please help me on writing my research paper for english by giving me examples or just pushing me in the write way.

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2003

Answers

Poe liked cats. ("The Black Cat" "Metzengerstein" the ghost incarnate as a horse(one of Poe's early more primitive Gothic tales, just beginning to shed supernatural and European settings for vaguer, more psychological explorations. "Tales from the Ragged Mountains" apes in the Hindu city. "Murders on the Rue Morgue" (killer orangutang) and relatedly "Hop Frog" the king and ministers are murdered while costumed as orangutangs by Hop Frog. In poetry the condor(carrior bird) from "The Conqueror Worm". Naturally what they have in common is death, bestial nature of Man, fear. Kind of depressing. Maybe someone can come up with happier examples?

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2003

Mr Murphy gave you excellent keys for the main doors. Here a few more ones to your fairly interesting request. Note that you must not confuse animals used by Poe with symbols, or tokens, or similes, or mere components for literary effect. Amid the poems, you may consider, according to the just made distinction, for example, the Paroquet (the bird teaching the poet's alphabet, contrasted with the "eternal Condor years", as expressed in the "Preface" to the "Minor Poems" of 1829); the Vulture, metaphorically evoquing Science (as an inroductory sonnet to "Al Aaraaf" - 1829); the Albatross, the bird that sleeps "on its wing" (cfr. "Al Aaraaf" - 1829 & "Fairy-Land" - 1829); the Wild Bee that doesn't sleep when in moonlight (again in "Al Aaraaf"); the Swarthy Bat and the Swift and Silent Lizard of the Stones (as still living beings amid the desolate ruins of the "Coliseum" - 1833) &c, &c... Among the Tales, you will find, besides all the beasts (real or imaginary) described in "Pym" (1838) and "Rodman" (1840), for example the ill-omening "Sphinx" (1846); the Lynx (the Demon's uncanny companion in "Silence" - 1838, as well as with hippopotami and the Behemoth from eastern biblical- like imagery); the "Elk" (1844) as a token for some loss of natural freedom; the curious "Homo-Cameleopard" (1836) and his Epimanes Jacksonian political masquerade; &c, &c,... In the first series of the Marginalia (1844), you may meet the very odd "Pechingzies" as image of the literary purloiners (together with the more common Buzzards). Poe sprayed his works with many animals for various intentions, meanings and effects, just as a painter with his colours. A bright idea to investigate this subject. Good luck. Yours sincerely, Raven's Shade (Belgium).

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2003