Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

It's our last week of Poe Fridays, and Kristen told us we could pick ANYTHING we wanted to talk about this week - my selection is The Masque of the Red Death. You can read the full text here.

This is the story of Prince Prospero, hiding with his subjects from the dreaded Red Death. He decides to have a masquerade ball, with seven rooms each decorated in a different color. The last room is black, with with a blood-red light. Most of Prospero's guests are too scared to enter this room. At the stroke of midnight, Prospero notices a guest dressed in black robes, with a mask, looking like a representation of the Red Death. Prospero is insulted, and chases the man through the ball. When they reach the final, black room, the man turns to face Prospero, and the prince falls dead.

I was first introduced to this story in high school, and it was one of my favorite that we read that year. I was intrigued by it's gothic nature, and the many interpretations that could be drawn. I remember this was one of the few stories that actually generated discussion - most of the time our English classes were notably silent, but Red Death really got us talking.

It's been good spending the year reading and learning more about Poe. Thanks to Kristen, who hosted Poe Fridays each week at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

We are coming to the end of our year-long journey with Poe, and I approach it with mixed feelings. On one hand, I would be lying if I didn't say I was getting a bit burned out. This happens to me when I read a whole bunch by the same author all in a row - it's why I don't try to read series with more than 3 books back to back. I just need to give myself a break, and then I am able to appreciate the author's work a bit more.

However, it has been an enlightening and mostly entertaining year reading Poe's stories and poems. I feel like I understand him better as a person, though maybe not as a writer, and I certainly have a new appreciation for his work. I'm glad I participated in this year of Poe!

Now on to this week's selection - Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. You can, if you are interested, find the full text here.

How to summarize this story? It's part adventure, part travelogue, part coming-of-age, partly incomprehensible. Arthur Gordon Pym, of Nantucket, goes on several sea voyages, most of which turn out horribly. He survives shipwreck, mutiny, ambush, illness, starvation - really, he has quite a dramatic time. And...then it ends, in one of the most abrupt finishes I've ever read.

I'm glad Kristen gave us extra time for this one - it was not an easy read. Parts were quite exciting, but parts seemed rambly, and there were places that made me feel pretty uncomfortable - Poe clearly bought into the prevailing racist attitudes of his day, and made his few non-white characters awfully stereotypical.

I think if it would have been a short story, I actually might have enjoyed it. I definitely was intrigued and entertained by the first section, and a good way into the second. However, it really started to drag for me about halfway through, and I definitely had to push myself to finish. And then the ending - suddenly, it was just done. I couldn't tell if Poe ran out of things to say, or was just as tired of this story as I was.

It's interesting to note the influences this story had on other work, most notably that of Herman Melville and Jules Verne. It had a somewhat mixed reception at the time it was initially published, but has gone on to be one of Poe's most translated works.

Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

This week's selection is the short story X-ing a Paragrab. You can read the full text here.

In today's story, we find an editor, Mr. B., who decided to move from The East to The West, because he thought the found a city who did not have an editor. When he arrived, he found he was wrong - there was already a newspaper, under the direction of a John Smith. Mr. B., not to be deterred, set up his own newspaper. One day, John Smith wrote a scathing editorial about the quality of Mr. B.'s work, stating he couldn't write a paragraph without an "Oh!".

Mr. B., wanting to get him back, proceeded to write a paragraph in which EVERY WORD contained an "O". However, when his copy-writer went to set up the paragraph, he realized that every "o" was gone. Mortified, he decided he had to substitute the "o"s with "x"s, making the paragraph look like this:

