Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Romanticism appeared in the second half of the 18th century as a new movement of art especially in music and literature. The romantic period of the American literature is represented by many great authors as Washington Irving, William C. Bryant, James F. Cooper, Ralph W. Emerson, Mark Twain or Edgar Allan Poe.
For my speech I’ve chosen a poet, short and detective story writer, critical essayist and a journalist Edgar Allan Poe.
He was born in Boston but he was put into the foster family Allan in England. So he spent some time in England but then he returned to America and studied at the University of Virginia for a year, still supported by his foster father.
He tried to write poetry but he was not successful until 1845 when his poem The Raven was published. This poem is well known for the raven’s repetition of “Nevermore”, which the raven underlines the tired student’s doubts with, because he has lost his love and he asks the raven if he will ever meet her again in some other world.
E. A. Poe was also a journalist and he edited several American magazines. He invented a new literary form – the detective story. Because of his problems of finance, he published some of his wonderful short detective stories such as The Black Cat, a tale of buried treasure The Golden Bug, The Purloined Letter, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher, William Wilson or The Masque of the Red Death, which is grotesque and terrible, and also the tale of terror The Descent into the Maelstrom describing the adventures of a fisherman who escapes the whirlpool.
Edgar Allan Poe is said to be the master of the short prose.
He is also a founder of “black novel”, which evokes the physical thrill because of the states of mind as the fear, horror, panic and so one.
His famous tale The Pit and the Pendulum I have read in English and also in Czech. I have understood it quite well. Maybe, because I have read it also in Czech and I have known, what the tale is about.
Then I have read many other short stories of his and I liked the story about The Masque of the Red Death. It is about the “Read Death”, which has long devastated the country. The victims of this disease had sharp pains, sudden dizziness and red stains upon their bodies, especially upon their faces. They also bled and after a few minutes they died. The dauntless Prince Prospero assembled a thousand healthy knights and dames of his court and they hid from the Red Death in one of Prospero’s magnificent abbeys. The Prince Prospero gave a masked ball. All the courtiers had various masks and they amused – so they danced, drank, ate and so one. But one figure appeared at the ball. The figure had a black frock and a red mask on. Nobody knew who the figure was and that’s why the Prince Prospero wanted to kill the figure. But he died. Everybody found out that the figure was the Red Death and they also died.
This tale is a good illustration how to show us the epidemic as a figure with the red mask.