LITR 4232: American Renaissance

Sample Student Research Project, spring 2006

Heidi Gerke

Research Paper Option 1

4-19-2006 

The Gothic and the Sublime of Edgar Allan Poe

            When one sits and thinks of early American writers, a few names may come to mind. A common one to think of is the name of Edgar Allan Poe. Though known mostly for his poetry, Poe has left a mark upon the literary world for generation after generation to enjoy and marvel upon his work. “Poe pioneered many of the most enduring forms of American popular culture, including the detective story, science fiction, and the gothic or sensational tale; yet he also exerted a profound influence on Modernism through the enthusiasm of Charles Baudelaire and the French Symbolist poets” (McGill 2461). Not only respected here in the United States, his work was loved also in France, as Baudelaire translated his work for his country. His methods and styles are also reminiscent of European writers, but they are tampered with elements that make him stand out among the rest. This is seen in his use of dark imagery, along with a theme of death. Poe as an author weaves his tales and poems with the feel of the gothic and of the sublime most common to American Romanticists. Taking one poem and one short story into consideration, I will point out these themes within his works.

            Edgar Allan Poe strived throughout his life to become a notable author by writing not only his own works, but also criticism of other writers. Though, his criticism on them and his own essays didn’t truly give a view on his own work. “To be even more specific, and to return to our starting point, Poe’s model of the mind in his critical essays allows no place at all for a depth of dimension, no provision for what the tarn, the abyss, and the dark, hidden chambers of his fiction suggest—that realm associated, not with supernal Beauty but with conflict, chaos, hostility, and fear, the depths his power comes from, much as Poe would like it otherwise and prettier” (Shulman 247). He was also known for his inability to mesh well with other people. Often the center of controversy and discontent, it was hard for him to find a place of work that would keep him on their staff. The life he led wasn’t easy, his father abandoned him and his mother died while he was young, leaving him to his foster parents the Allans. Death was nothing new to him and often times he weaved this theme into his writing. “Poe’s favorite subject was the death of a beautiful woman, a preference which suggests that his own experience of the inevitable fall from Paradise was intimately connected with failure in love” (Stanford 60). Even still, not many know if his life really influenced the things that he wrote. Yet, even with European influence on his style, his own life still bled into everything that he authored. “In his own work, Poe strained against mortal flesh and blood to achieve, as he said, ‘an absoluteness of novelty,’ and he considered that he derived the terror of his Gothic tales not from Germany, but from the lonely depths of his own soul” (Sanford 56). This can be seen rather well within the texts of his famous poem “The Raven” and his short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”.

            Within “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poem, the imagery of the poem is very dark. It is centric to a man’s feelings upon a woman by the name of Lenore whom is now dead. The topic of death in itself is a theme of gothic writing. The poem even begins with this ominous feeling with the setting being a ‘dreary’ midnight. “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,” (Poe 2539). There he hears the tapping at his door that incites feelings of almost irrational feelings akin with the sublime. It “Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;” (Poe 2539). The person that holds the point of view in the poem is simply terrified at not finding anyone at his door.

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,” (Poe 2540)

Staring out into the dark unknown, is very much a gothic image, instilling fear into the man and giving an almost ominous feel of what is to come. Being placed in December, a month in the winter, another feeling of coldness and death is given. This goes hand in hand with the as “each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor” (Poe 2539).

            It is here that he introduces the Raven himself. This symbol alone is centric to the poem and creates a feeling of dismay and complete agony for the man. It instills a conflict as well, a struggle between hope and despair in his mind in regard to Lenore. “At length he calls the raven ‘wretch,’ ‘thing of evil,’ ‘fiend,’ and other names, suspects him of diabolical prophetic powers, and shrieks at him to get out. Pretty clearly, this creature is more than a harmless pet” (Jones 186). It is certainly almost supernatural, as it comes to perch upon the bust of Pallas above his chamber door. Being the goddess of wisdom, it makes the bird seem far more than just an animal; it is more like an omen. The man plays upon this thought as he addresses the bird for the first time. “’Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the nightly shore-- / Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!’(Poe 2540). Here is the first of two times, he is referred to as a herald of death. All the reply that is given, time and time again, is “nevermore”.

            As the poem draws to an end, Poe causes the strong emotion of despair to slowly take over the man as he takes this omen to heart. With each croak of the word from the Raven, he is bewildered and torn in his darkened state of mind. He even seems to plead for some other meaning to the message from the black messenger sitting above his door. Yet, even still the melancholic answer does nothing to soothe, instead it seems to cause further despair. The man finally demands the birds departure. 

            “’Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!’ I shrieked, upstarting—

‘Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!’

Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore’”(Poe 2542)

Here he accuses the Raven of not only being from death, but also of the crime of stabbing his heart with the darkness and loneliness. But he does not leave, not even at the end, remaining the dark presence that shatters him in the end. The use of the shadows is also very much gothic, as the Raven’s shadow captures his soul making sure that it “Shall be lifted—nevermore!” (Poe 2542).

