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Quoth the Raven: Eat My Shorts!
As you must know, today is the anniversary of the death of Edgar Allan Poe. A depressed, lovelorn, unlucky, melancholy, murder-obsessed, writer and drug addict, Poe was never actually famous or beloved in his lifetime. He wrote some of the greatest horror and some of the most amazing, obsessive love poetry in the history of mankind. He also inspired people like Bouldelaire, Nabokov, Auden, and myself. Ray Bradbury's "The Box" is a blatant, if chilling, homage to The Oblong Box. So too is "The Lake" a rip-off (or homage, if you asked him) of Poe's wonderful poem of the same title.
My favorite Poe stories are Hop Frog, and Cask of Amontillado. Have been ever since I had to read them for school. But there are many, many more that I love. Now that I think on it, Poe is probably the best writer I ever had to read for school. I enjoyed One Flew Over the Cukoos Nest as well, but nothing thrilled me like Poe. So macabre...he was like an old tymey Stephen King as far as I was concerned.
I don't think he ever wrote a bad poem, but I certainly prefer the ones where the chick turns out to be dead at the end. I love the girls names he used; I should come across many more Annabelle's, Ligiea'a, and Morella's in real life. Too bad I don't plan to procreate...
Poe was also American. Not to get all America, Fuck Yeah! on you, but great American writers, poets, artists etc, are in the far minority. I suspect it's because we've always insisted on a rather high quality of life, which in turn lessens our need to express our inner rage and torment. Myself, I do my best writing when I'm the most miserable. I could probably write a Sadie sequel in 30 days if I went off my meds. Problem is, I might also kill someone unless I was chained to the radiator werewolf-style. My point being, Poe was miserable, and indeed, he was brilliant. Crazy types tend to have the best insight on the Human Condition, and no one expressed the depth of blackness in the human soul like Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe was also one of the first people to tout Art for Art's Sake. This means that he wrote for nothing but the love of doing so. Not for publication, not for fans, not even to prove that he could do it just to boost his own self esteeme. He just wanted to write. I suspect that it would have harmed him not to have an outlet for all that turmoil and torment. Then again, he also had an enormous drinking problem, poor chap.
And you know, even though I've had at least five copies of The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, I don't have one now. So if you've borrowed one from me over the years and never returned it, now may be a good time to do so. You know, now that I've reminded you how good it is.
My favorite Poe stories are Hop Frog, and Cask of Amontillado. Have been ever since I had to read them for school. But there are many, many more that I love. Now that I think on it, Poe is probably the best writer I ever had to read for school. I enjoyed One Flew Over the Cukoos Nest as well, but nothing thrilled me like Poe. So macabre...he was like an old tymey Stephen King as far as I was concerned.
I don't think he ever wrote a bad poem, but I certainly prefer the ones where the chick turns out to be dead at the end. I love the girls names he used; I should come across many more Annabelle's, Ligiea'a, and Morella's in real life. Too bad I don't plan to procreate...
Poe was also American. Not to get all America, Fuck Yeah! on you, but great American writers, poets, artists etc, are in the far minority. I suspect it's because we've always insisted on a rather high quality of life, which in turn lessens our need to express our inner rage and torment. Myself, I do my best writing when I'm the most miserable. I could probably write a Sadie sequel in 30 days if I went off my meds. Problem is, I might also kill someone unless I was chained to the radiator werewolf-style. My point being, Poe was miserable, and indeed, he was brilliant. Crazy types tend to have the best insight on the Human Condition, and no one expressed the depth of blackness in the human soul like Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe was also one of the first people to tout Art for Art's Sake. This means that he wrote for nothing but the love of doing so. Not for publication, not for fans, not even to prove that he could do it just to boost his own self esteeme. He just wanted to write. I suspect that it would have harmed him not to have an outlet for all that turmoil and torment. Then again, he also had an enormous drinking problem, poor chap.
And you know, even though I've had at least five copies of The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, I don't have one now. So if you've borrowed one from me over the years and never returned it, now may be a good time to do so. You know, now that I've reminded you how good it is.
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I must disinguish between more classic forms of jazz and the "smooth jazz" that's currenly popular and doesn't interest me.
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I think Tipper Gore kind of put him off Democrats!
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Did you hear about that thing where every year, a stranger goes to Poe's grave and lays a bottle of brandy upon it?
I'm about 76% sure that it was Poe's grave that this was done to.
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but this was definitely a news article somewhere...
*Googles briskly*
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Until you get another hard copy or someone returns your book, I found the Online Literature Network has a good selection of his works online, including The Oblong Box, The Lake, Hop-Frog, and The Cask of Amontillado. (I must be feeling very linky today.)
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Thanks for the links, I was totally in the mood to do some scary reading...
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It's hard to say who Dahls influences might have been. He seems so original; but in all honesty my literature knowlege is far too dim to take an educated guess.
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I have one of those. They're so great, and funny.
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Have you seen this website about him?
Oh, and the fellow who visits his grave every year? He's real, although probably somebody new picking up the tradition by this point. It's been going on since 1949.
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