"Sx hx, Jxhn! hxw nxw? Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw. Dxn't crxw, anxther time, befxre yxu're xut xf the wxxds! Dxes yxur mxther knxw yxu're xut? Xh, nx, nx! sx gx hxme at xnce, nxw, Jxhn, tx yxur xdixus xld wxxds xf Cxncxrd! Gx hxme tx yxur wxxds, xld xwl, — gx! Yxu wxnt? Xh, pxh, pxh, Jxhn, dxn't dx sx! Yxu've gxt tx gx, yxu knxw! sx gx at xnce, and dxn't gx slxw; fxr nxbxdy xwns yxu here, yxu knxw. Xh, Jxhn, Jxhn, Jxhn, if yxu dxn't gx yxu're nx hxmx — nx! Yxu're xnly a fxwl, an xwl; a cxw, a sxw; a dxll, a pxll; a pxxr xld gxxd-fxr-nxthing-tx-nxbxdy lxg, dxg, hxg, xr frxg, cxme xut xf a Cxncxrd bxg. Cxxl, nxw — cxxl! Dx be cxxl, yxu fxxl! Nxne xf yxur crxwing, xld cxck! Dxn't frxwn sx — dxn't! Dxn't hxllx, nxr hxwl, nxr grxwl, nxr bxw-wxw-wxw! Gxxd Lxrd, Jxhn, hxw yxu dx lxxk! Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw, — but stxp rxlling yxur gxxse xf an xld pxll abxut sx, and gx and drxwn yxur sxrrxws in a bxwl!"


Naturally, when this published Mr. B. had disappeared.


I honestly don't even know what to say about this story. It's meant to be humorous, but it's well documented that Poe's sense of humor is not the same as mine. I can see it might possibly be a bit of poking fun at the editors of Poe's day, but I don't know enough history to say that definitively. Maybe it's just a nonsense tale - as such, it works beautifully.

Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

This week's Poe selection is the short story Ligeia. You can read the full text here.

This week's unnamed narrator marries Ligeia, the perfect example of everything good, beautiful, intelligent, etc. They share a few blissful years, and then Ligeia dies. After a short time, and the purchase of an abbey, our narrator marries Lady Rowena, also beautiful, but whom he does not love. Rowena is the opposite of Ligeia - fair rather than dark, scared of the narrator rather than in love. She becomes ill, and soon dies. Then, in an typically Poe twist, the narrator witnesses the dead Rowena resurrect in the body of Ligeia.

Can you sense me shaking my head as I write this? I think what I've been most surprised about in this year of reading Poe is how he seems to write the same story over and over again. Here we have the death of a beautiful young women (as seen in The Fall of the House of Usher, Berenice, and Morella), resurrection (again, The Fall of the House of Usher and Morella), and drug use, which is in countless stories. He changes up the details, but so much of the main themes are the same - perhaps that's why, at this point in the year, I have a hard time holding interest in the stories.

This story, however has received quite a bit of critical acclaim, so it is perhaps one of his best. I found it to be somewhat long, and I didn't really feel the gothic mood that I think Poe was attempting to portray.

Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

After our Thanksgiving break, it's time for another slice of Pie..er, Poe. (I honestly didn't mean to type that, but cracked myself up so much I thought I'd just leave it - yep, I'm a dork.)

This week's selection is the detective story The Purloined Letter. You can read the full text here.

We revisit Poe's famous detective, Dupin, as he helps the Prefect of the Police solve a crime. The Prefect has been searching in vain for a letter stolen from a helpless woman by an unscrupulous Minister. The Minister could potentially ruin the woman's life with the letter, so the Prefect must find it - unfortunately, he has searched and searched, and had no luck. Dupin hears the particulars of the case and, after a time, produces the letter in question.

This is considered the best of Poe's tales of ratiocination, and is for the most part an enjoyable read. However, I did get a big bogged down at times in the seemingly endless discussion of poets vs. mathematicians - however, that could have been my inherent distaste for math clouding my perspective. Poe's Dupin is a somewhat one-dimensional character, but the suggestion that Dupin and the sinister Minister D___ might be one and the same certainly makes him seem more interesting.

All in all, not my favorite Poe story, but certainly not my least favorite, and definitely the best of the bunch featuring Dupin.

Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

This week's Poe selection is a poem, The Bells. If you are not familiar with this gem, I'll reprint the first stanza:

HEAR the sledges with the bells -
                    Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
          How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
                In the icy air of night!
          While the stars that oversprinkle
          All the heavens, seem to twinkle
                With a crystalline delight;
             Keeping time, time, time,
             In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
     From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
                    Bells, bells, bells -
  From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

But really, you should read the whole thing - you can do that here.

Last week I said I was feeling burned out on Poe - this week reminded me why I started this year-long project. I love this poem, and I'd forgotten how much. I love the rhythm and meter, the unusual, hypnotic rhyme. I love the way the mood of each stanza shifts, so a poem that starts out joyfully ends up in tragedy. I think each different type of bell represents a different place in a person's life - from the joy of youth to the sadness of death, and I think Poe captures this brilliantly.

