the works of edgar allan poe exhibit the idea of melancholy. Through the use of Poes imaged, symbols, and metaphors, explain how this idea evolved in poes writing

if you do not know the answer, do you know of any websites which would be helpful?

thanks!

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2001

Answers

Colleen,

Poe's use of melancholy is found, at least predominately, in his poetry. It was his belief that the fundamental object of poetry was pleasure and that its intent was to stir and pleasure the soul. Prose, on the other hand, was to stimulate the intellect and stir the heart. He felt that there was no deeper emotion than that melancholy felt for the loss of a beautiful woman. You may wish to try a couple of sites.

One is the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore site at:

http://www.eapoe.org The other is the Poe Decoder website at: http://www.poedecoder.com This site has several excellent essays by David Grantz.

Good luck,

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2001