what are some reccurent themes in poe's short stories??

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What are some values and themes that are seen in Poe's short stories?? Also what characterizes his writing style? if you know any info about this it would help me a lot!!! thank you!!

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Answers

Style: erudite with an intuitive and ingenious command of many sources of his knowledge, poetic in sentence structure imagery and effect. His characters also exhibit depths of soul and psychology beyond the normal and highly sensitive. While the stories are popular genre, sometimes seeming stock material, often humorous, sometimes sensational, he does not dummy down his style for anyone, even- andyou have to look closely at times- in his less than stirring humorous pieces. I think the passionate story themes that meant the most to him are contained in his poetry although the ratiocination, scientific analysis side is very much stronger in the stories. His poetry seems an artful act of control over the wildest passions, even despair. Death does not stop the characters or poems(that sometimes are mini-stories)from exercising their heightened faculties of reason. Despite the care Poe takes to stake out the boundaries of the short story and the short poem his artistic theoies for both share a lot in common: -to produce a strong "high" emotion which he chooses as a dark romantic to be best embodied by an idealized melancholy striving for an Ideal Beauty AND -to unify all the elements of sound and sensual imagery and structure to this singular effect. Horror usually involved total loss or blind wandering without the light of that Ideal and drowning, spiralling down into that fearful loss.

Obviously there is MUCH more to be said. Try www.eapoe.org for Poe's own essays and articles by others.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001


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