Also, one of my favorite composers, Sergei Rachmaninoff, wrote a choral symphony based on this poem, and it's gorgeous. Here's the first movement, based on the stanza above:





Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

This week's selection is the short story, The Oblong Box. You can read the full text here.

Our narrator tells the story of a trip he took on a boat from Charleston to New York City. Once aboard, he realizes that an old friend is also making the voyage. The friend has his family with him - a wife and two sisters - as well as a strange, oblong box emitting a foul odor. The narrator notices other unusual things about the friend and his family, and proceeds to draw (honestly) the most ridiculous conclusions imaginable. Eventually, he learns the truth about the box, which we (the readers) figured out quite a while ago.

You know, it's possible I'm getting burned out on Poe. I don't know how this story would have struck me a few months ago, but reading it this week I just found it silly. At no time could I believe that anyone would be so dense as to not be able to figure out what was inside the box. I didn't find the story suspenseful as much as I found it irritating.

It might just be my reading taste right now, but Poe is definitely not hitting the spot. I'm not giving up on him yet, but am certainly finding him challenge right now.

Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

This week we read the supremely freaky short story, The Pit and the Pendulum. You can read the full text here.

So basically, this is the story of a guy who has been captured by the Spanish Inquisition and thrown into a pitch black room. As he begins to inspect the room, he realizes there is a huge pit in the middle of the room, and blacks out. When he wakes up, he is strapped down, and a giant, scythe-like pendulum is swinging over him, getting closer and closer to his chest. He manages to escape, but the walls start to burn and close in, making him move closer and closer to the pit.

Yeeks! This story seriously pushes the limits of how much scary I can tolerate. Poe does a masterful job of creating fear without any supernatural intervention - all of the terror comes from the narrator's completely real situation. The tension increases throughout the story, so by the end I was holding my breath, waiting for the inevitable demise. Here's a sample of what I mean:

"Down -- certainly, relentlessly down! It vibrated within three inches of my bosom! I struggled violently -- furiously -- to free my left arm. This was free only from the elbow to the hand. I could reach the latter, from the platter beside me to my mouth with great effort, but no farther. Could I have broken the fastenings above the elbow, I would have seized and attempted to arrest the pendulum. I might as well have attempted to arrest an avalanche!"

And, just to creep myself out a little more, I found the following short film of the story - seriously, don't watch this in the dark!

The Pit and the Pendulum by Bravo!FACT

Creepy, Creepy. Kristen, if I have nightmares, I am totally holding you responsible!

Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

This week's Poe assignment is the short story, Some Words with a Mummy - for reasons I don't understand, I'm not able to link to the full text right now, but if you google it, you can find it easy-peasy.

Here's the lowdown - our narrator has just finished gorging himself on roughly 4 pounds of dinner, and five bottles of stout, and is preparing himself for bed. A note comes from a friend to join him in the unmasking of a mummy - great pre-sleep entertainment. So our narrator hies himself over to the mummy, where much fun ensues. The men find out the mummy's name, and decide to shoot him with electricity to see what happens. Lo and behold, the mummy wakes up, and proceeds to give the men a schooling on Egyptology. The men, not to be outdone, challenge the mummy to a frantic game of whose period in history is superior - the men winning, of course, due to the great breakthrough that is the cough drop. Eventually, our narrator returns home to ponder the idea of becoming embalmed himself.


This story is obviously meant to be satirical, poking fun at the Egypt-mania of the mid-1800s, as well as the belief that modern technology is markedly superior to that of ancient times. It did cause me to chuckle a few times, but I don't think it will make my list of favorite Poe stories. I have a feeling this would have made a significant impact at the time it was written, and its humor would have made a lot more sense. Unfortunately, it just felt a bit dated - I could tell it was written in response to specific events of the time, and I don't think it holds up as well as many of Poe's other work.

Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

This week's selection is a poem, The Haunted Palace. I'm including the full text below -

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace -
Radiant palace - reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion -
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This - all this - was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn! - for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh - but smile no more.



