Edgar Allen Poe Journal Essay Book: The Norton Anthology American Literature 9th Edition

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Journal #2 Assignment Due Thurs., Week 2, Day 3:

750 words, 50 pts. in response to a literary work read in class this week. Should focus on a literary element or device in the story and include a thesis analyzing its importance to the literary work. Did you enjoy the work? Did you learn anything from it? Explain why. You must use APA Template for all submitted work–Cover Page, Running Header, Times New Roman Font Size #12, Doublespaced, or points will be taken off!

— Gothic–Edgar Allan Poe: Bio, pp. 731-735, and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” pp. 762-6, “The Black Cat,” pp. 766-772; poem, “Annabel Lee,” pp.738-9

Poe (never call him Edgar) is unique in the history of American Letters. An orphan who was adopted (his brother and sister went to different families) by the Allan Family (he loved his adoptive mother, but never got along with his father, a cheapskate tobacco dealer named John Allan), he showed different aspects of personality, industrious one minute, but lazy the next, the result of his being bipolar. He was also an alcoholic, taking after both parents, who had been actors—in an age where being an actor was considered one step above a beggar.
Poe was definitely weird in his choice of lady friends—he loved and wrote about Romance, but was definitely not sexual in his behavior. A short, thin man, he may or may not have been a necrophile—see “Annabel Lee” above.
Sadly, tuberculosis also figures in Poe’s work. It struck down his wife, Virginia Clemm Poe, when she was very young. You will see what results.