Did alcohol affacted Poe's work?greenspun.com : LUSENET : The Work of Edgar Allan Poe : One Thread |
I need to write a term paper on how alcohol affected Poe's writings and in which story we can find this effect. Does anyone have any ideas, or good sites you can link me to? Thank you....
-- Anonymous, November 05, 2002
Don't write your paper on the assumption that Poe's own drinking problems are reflected in his work. This simply isn't true.Instead, I suggest that you read 'The Black Cat' and examine the role of alcohol in that tale. One idea for a term paper might be to read this story as a temperance tract, and see where that leads you.
Good luck.
-- Anonymous, November 05, 2002
Few works, and those mainly frivolous came from his convivial nights at the bar. Alcohol suppressed his productivity and hurt his jobs, interviews and public works. It ruined his health. The one instance of the DT's where he gets a horrific vision is NOT the basis for any story.Since Poe does not have anything good to say about "les paradis artificiels" as Baudelaire called them, try Baudelaire's essay or even better Stephen King's confessional"On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft". What did drugs or alcohol do for him? Nothing good at all. Only the struggle with their influence "creates" anything memorable. The altered states quest was an intellectual and emotional one for all romantics of the day. By naive consequence opium was used to enhance this, turniong many innocent writers into addicts with only a few strange interludes to show for it in their opus. Worse, the down side deadens the mind and the world so that the soaring heights or honest melancolies become less easy to attain naturally. Not surprising that despondency leads the subject matter depressingly into the urban gutter.
-- Anonymous, November 05, 2002
POE HAD A PROBLEM WITH ALCHOHOL BECAUSE HE HAVE BEEN FIRED FROM HIS WORK IN THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MASSENGER FOR THIS REASON. YOU CAN FIND IN "LEGIEA" A REFERACE TO ALCHOHOL IN NEARLY THE END OF THE STORY. THERE IS ALSO THE DRAGS, WHICH TELLS US THAT THE NARRATOR IS IMAGINING THE IDEAL WOMAN OF LEGIA.
-- Anonymous, November 08, 2002