Author Review: EDGAR ALLAN POE

Edgar Allan Poe is known as a famous poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, literary critic and publisher. He played a major role in the romantic American literature history. Although he is mostly known for his gruesome and obscure stories, he was one of the pioneer of the short story and also regarded as the inventor of the new detective-fiction genre. Poe  was the first renowned writer who made his living through his writings only due to which there were many financial difficulties throughout his career.

The fundamental reason of Poe’s writing can be traced back to his tragic life story. Every woman he was in love was the victim of plague or tuberculosis. It can be witnessed that Poe has reffered to "red plague" in many of his works, as well as focus on the destruction of beauty, love and innocence, refer to the death of these women.

Poe's works were carefully planned out. He owned and controlled his writings altogether. He was able to introduce a substantial number of literary devices and plot elements to help achieve his preconceived result. The lack of detail and absence of background information helps drive the reader to focus on the actions, moreover, the pace is fast, the story is short, and is read keenly until the end.

With the use of skill full writing and grammatical devices, Poe manages to create an eerie overtone, which is evident and can be detected in all of his writings. This overtone is best illustrated as grotesque and arabesque. Poe’s elegant use of "dark gothic" characters have resulted in a haunting feeling and affect, which beautifully involves the writer within the plot and at the same time creating the thoughts that perhaps the reader, himself, is being observed. The psychological insanity and terror a character underwent is ingrained into the readers mind and heart.

Poe primarily focused on the internal issues of the story in which everyone can relate to it by the use of compulsive and obsessive characteristics of his characters. The reader has placed to feel the evil within the characters as they are dragged to their restrictions and even almost justified in their weird actions. It enables the reader to empathize and feel sympathy for the character, although he is doing the malicious act. When the reader progress through the Poe’s works, himself automatically get involved in the emotional roller coaster ride with unexpected twirls and twists.

Poe has forced us to think that we do not pay attention towards the precious moments of our life time as they deserve to be. However, one day we will have to look back and weep because we “cannot grasp them with a tighter clasp”.

It is noteworthy here to mention that Poe was not acknowledged directly. He was criticized in America to the great extent. His efforts are not significantly known to many people due to its deep meanings and complexity. That is why he is recognized as the detective story teller who is not famous for telling the story directly but, he makes the reader think about the real meaning behind the lines. Later on, Poe’s writing style was adopted be many modern authors and writers which is another evidence of his influence on society.