunts the eye of an old man without vision, with whom he lives. It ends up being so unpleasant and unbearable for him to come across this eye every day and have to look at it, that he loses his scruples and decides to end the old man's life. The police begin to carry out an investigation and it is here, where the victim of a hallucination, the protagonist ends up giving himself away.
The magic of this story is that the narrator is the character himself and half of the things that happen during the narration, it happens more in his thought than in reality. It is about a neurotic protagonist, where through the interior monologue, we learn about his obsessions. He is a character that shows perfect reasoning and lucidity where the only problem that seems to haunt him is the line in which he directs that reasoning: an obsession, that of the eye without vision old man.
The antagonist of the story is himself, who practically all the story pays a lot of attention to the narration of details, something typical of romanticism. The story takes place in a single space, generating a certain dose of claustrophobia and perfectly accompanying the obsessive emotion that the protagonist cannot rid himself of.
Image: Taringa!
The barrel of amontillado.
Short story published in 1846, close to Poe's decline and his death. The main theme, in this case, revolves around the revenge as farce, misogyny and premeditated insanity. The plot narrates some carnivals of the 19th century in Italy, where the main character looks for another man to carry out a revenge.
In this story, Edgar Allan Poe also addresses directly to the reader, as if the narrator and protagonist knew perfectly the person who is reading the story. In the work there are gloomy and mysterious scenarios typical of the mystery of the police story and unlike other stories, in this one, a specific space and time does appear.
Image: Slideshare
The Black Cat, one of Poe's most famous books.
Another of Edgar Allan Poe's most important books is, without a doubt, The Black Cat. This story first appeared in 1843 when it was published in the newspaper Saturday Evening Post from Philadelphia. In this story, just like "In the tell-tale heart", the theme and main protagonist is the guilt / desire conflict after the commission of a sadistic murder. Obsessions and crimes were very typical of Edgar Allan Poe's stories.
The argument revolves around a common married couple living a quiet life with their cat. As time passes, the husband begins to drink and to become much more aggressive. In a aggressive attack, ends the life of his pet, the cat. From there, another cat appears which follows him from the tavern he frequents and his obsession is increasing, ending up in a rage and murdering his wife. The howl of the cat and this animal will be key to the outcome of the story.
The cat has always been related to witches and feelings such as revenge, this symbolism will be very important in the narrative, which presents a circular order of events: happiness, violence, murder. Tranquility, violence and murder again. We are again before a narrator who uses his own internal dialogue to tell us what happens in a reality that remains under the influence of his obsessive and violent thoughts.
Image: Slideshare
The fall of the House of Usher.
Published in the year 1839,"The Fall of the House of Usher" is one of the best known stories of Edgar Allan Poe. It is a story with deep symbolism between objects and places with human feelings and thoughts. The narrator, again, tells us the story in the first person.
The narrator's visit to the house of his friend, where his wife dies, is the trigger for the story. From this death, the husband and friend begins to lose his mind until the arrival of a stormy night where she will begin to rave in abundance and to hear screams and noises until realizing that they have buried his wife alive.
It is important to highlight in this story the house paper, which in some way, represents the human body and mind. As the story progresses we witness the destruction of the characters in the same way that we witness the final collapse of the mansion.
The crimes of morgue Street.
Another of Edgar Allan Poe's most important books is this story published for the first time in 1841 in the magazine Graham's Magazine. It is an extremely important story, since it is considered the first in the entire history of literature that recounts a case of detectives cas such. In addition, it is also the first case in a closed room ever narrated.
The theme revolves around lto blindness against reason, darkness against light. A deeply analytical narrative where we must be attentive to all the details that are presented to us through the inductive thinking. There are also quite violent scenes described, perhaps, the most common in all of Poe's works.
The story tells the investigation around a crime committed to a woman and her daughter on Morgue Street, a very frequented place. It costs so much to solve this mystery that the police begin by accusing a man unjustly. From here, the story will be resolved through thought and mental analysis.
Image: Slideshare
Annabel Lee, a poem by Edgar Allan Poe.
Annabel Lee is a poem and not a story, composed in 1849 and published after Poe's death. It was probably the last poem the author composed. The theme revolves around the death of a beautiful woman, the narrator of the poem describes her love for her, so perfect that he considers that the angels were jealous of her and therefore decided to end the woman's life.
In the poem we are also told about love beyond death, about love from beyond the grave. The narrator lies down each day next to her grave, considering that they are still together. It is believed that Annabel Lee could be the representation of Edgar Allan Poe's wife, Virginia Clemm, who also died young.
Image: KickStarter
If you want to read more articles similar to Edgar Allan Poe: Most Important Books, we recommend that you enter our category of History of Literature.
Bibliography
- Díaz Cano, M. Symbology and psychoanalysis in Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. Literature News.
- Recovered from: https://www.actualidadliteratura.com/simbologia-y-psicoanalisis-en-la-caida-de-la-casa-de-los-usher-de-edgar-allan-poe/
- Gómez Mejias, L. (2012). Edgar Allan Poe and his romantic creation method. Digital Ringtones, 23(0).
- Páez Vivanco, S. L., & Prieto Inzunza, A. (1982). Love / Death in Annabel Lee: meaning and interpretation.