I find this poem more melancholy than frightening - I realize it's about a palace that is haunted by the ghosts if its former ruler and his court, but I just find myself feeling sad for them. They don't seem like especially cruel ghosts, and it seems more like they became ghosts because of some tragedy that happened - "evil things, in robes of sorrow" - than because of something wicked. Maybe it's because I tend to find myself having sympathy for ghosts and things when they have a good backstory. I do think this was a good choice for fall - I feel a bit of that same melancholy around this time of year, with the days getting shorter and winter coming. I think it fit my mood, and so resonated with me.

Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

This week's short story is The Premature Burial - basically, our narrator describes a few stories about people who have been buried alive and then, after describing his own condition in which he falls into near-catatonic states, relates his own fears about being buried alive.

I can't say this was my favorite of Poe's stories, but I can imagine at the time it was originally published it would have been horrifying. Apparently, there was a serious fear of being buried alive in the 19th century, and Poe was just capitalizing on it's popularity - there was even a Society for the Prevention of People Being Buried Alive. Seriously? Did it happen enough that there needed to be a society to prevent it? Thank goodness for modern medical science, I suppose.

I'm finding that Poe seems to have a couple of different "types" of stories - the ones with actual plot, and the ones that are more designed to "explain" something. I'm much more of a fan of the plot stories, which this unfortunately was not. But I have a sneaking suspicion these types of stories probably made him more money - funny how things end up working out that way.

Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at We Be Reading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

Wow, I have a LOT of Poe to catch up on! I'll keep each selection short - let's get going! (If you click on each title, you can read the full text of the work.)


The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar - another mesmerism story, in which a man decides to hypnotize his friend, Valdemar, at the point of death.

This was quite a different story than the last tale about mesmerism we read. The last one was quite philosophical and deep - this one was more like a gross out tale. Lots of seeping of bodily fluids, etc. I was not quite prepared for this from Poe! There is some possibility that the detail in the story about Valdemar's demise from tuburculosis was from Poe's knowledge about his wife Virginia, who was dying from the same disease. Either way, it was a little much for me.

The Sleeper - another poem about a beautiful woman who dies, and the lover she leaves behind.

This isn't my favorite of Poe's work - it seemed a little draggy in the middle, as he goes on and on about the vault. I found it interesting that Poe felt this poem was one of his superior works - better than the Raven! I'm not sure what criteria he used to judge that, but I can't say I agree with him.

Eldorado - a short poem about a man searching for the fabled Eldorado. As he nears the end of his a life, he meets a Shadow, who tells him to keep riding and he will find it.

It's interesting to note that Poe wrote this poem toward the end of his life. It's certainly easy to read the similarities between the knight, searching for the fabled city of gold, and Poe, searching for the elusive fortune that writing might bring. Perhaps he was looking toward his own death, and trying to find some hope.


The Spectacles - longish story dealing with the pitfalls of love at first sight. A handsome young man, with a small eyesight problems, sees a beautiful woman at the theater and falls in love at first sight. After managing a meeting, the man professes his love, and asks the woman to marry him. She agrees, but makes a condition that he must wear eyeglasses, for her sake. When he puts the glasses on, he sees the truth about the woman he believes he loves.

This story was delightful! None of Poe's usual darkness, but rather quite humorous in tone, and with a surprisingly happy ending. Poe clearly doesn't think much of the idea of love at first sight, and also seems to be warning readers a bit of the dangers of vanity. Despite the fairly obvious "morals", the story still feels light, and I found myself chuckling aloud several times. This might be my new favorite Poe story!

Whew! All caught up. There will be no Poe next week, due to BBAW, but we'll continue the following week with The Premature Burial. Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

This week, we read the short story The Devil in the Belfry.

There is a small, charming "Dutch" village called Vondervottemietttis, which is perfectly happy to stay to itself. The charming houses all look the same, and all are decorated with time-pieces and cabbages. The villagers believe that nothing good comes from outside their small town, and every day they pay special attention to what time it is. The man who is in charge of keeping their large, impressive town clock is the most important man in the village. Then, one day, just before the clock strikes twelve, a man arrives from outside the village and beats up the clock keeper, resulting in chaos. The clock strikes 13, everything goes crazy, and the village is never the same again.