            In Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, death once more plays the centric theme of the plot. Only this time, murder is also introduced along with almost supernatural guilt. In the beginning, the man in the story tries desperately to tell the reader that he is not by any means insane. In fact, he plans carefully the murder that takes place, telling every detail in hopes of proving just how sane he was. “It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night” (Poe 2492). The idea of haunting is very much gothic. When the word ‘gothic’ is considered, the first thing that comes to mind is in fact, the ‘haunted’ house. Throughout this story, there are many things that seem to haunt the main character as he plots each step of the murder and how to get away with it. The unexplainable loud beat of the old man’s heart is both supernatural and haunting to the killer, and eventually drives him mad with guilt even after the heart long stopped beating in reality.

            The act of the murder itself and the scenery surrounding it were very explicit with dark imagery. “His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fears of robbers,) and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily” (Poe 2493). Even after he accidentally awakens his prey, the description of death enters. “He was still sitting up in the bed listening;–just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall” (Poe 2493). The fear of the old man in the darkness is almost palpable to the murderer as he awaits the moment to strike down his victim.

“Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel—although he neither saw nor heard—to feel the presence of my head within the room” (Poe 2493).

This idea of trying to comfort himself in vain, is a struggle, a struggle that would be in vain. The notion of a struggle is also very gothic in appeal. Especially when the struggle is against Death, that so eagerly waits to overcome the old man “with his black shadow”.

            The contrast of dark and light appears as the murderer opens the lantern revealing the pale eye of the old man. The darkness of the killer and the room about them sharply contrasts that of the terrified old man in the bed. It is at this point that the murderer is consumed with his madness drawn out by the victim’s pale eye. In the end, after he has done away with the body, he is visited by the police inspecting the shriek that had been heard during the night. Easily averting them, he is proud to have done the deed so perfectly until the sound recurs in his ears of the old man’s heart. “It was a low, dull, quick sound—much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath—and yet the officers heard it not” (Poe 2495). The sound supernaturally floods the room and overwhelms him spurring him to his confession; bring in a theme of the sublime. The idea is larger than life, and unexplainable in the natural realm.

            Poe’s work borders on the darker side of literature almost becoming horror at times. This fact alone tends to give his written works the gothic or sublime appeal. Often times, it gives it both of these themes. Where he developed such a writing style is not certain, but it is not likely that everything came from his own life. “Poe’s use of horrible and morbid situations and details a reflection of the horror and morbidness of his own mind. If the use of horror in fiction can be taken as an indication of horror in the mind of the author, then most of the tale-writers of the first half of the nineteenth century were verging on insanity” (Wilt 105). Yet, this still does not stop many from trying to make this a true fact. “The commentators placed great stress upon the powers of analysis and imagination displayed in the stories; frequently the mordid nature of some of the tales was emphasized by those seeking a reflection in his writings of Poe’s evil character” (Hutcherson 216). Perhaps to his credit, his unforgettable life, mixed with his darker than usual stories, will aid him in being remembered. “It has been Edgar Allan Poe’s fortune—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the writer himself provided adequate insurance—that nothing connected with his name is dull, not even the story of his fame” (Hutcherson 211).

            Maybe, it is more accurate to say, that his gothic stories came from something closer to the darkness of the human mind. “In his best fiction Poe achieves acute insights into the mysteries, processes, and terrors of the human personality without draining our shared inner life of its basic mystery” (Shulman 245). In nearly ever work of fiction or poetry, he weaves in terror, fear, despair, darkness, and the supernatural. These attributes are what emphasize the themes of the American romantic writers of his time. At the same time, his ability also sets him apart. As seen in both “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Poe can accurately tell a story through rhyme or fiction that meets the criteria of these themes. For these two works and many others, he will continue to be remembered, as well as wondered at. Where did his inspiration come from, and why were his works so dark at times? Some times, such questions can only be guessed upon, but never answered.

Works Cited

Hutcherson, Dudley R. “Poe’s Reputation in England and America, 1850-1909.” American Literature. Vol. 14.3. Nov. 1942. 211-233.

Jones, Joseph. “‘The Raven’ and ‘The Raven’: Another Source of Poe’s Poem.” American Literature. Vol 30.2. May 1958. 185-193.

McGill, Meredith L. “Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Suzanne Phelps Weir. 5^th Ed. Vol. B, Early Nineteenth Century: 1800-1865. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 2459-2461.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Raven.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Suzanne Phelps Weir. 5^th Ed. Vol. B, Early Nineteenth Century: 1800-1865. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 2539-2542.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Tell-Tale Heart.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Suzanne Phelps Weir. 5^th Ed. Vol. B, Early Nineteenth Century: 1800-1865. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 2492-2495.

Shulman, Robert. “Poe and the Powers of the Mind.” ELH. Vol. 37.2.June 1970. 245-262.

Stanford, Charles L. “Edgar Allan Poe: A Blight Upon the Landscape”. American Quarterly. Vol 20.1. Spring 1968. 54-66.

Wilt, Napier. “Poe’s Attitude toward His Tales: A New Document.” Modern Philogy. Vol. 25.1.Aug. 1927. 101-105.