I AM DOING A 1500-2000 WORD RESERACH PAPER ON POES KNOWLEDGE AND OBSESSION/INTEREST IN THE HUMAN MIND. WHAT STORIES HE INCORPORATED WITH PSYCHOLOGY OR ANYTHING!!! I NEED REFERENCES!!! PLEASE HELP!!

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

Answers

Poe's first person narration is what inspires most of this discussion of pscychology(pre-Freudian of course). This is in the Romanticist continuum of probing the dark corners of mind and self. "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat" are studies in obsession and mad attempts to control emotions and environment. "The Pit and the Pendulum" is another agonizing study of a man tormented and suffering sensory deprivation trying to use his shaken powers of logic to escape. The best of all is "The Fall of the House of Usher" where the decadence of the estate, the house and the dying Usher's mind is united, possibly foreshadowing Poe's theories of general dissolution in Eureka. In some sense Poe might be working out his own duality: the visionary man of extreme, extraordinary feelings and visions and the rational problem-solver. The detective stories show Dupin in complete control of the dark mystery through mind and method with a touch of poetic intuition. other stories concentrate on the horror of losing control, the vertigo(which Poe suffered a touch of)of falling into madness and some terrible inescapable fate despite all efforts to cope.

Reading "The Imp of the Perverse" and Dupin's theories in the various detective stories as well as Poe's essays on poetry and composition(www.eapoe.org) should help give you a feel for Poe's interests. The temptation being of course to read in our knowledge of psychology back into Poe's unique mind and his acute self-awareness that powers all his writings more than any of his contemporaries.

-- Anonymous, July 26, 2001

is it too latte for me to help

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2004