EDGAR ALLAN POE

He had an happy childhood, but soon his parents died and he was adopted by Mrs Allan. After her death he remained alone. He began to wrote to earn money. He married his cousin, but after some happy years, she died of tuberculosis. Then he wasn't able to find a positive sense in his life, and began to drink spirits and to use drugs. His death is mysterious.

He adopted the theory of the single effect: poet has to decide which effect he wants to reach with his play, and then he uses all literary technique in order to this aim, just from the first line

Poetry is a "rhythmical creation of beauty", so in his poem he wants to reach beauty using musicality (for example in Annabel Lee). Poem hasn't other aim, hasn't a moral object: it expresses only the feelings of the poet. Poetry is closed in itself .

Poe is famous for his short tales. They are divided into two groups:

a)  Tales of ratiocination: there is a detective hero that using reason and common sense is able to solve same cases. These tales introduces the genre of detective story

b)  Tales of imagination: here he describes mystery, supernatural events, hallucination, anguish that often came from the inner of the characters. Other elements that are present are the passage from life to death and vice versa, the setting in close place, the presence of clock as the passing of time By the stylistic point of view he often uses interior monologue (for example in The masque of the red death, The pit and the pendulum, The tell-tale heart, Ms. Found in a bottle, )

Poe is able to write both group of tales because his personality was characterised by some moments of terror, anguish, sense of death, and other moments when he was very rational.