can any one tell me what you think edgar allan poe's most significant writing is and why? please hurry this is due tommorow

-- Anonymous, October 15, 2003

Answers

Our schedules won't help in attaining rapid deadlines, sorry. I think this is a very difficult question and obviously it is your evaluation and defense the teacher is looking for.

A work that is brilliant, creative, innovative, widely recognized over time, a masterwork in keeping with the author's talents and goals. Some of Poe's most popular works may be overrated. If you pick a poem other than the raven(such as "Ulalume" or "To Helen" you had better be prepared to justify your astute critique of poetry. "The Raven" is well known and easily explained and presented. The others, crafted better, need a lot more explanation before getting to the relative value.

So picking a tale might be even better since you don't have to be as minute and expert. "The Fall of the House of Usher" has a lot to commend it, including a poem "The Haunted Palace" which also embodies the interconnected symbolism that is the theme(and the title!). Brilliantly he unites the architecture, the landscape, the health and mind of Usher and the ancestral House itself come to its conjoined doom far beyond mere supernatural sensationalism. The narration and the mood.... Well, unfortunately you have to read it- which is the foremost trap in this assignment(And what other tales of Poe have you read and why are THEY not your choice?)

How much time did they give you for this chestnut?

-- Anonymous, October 16, 2003