Edgar Allan Poe is an influential writer who is well known mainly for his dark and mysterious obscure short stories and poems. Throughout this essay I will analysing how poe uses a series of literary terms such as diction and anaphora in order to convey a bleak, eerie mood and tone. Poe uses these terms in order to contribute to his writing in a positive way, creating vivid images and a cheerless mood. In Poe’s poem, “The Raven”, he uses words such as lonely, stillness, ominous and fiery to add to the building up apprehension within the poem. In addition, he also uses repetition to create fluent yet unruffled, tragic feel for the reader.
It states in “Poe Museum”(2017) that “Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as the haunting lyric poetry.”(p.5) His poem “The Raven” is a big example of that as he uses his frightening settings to proclaim his “tales of terror.” He uses a raven in the poem as a symbol for good luck. The expression “nevermore” is said repeatedly by the raven. The story is dedicated to a loss one of Poe. In “Poe Museum,”(2017) it says “Most famously, poe completely transformed the genre of the horror story with his masterful tales of psychological depth and insight not envisioned in the genre before his time and scarcely seen it since.” In Poe’s story “The Raven,” he gets in the reader’s head with his recurring themes and his way of portraying the sense of fear with his poetic lyrics. The mood he creates with his setting makes it seem very down because the story takes place in a dark room where the raven flies in through a window.
Breslin compares Williams by saying, “William defiantly asserts himself in an attitude of radical independence, emotional exuberance bodily energy, and self-admiration qualities that link him with the comic extravagance and self-reliance of Walt Whitman” (613). This journal also talks about Williams obsession with Whitman copy of Leaves of Grass. William loved it so much, “I took that book with me, and I absorbed it with enthusiasm. I loved to read the poems to myself”. The journal goes on, “The enthusiastic delight of his discovery was expressed in a set of notebooks in which he was writing ‘quick spontaneous poems’ in the manner of Whitman”.
Edgar Allan Poe was not only a poet, but also a critic and a writer. He was well known for his expressive short stories and poems that captured the imagination of readers. Annabel Lee was not the only writing by Poe that narrates death. According to Britannica, most of his work was concerned with terror and sadness. He was capable of writing angelic or weird poetry, with a supreme sense of rhythm and word appeal.
“The Tyger,” “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence, and “The Poison Tree” provide great examples of how romantic poet William Blake turns ordinary subjects into something so much more complex and purposeful. William Blake, uses everyday subjects in his stories “The Tyger,” “The Chimney Sweeper,” and “The Poison Tree” and turns them into something more important and states that some questions don’t always have answers. In arguably Blake’s most famous work “The Tyger,” he used the simple relationship between predator and prey and pondered why such creatures exist. He questioned the creators motives and the intention behind
Mimesis is the imitation of life, capturing the human condition and painting it in a way so that others can experience it. Simply put, literature is the most effective way to do this. It allows the author the freedom to choose how they want to express every last detail of the story, the moment, and the event they want to capture and share with others. With this many works of literature make their way into the hearts of people that become touched by these stories. Jack London was one of these authors.
Gabrielle Villanueva Dr Trevor Strunk EN103 Composition and Rhetoric I 22nd, January 2018 My Response to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Philosophy of Composition” in both his works of “The Raven” and “Tell-Tale Heart.” Edgar Allan Poe wrote an essay in 1846 called “The Philosophy of Composition.” He is an American writer famous for gothic poems and short stories of mystery, death, and loss of love. One of the main ideas in Edgar Allan Poe’s essay, is his strong belief that the emotion you cause in your readers is key to a great writing piece. He also explains that good writers should keep their writings short, so it could be read in one sitting. That if you work hard creating a detailed outline with a conclusion from the start, perfect your writing and pull emotions from your readers through the setting and the “tone” of your words you have a recipe for a good piece of literature, music or art. Today my focus will be on Edgar Allan Poe’s theory of effect that comes forth in two of his known works.
Poe believes that stories that dealt with gothic literature needed to have allegories in them to have a second level of meaning in addition to it’s literal meaning. Theses types of elements were popular in this time period because they taught moral lessons and contributed to the dark feeling a person undergoes when finding the true meaning of not only the story, but are able to personally understand the true feeling the author is trying to make individuals feel. In “The Tale and Its Effect”, Poe stated that he used and supported unity of effect to go about discussing the themes he embedded within his stories in order to make the reader to feel a certain way. He believes that they need to be short and sweet so that the author can get all the details to the reader. Poe exclaims that short stories are superior to novels because one is able to sit down and finish it in one-sitting rather than breaking the experience, with the possibility of forgetting important elements.
Lamb to the Slaughter is an action packed short story about a wife who is let down by her husband and proceeds to kill him as an act of revenge. Obviously much more happens in this story consisting of humour, action, mystery and irony. Roald Dahl is a master of writing short stories in ways that attract readers, draw them into what is happening through using literary elements and universal themes to make the story relatable to the readers. In this story the main literary elements were foreshadowing, situation and dramatic irony, imagery and symbolism which really drew me in and kept me attached to the story. Literary elements are what make a story powerful and attracts readers to continue reading in the story and in this story they highlight the universal theme of Revenge and Betrayal.
Wilfred Owen, most famous for his war poetry, used his work to expose the horrors of war and the disastrous results that come from it, as seen in his most famous pieces – ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’,’ Anthem for Doomed Youth’ and ‘Exposure’. Owen’s preface states, “Above all I am not concerned with poetry”. This means it is not the poetry alone that is important to Owen, but the message he is trying to portray and emphasise. Owen more than anything wanted to reveal the truths of war hidden behind false propaganda and was able to achieve this though his poetic capabilities. Owen through his poetry was able to captivate his reader and create visual imagery to heighten the messages he wanted to convey, allowing us comprehend and understand the true horrors occurring on the front.