A couple of Poe questions.....

[Diavolo]

Hey everyone. This is a great little site. I just stumbled upon it a few days ago. It's a FANTASTIC was for me to catch up on the literature that I have never read for one reason or another.

I'm VERY new to reading literature so I'm an ultra "newb" when it comes to who said what, who writes what genre, etc.

My first question is, are Poe's works in the public domain now?

The second one is, what writers compare to Poe, in terms of his macabre and dark style? Are there any literary writers that delve into even darker and more sinister stories?

Thanks for the help in advance guys and gals!

:idea:

[stephofthenight]

darker then poe? does such exist??? i dont think so, i know that he is Stephen Kings role model

[Scheherazade]

My first question is, are Poe's works in the public domain now?Yes, his works are in public domain and you can find some on our website:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=167


The second one is, what writers compare to Poe, in terms of his macabre and dark style? Are there any literary writers that delve into even darker and more sinister stories?
How about Ray Bradbury? Orwell?

[JCamilo]

Poe is actually a huge influence of several writers and is, in a way, a continuity of a gothic tradition in north-american literature, under the influence of Hoffman and other german romantic writers. In such ways he is part of Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne lineage.
As for his influence, we have poets like Baudelaire and Mallarme and of course, Kafka, Borges, Chesterton and Robert Louis Stevenson and Lovecraft.
Anyways, there is great number of sobrenatural writers... Italo Calvino have a selection of tales from XIX century with names like Hans Christian Andersen that are very pleasant and we are going to see that Poe indeed belonged to that century.
Herman Melville's Benito Cereno and Henry James's The turn of Shrew have dark and macabre elements that have a clearly touch of Poe, even if those two have their own style.

[jlb4tlb]

Poe is actually a huge influence of several writers and is, in a way, a continuity of a gothic tradition in north-american literature, under the influence of Hoffman and other german romantic writers. In such ways he is part of Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne lineage.
As for his influence, we have poets like Baudelaire and Mallarme and of course, Kafka, Borges, Chesterton and Robert Louis Stevenson and Lovecraft.
Anyways, there is great number of sobrenatural writers... Italo Calvino have a selection of tales from XIX century with names like Hans Christian Andersen that are very pleasant and we are going to see that Poe indeed belonged to that century.
Herman Melville's Benito Cereno and Henry James's The turn of Shrew have dark and macabre elements that have a clearly touch of Poe, even if those two have their own style.


Greetings

A very well said post.

Just a slight addition.

From the 1920s thru the 50s "Weird Tales" a pulp magazine published what can be said is the heyday of Horror Fiction in America. Authors such as Lovecrat, R.E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Ray Bradbury, Author J. Burks, Robert Bloch and many others.

Jeff


http://www.philsp.com/data/images/w/weird_tales_192905.jpg

[Ludmila607]

I dont think it exist someone like Poe.
His narrations and poems are unique.
Maybe Bloch or Singer went through similar dark road...on their own way.
Maybe Lovecraft , but he based on esoteric and old prophan beliefs and myths.
I read one narrator who makes me think about Poe style ...Horacio Quiroga.Hes Uruguayan .some of their books are translated to English and other languajes.
He point to tragic view of life approaches to the macabre .And it comes so natural to him because of his singular personality and life.
Recommentd to all of you.
I DONT see stephen KIng as a Poe child.He is effective when it comes to horror but has not the Poe Literary class.
So if you are into dark literature I think R Bloch, K Singer , H Quiroga and HP LOvecraft are recomendable readings.:D

[Diavolo]

Thank you for all of the great replies. It's unfortunate that I took this long to "discover" Poe. I'm an aspiring screenwriter and have recently been "reading." Meaning, reading more than film, screenwriting, etc. how-to books. I went to a technical high school and literature wasn't a requirement. My venture back into college a few years ago forced, for lack of a better term, me to read literature. Thus far Poe, which I only started reading recently, is my favorite.

James Baldwin, does he count as literature (he was in my "Major Works of English and American Literature" class), is my second favorite.

[JCamilo]

Yes, I was think in the breach of weird Tales when I included the most obviou follower of Poe that went there, Lovecraft...
anyways, I forgot a name in XX century, It is Isak Dinesen... She actually have a language work sophisticated to make us think about Poe and she twists our view when she presents something odd and new.
Anyways, the hightly recomendable list that Calvino set for us include Jan Potocki, Hoffman, Philarete Chasles, Nerval, Hawthorne, Gautier, Le Fanu, Merimee, Andersen, Ambrose Bierce - it is very worth if anyone find this selection.

[Diavolo]

Another question, if Poe was such a stern believer of not looking for a deeper meaning in literature, etc., why do people claim certain works are social commentaries'ish and/or have deeper "meanings?" Looking at his works, I can see some things below the surface, be because of his belief of looking at literature as "art" I can't seem to get as "deep" as others have, either instinctively or on purpose.

[oracle13]

I've also only recently got into Poe and some of his stuff is incredible. I especially like The Fall of the House of Usher; every time I read the final three pages I get such chills down my spine.

Diavolo, I'm also puzzled by Poe's take on the role of art and literature in society. I was quite taken by his belief that literature should be an attempt to bring out the most powerful of human emotions (and for that reason it must necessarily be short enough to be read in one sitting, otherwise the strength of the emotion is lost upon taking a break.) But I was a little disillusioned after reading an essay of his on composition (I think its just called Essay on Composition). He takes an in depth look on how he constructed The Raven, emphasising the systematic, almost formulaic nature of its construction. My own feeling is that to withdraw some kind of deep emotional response from the reader, the writer's own emotions must be invoked in a spontaneous overflow (I'm a big fan of Wordsworth). For this reason, I find Poe's systematic approach to literature problematic, even though his poems and tales have no sense of being contrived in the way he describes.

As for your question (sorry for the big ramble), I think that the socio-political implication of Poe's works have only come about due to the changing nature of literary criticism over the past century. Don't quote me on this, but I think a main doctrine of post-modern criticism is the 'death of the author' - the idea that an author's intentions are often less important that the reader's interpretation of a text in light of a different, and changing, social and political state.

[JCamilo]

People are just confused - Poe is against hidden meaning, allegories, not deeper meanings. He is a metaphysical writer, for all that takes, and wrote Eureka, which is a explanation about the infinite. That is deep.
As social implications, there is a difference between the text and its impact. So they may be focused on that.

Anyways, oracle, about Poe - Jorge Luis Borges, used to say that it was funny how someone so romantic believed in something so rational while someone so rational as Colerdige believed in inside musings, sudden inspiration.
To Borges the answer is simple - Poe explanation for the Raven is what he wanted to be believe to be true, not the exact truth - Poe was in many ways a pre-realist, trying to clean all supernatural references from his work, so that is the reason.