1.) true or false in "THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHERS" was Rodericks malady a nervous disease that dulled his snses?

2.) why did the Raven say nevermore?

3.) Did Edgar Allen Poe exert an influenc on French writers

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2002

Answers

A wasting disease that excited or burned out his senses to a dangerous extreme. The choice of nevermore as seen in other poems asan echo reaffirming loss or time and memory past. The echo comes from beyond where heaven should give hope but cannot restore happiness. So the poet is cursed with an answer that irnonically deprives him of hope more than silence.(Sonnet"Silence"). A great rhythmic and melancholic sound too."No way, Jose"would not have the same harmonic resonance. Poe unknowingly exerted a great influence on the French symboilists, the parnassians via his soulmate disciple Charles Baudelaire who translated much of his work and adopted(some say adapted) his theories. His fame during the dark years of post death trashing in America was fixed in France and subsequently many writers of the art for it's own sake school of imaginative intuition and passion drew upon his influuence(Mallarme,Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, Conan Doyle etc. etc.) Baudelaire has much online(Les Fleurs du Mal, Contes, etc) and in translation. His opus was actually much smaller than Poe's with more and more classically ordered poetry, short short prose poems and essays. Unfortunately Poe had just died when young Baudelaire discovered his works.

-- Anonymous, October 15, 2002