Apparently, this story was meant as a satire of one or two things - President Martin Van Buren and his election methods, and the city of New York. I don't quite understand the Van Buren satire, but apparently the city of New York can be seen as Vondervottemiettis, happily settled by "the Dutch", and the man who comes in and ruins things is "the Irish".

Honestly, I didn't get either one of these references from just reading the story - another case of an author's intent lost to me, because I don't know the history behind its writing. It was, however, an entertaining little story, although one that didn't make a whole lot of sense. I was amused by the poor little villagers whose lives where thrown into uproar by the strange man from outside.

Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

This week, we read the poem An Enigma - it's short, so here is the full text:



"Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,
"Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.
Through all the flimsy things we see at once
As easily as through a Naples bonnet-
Trash of all trash!- how can a lady don it?
Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff-
Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff
Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it."
And, veritably, Sol is right enough.
The general tuckermanities are arrant
Bubbles- ephemeral and so transparent-
But this is, now- you may depend upon it-
Stable, opaque, immortal- all by dint
Of the dear names that he concealed within 't.


So, basically, most poems are fluff. Interesting that he wrote a fluff poem to explain this. The most interesting thing about the poem is that it is an riddle poem - if you take the first letter of the first line, the second letter of the second line, etc, you spell the name Sarah Anna Lewis. Lewis was an amateur poet whose husband paid Poe $100 to review her work. I'm not sure it's exactly a compliment to her work that he chose to immortalize her name in this PARTICULAR poem....

Since next week's Poe Friday falls on a holiday weekend, Kristen has chosen a longer story, The Gold Bug, and given us two weeks to read it - we will be back to discuss on July 11. Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

This week we read the short story, The Assignation.

Another unnamed narrator is floating down a canal in Venice of an evening, when he hears a loud scream, and sees a crowd gathered. A woman - the most beautiful woman in Venice - has dropped her child from her arms into the water. Many men are attempting to rescue the child, but all are unsuccessful. Suddenly, one more man jumps into the water, and returns with the child. The woman, overcome with gratitude, asks the man to meet her the next day.

Our narrator offers the man a ride home, which he accepts. He asks the narrator to return the next day to take him to meet the woman. When the narrator arrives the next morning, the man shows him his collection of treasures - beautiful paintings, sculptures, and art worth a vast sum of money. While browsing the man's collection, a servant rushes in to announce the woman has been found dead - poisoned! When the narrator hurries to the man's side, he finds him dead as well.


Oh, Poe, master of the melodramatic! This story leaves many questioned unanswered - did the woman and the man know each other previously? Why was the woman killed? Was it planned? Was the man also poisoned, or did he die from the shock of the news? Who was this strange, remarkable man, anyway? This story lost me a little bit in the pages of description of the man's treasures - I couldn't tell why that was important to the overall narrative. But the shocking death was certainly fun!

Next week, we will read the short story Diddling. That has to be fun, right? Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

’TIS said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth
Gave instant birth
To springs that ne’er did flow
That in the sun
Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow
The wild rose pale
Perfumed the gale
And the queenly lily adown the dale
(Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.

So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife
Are broken at a blow
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,
Like silent streams
That from new fountains overflow,
With the earlier tide
Of rivers glide
Deep in the heart whose hope has died—
Quenching the fires its ashes hide,—
Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
Sweet flowers, ere long,
The rare and radiant flowers of song!

This is apparently among a group of "doubtful" poems - work which Poe might have written, but cannot be conclusively ascribed to him. It is not included in the anthology I own, so I had to look it up online. Thankfully, it's ridiculously easy to find Poe's work on the internet, so I didn't have any problem. It does deal with death, and the loss of true love, which Poe does write about frequently, so it is certainly conceivable this is Poe's work, but for whatever reason he chose not to attribute it to himself.

Next week we will read a short story, The Assignation. Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

This week, we read the short, sweet little poem, To My Mother. It's so short I can post the full text here:

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of "Mother,"
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you-
You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
In setting my Virginia's spirit free.
My mother–my own mother, who died early,
Was but the mother of myself; but you
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
And thus are dearer than the mother I knew
By that infinity with which my wife
Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.



How very un-Poe-like, to read just a simple tribute to a woman he loves. Of course, there is the reference to the death of his beloved Virginia - honestly, without that I don't know if I would have believed this was written by Poe. But, he tells us that this woman ( I assume his mother-in-law) is so loved by him because she gave life to Virginia, and she took Virginia's place in his heart when she died. It is truly a beautiful, unexpected addition to the Poe collection - great choice this week, Kristen!

