The CHARACTERISTICS of the TALES of Edgar Allan POE

Author of romantic move par excellence, if Edgar Allan Poe is known for something, it is for his unmistakable stories. Inventor of the detective story, he added to all his writings his personal touch, in such a way that it is almost impossible not to identify a story as his when you are reading it. How can that be? In a PROFESSOR we explain the characteristics of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe so you can discover why they are so special and important.

Index

1. The Life and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe
2. Main characteristics of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe
3. Poe's style

Edgar Allan Poeis and will be a well-studied writer and on whom different theories have been developed that they relate his life to his stories. The numerous drunkenness, the states of delirium, his desires, repressions and the wedding with Virginia, his His wife, when he was only 14 years old, lead us to relate many aspects of his work with his day to day. Why such obsessive themes in his writings? Why always the resource of a psychic and delusional nature in his characters?

In numerous writings on his own literary theoryPoe affirmed that there is nothing more poetic and literary than the death of a beautiful and young woman. The writer aims to achieve beauty through precisely the absence of it. This is an important contradiction, the key to Poe's stories lies precisely in this: in the constant contradiction that we find represented in different ways -one of them, the raven, which often appears as symbolism about the paradox of the situation-, in the obsession with achieving unattainable desires, for example, meet again with his beloved, who has died. This idea is said to appear so much in his writings because his wife, Virginia, also died at a young age.

The death of the author is also shrouded in mystery. The only thing that is known for certain is that on October 3, 1849, they found Poe on Baltimore Street in a rather delusional state, dressed in rags and semi-conscious. 6 days after this episode, Edgar Allan Poe died of a brain swelling. It has not been possible to find out the exact cause of that death: beatings, alcohol, poisoning, murder... His death seems worthy of being told in one of his stories.

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In the stories of Edgar Allan Poe they appear numerous references to the Greco-Latin world, outstanding feature of the romanticism and the modernism that influences his work. His imagination was very rich, he read many ghostly stories and this also greatly influenced his writings. Among the main characteristics of his stories we find the obsession with death and murder, which appear in many, many stories. The desire / guilt conflict, hatred, obsession and the impossibility of self-control are aspects that stand out in his characters, who are always accompanied by a macabre atmosphere and full of terror.

That dark atmosphere is typical of the romantic movement to which he belonged: the grotesque, the gothic and disturbing. This current materialized with different nuances in each country, Poe ended up adopting the most English romanticism and Byronian, the one who appears more attached to the conscience, the obsessive and the most infernal parts of the soul human.

Poe always showed a keen observation skills as well as a great intelligence and logic which also accompanied many of his detective and police accounts, where the inductive thinking it is a main piece of the solving mechanism of the mystery.

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Now that we have known the characteristics of Edgar Allan Poe's stories, let's delve more into his style. Poe's narrative also has certain characteristics that make it recognizable. Poe is more of a storyteller of ideas and atmospheres that not of anecdotes and traditional events. His stories and his writing focus on the emotions of the characters, in what they feel, more in describing what they do or the environment. As he tells us what they are feeling, he reflects on different issues and ideas. He is more interested in explain what happens on a psychological level in the heads of his characters than in any other aspect. He is undoubtedly an analytical writer who plunges us into the depths of the human mind through macabre deeds.

Often the environment and scenarios are decadent and terrifying because they do not stop representing the reflection of the dark mind of one of his characters, who is probably losing his mind, delirious or becoming aggressive. Normally Poe also tends to introduce into his stories to one or two secondary characters who operate as a tool and mechanism of the madness of the main character, work as a trigger.

There is also talk of Poe's need for idealize many of his characters, especially the women, and therefore send many of them to the coffin. Since the death of the woman Poe can idealize her, once she is not in the earthly world, her head works through platonic ideas and idealizations that appear in the narratives. He also highlights the I-narrator, always as a witness or protagonist character of what happens, never omniscient.

In the end, with Poe and romanticism it happens as with all literary movements: either they react against it or they try to innovate it. Still, it is impossible to get rid of this writer, who so influenced the history of literature and who left such a characteristic mark on everything he did. Anyone who is curious about the darkest depths of the human mind knows that going to Edgar Allan Poe is always a sure hit, that's why, it is impossible to think that one day his work will forget, it will last forever in our history.

If you want to read more articles similar to Characteristics of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, we recommend that you enter our category of History of Literature.

• Allan Poe, E. (1854). Extraordinary stories, Venezuela, Fábula Editions.
• Alvarado, O. (2016). Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849): "The black cat" and other fantastic-monstrous stories. About the monstrosity in Poe's stories. Studies Magazine, 32
• Collado Rodríguez, F. (1988). Edgar Allan Poe: contradiction and entropy.
• Gómez Mejias, L. (2012). Edgar Allan Poe and his romantic creation method. Digital Ringtones, 23(0).