Edgar Allan Poe: Writing Style and Literary Analysis

Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe

In the course of his short career as a writer, Edgar Allan Poe wrote numerous literary pieces, a majority of which were compiled into books only after his death. Poe published only one novel, in 1838, titled The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, and many books of poetry, with the most popular being The Raven and Other Poems, published in 1845. His chief source of income was editing magazines and writing. The modern world recognizes him among the foremost American novelists and poets to establish himself as a key figure in the literary world (E-notes).

Despite his fairly short literary career, Poe dominated the mid-19th century in short story writing. The era was marked by a shift from legendary tales to short stories. The writer was known for his experiments with multiple genres and writing styles, including satire, science fiction, gothic fiction, and occult fantasies. In addition, he has, to his credit, the honour of creating the detective story genre in the first half of the 1840s, with his "Tales of Ratiocination" (E-notes).

Analysis of Poe's Writings

The Academy of American Poets claims that Poe's contributions to the fields of poetry, literary criticism, and editing profoundly impacted American as well as global literature. His tales are a testimony to the fact that he was among the first writers to publish detective fiction and horror stories. A number of anthologies consider him the inventor of the short story genre. Furthermore, Poe is considered among the foremost critics to concentrate chiefly on the impact that structure and style have on literary pieces. He is also recognized as one of the forerunners of the "art for art's sake" movement.

Poe first introduced the phrase "Tale of Ratiocination" in his stories "The Purloined Letter" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." However, the detective in his stories is not the only one to ratiocinate. The author does not permit the reader to simply relax and wait for the story to unfold — they are drawn into the ratiocination process as well. A Poe tale drags readers into the adventure, where they apply their individual powers of reasoning and deduction and solve the case together with the detective. This concept is now a key prerequisite of the detective fiction genre. All stories of the genre should provide clues to the detective — and, hence, to the reader — in the course of the story, so that readers can, in the end, turn back the pages, re-read the clues provided, and realize that they could have cracked the mystery too.

Hence, Poe presented a key aspect of the detective fiction genre to the literary world — furnishing readers with clues — and began introducing several other standard elements of the present-day form of the genre (Cliff Notes).

Poe is renowned for his chilling tales of horror and suspense. A distinctive characteristic of this 19th-century writer's work was his strategic development of dark and sinister moods, achieved through dark and intricate language, considerable use of the Gothic genre, and the continuous, ominous threat of suffering or doom. Poe's word choice is not only rather difficult but haunting as well. For instance, in his short story "Ligeia," Poe writes: "The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the building, the almost savage aspect of the domain, the many melancholy and time-honored memories connected with both, had much in unison with the feelings of utter abandonment which had driven me into that remote and unsocial region of the country." The author effectively composes entire narratives using terms that carry horrific connotations. Rare words such as "phantasmagoric" were used cleverly by Poe in stories like "Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher," leaving readers wondering and eventually concluding that they perhaps mean something very dreadful (NetEssays).

Horror, Suspense, and Gothic Style

Additionally, Poe tends to compose sentences that build on themselves, making liberal use of dashes and commas, as evidenced by the following sentence from "The Pit and the Pendulum": "It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution — perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill wheel." This affords the author a chance to explore a thought further within the same sentence. Most of his tales are narrated in the first person, and the narrator typically experiences some form of intellectual breakdown, making it necessary to examine his thoughts intimately. Furthermore, Poe's use of commas contributes to the tale's suspense, which is crucial to horror stories, since it generates an atmosphere of fear regarding what is going to happen. The deceleration of dialogue using commas — for instance, "Yet, for a while, I saw; but with how terrible an exaggeration! I saw the lips of the black-robed judges" ("The Pit and the Pendulum") — leaves readers hanging momentarily until the sentence resolves itself (NetEssays).

Poe's work has numerous distinctive, recurring characteristics. For example, the death of a woman occurs in multiple stories. This may be ascribed to Poe's own life experience — the premature death of his mother due to tuberculosis. Another repetitive theme in the author's tales is the reanimation of dead characters. For instance, in "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator supposedly hears the heartbeat of a dead man, while in "The Fall of the House of Usher," Madeline returns to life (NetEssays).

The writer introduces the concept of a double or evil personality in "William Wilson" and "The Cask of Amontillado" — among the finest of his stories, which nearly escape easy classification. A powerful kinship exists between these works and the psychopaths depicted in "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart," though significant differences may also be observed. These two stories are among the fewer Poe tales in which the narrator is identified by a definite name. The narrator of "William Wilson" claims that the name he goes by is a false one, as his true identity would shock the reader. In the case of "The Cask of Amontillado," however, identity is hardly of any relevance, and so a false name serves as well as any. Neither of the two stories sheds any light on the lead character's rationale for confessing his monstrous crime, and in both instances the reader is left wondering why the characters chose to do so. Each psychopathic narrator attempts to convince readers, through logical storytelling, that he is sane, but only succeeds in convincing them of his insanity (Cliff Notes).

Conclusion

NetEssays. Writing Style Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe. 1999–2016. Web. 23 July 2016.