Next week we will read the poem A Forest Reverie. Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays (on Saturday)

This week's Poe Fridays selection is the short story, Berenice. Boy, was this a return to the Poe we know and love - gruesome, atmospheric, despairing.

Egaeus, the narrator, lives in a creepy house with his cousin, Berenice. Egaeus is studious, Berenice is beautiful, and they are to be married. Berenice is afflicted with some unnamed wasting disease, and Egaeus is prone to obsessive-compulsive disorder. One day, he becomes obsessed with her teeth, and obsessed, and obsessed, and obsessed. Then, strangely, his servant tells his Berenice has died. Of course, Egaeus soon finds a small box, with dental equipment, and 32 tiny white "ivory-looking substances".....

Much is familiar about this story - a narrator with a mental illness, a creepy old house, someone getting buried alive, a woman whose only purpose is to be beautiful and die. Apparently, when the story was first published, magazine readers were in such an uproar about its violence that Poe eventually purged four paragraphs. I wasn't able to find the complete story, but I would certainly be interested to read those paragraphs. Since most of the actual violence is implied, it is a tribute to Poe's mastery of his craft that this story could have been so shocking.

Next week we will be reading the (hopefully happy?!?) poem, To My Mother. Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristen at WeBeReading.

Poe Fridays

So we all know the story of The Tell-Tale Heart, right? The crazy neighbor decides to kill the old man next door, simply because he has a creepy, vulture eye. After he kills him, he shows the police around the apartment, to let them know nothing is wrong - except he starts hearing the dead guy's heart beating through the boards in the floor.

This is, of course, a master tale by a master storyteller, but the best part of this story isn't the actual story - it is the narrator, calmly informing the reader that he ISN'T, in fact, crazy.

"True! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am! but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole story."

Poe has written a spot-on description of a mentally ill man, down to the auditory hallucinations and the perfectly illogical reasoning for killing someone. As the narrator describes, in chilling detail, exactly how he procedes with his crime, he appears perfectly reasonable, and yet it becomes more and more clear that he is not.

Once again, Poe sets his mood brilliantly, culminating with the narrator shining his flashlight on the old man's open eye. His use of dashes and exclamation points heighten the crazed effect of the story, until the reader is almost breathless, along with the narrator, by the end of the story.
In my anthology, The Tell-Tale Heart is a mere four pages long, but Poe can sure do an awful lot in that short span.

Next week's selection will be another short story, The Black Cat.

Poe Fridays is hosted by Kristin of We Be Reading - stop by and check it out!

Poe Fridays

Kristen at We Be Reading is hosting a new weekly event - Poe Fridays! Here's what she says:

I'm sure that everyone has heard of "Poetry Fridays" but have you heard of "Poe Fridays"? No? Well, welcome to Poe Fridays! In honor of Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday on January 19, I decided to set up a goal to read Poe weekly for at least the next year. Poe has 73 tales and a couple dozen poems so there is plenty of material to choose from. This isn't a challenge but more of an opportunity. Each Friday I will discuss a Poe short story or poem and post the title for the following week. You can either stop by to learn more about Poe's genius or you can read along and post your comments and/or links on each week's post. I think this year is a great time to turn more readers into Poe fans.



Since this is our first week, she has given us an easy assignment - the poem "A Dream Within A Dream." It's not very long, so I'll reprint it below:

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow --
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream:
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand --
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep -- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?


What a beautiful, tragic, heartbreaking poem. This is the kind of poetry I love - beautiful in the initial reading, and then beautiful again as we delve into the meaning behind the words. And the meanings - well, there can be many. This could be about a man mourning for his lost love, with the kiss upon the brow, and the sorrowful parting. This could be the raging of someone watching his dreams shatter, and realizing the futility of his life. It's a poem that can be related to, even if your life hasn't been especially horrible, because who hasn't that that moment of wondering if their own little existence really does matter, or if it will just fade away, a dream within a dream?

It was a great choice to start this project! Next week's selection will be the poem "Annabel Lee". If you'd like to journey through Poe with us, stop by We Be Reading and add your link.