EDGAR ALAN POE MENTIONED IN ALMOST EVERY STORY AND POEM A DEMON, SO MY QUESTION IS WHAT DO THE DEMONS LOOK LIKE TO HIM IN HIS WRITING AND DO ALL OF THE DEMONS LOOK THE SAME ?

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-- Anonymous, June 26, 2003

Answers

I think that the demons that Edgar Allen Poe talks of in his writings could be his own internal demons that torment him and him alone hence they have no actual physical form.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2003

Actually Poe was pretty much a realist. Sure he loved the spooky misty corners and the suggested hauntings within, but sinbce he never saw any he never seriously uses any in his writings. Demons or trolls in fact represent indeterminate, not necessarily evil nature forces or haunts that mintser to the dead or lonely places.

Especially lonely places. The parable about silence I think summarizes the scariest demon presence Poe ever relates to. The quiet, the hidden, the mysterious but always the present.

He has a lot more humourous pieces about satirical encounters with the devil, something a lot of other writers did. In general Poe, while enjoying a good scare, does not employ nearly as many supernatural characters or devices as his contemporary gothics. Always his chief concern is what is happening in the mind of his human character.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2003