On the other hand, Poe adds that “by undue profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought; and it is possible to make even Venus herself vanish from the firmament by a scrutiny too sustained, too concentrated, or too direct.” In the deepest slumber - no! In delirium - no! In a swoon - no! In death - no! Even in the grave all is not lost. Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream.” We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation - to make a point - than to further the cause of truth.” days later and I have completed this mammoth collection of Poe tales and poems. Considered to be the master of tales filled with mystery and/or the macabre, Poe delivers a range of short stories and poetry that are all contained within this collection. Mie această proză scurtă mi-a adus aminte de două mari romane universale, "Doctor Faustus" şi "Maestrul şi Margareta", căci în paginile sale prezintă convorbirea unui filosof cu diavolul în vederea "cumpărării" sufletului în schimbul unui adevăr care are să-l facă celebru. Însă, bineînţeles, Pierre Bon-Bon este un filosof stoic şi "jocul pe degete" este reciproc, însă asta nu-l scuteşte de fatalitatea deciziei sale…

A list of films and television series, both directly and indirectly inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe. In “The Oval Portrait”, the narrator recounts a story about a painter who fell in love with a painting of his own wife, who perishes from his subsequent neglect. The disturbed protagonist shows psychotic symptoms including fixation, obsessiveness, dehumanization and paranoia, leading him to do something utterly despicable to an old man without any ulterior motives. He tries to justify his delusions by fixating on his victim's vulture-like eye, treating it as a separate entity from the old man so he doesn't have to experience the guilt of his terrible crime. His guilt eventually manifests in the sound of the old man's heart beating beneath his floorboards, driving him mad until he finally confesses to murdering and dismembering the old man for reasons he can't seem to properly explain. It's a disturbing look into the psychology of a severely troubled individual and an early study of criminal behavior. Poe is a weirdo writer and I am all over weirdos, specially brilliant ones. His poetic gothic writing is so hunting and beautiful, the way he describes things and people is just amazing, although he has this thing where he loves to challenge the readers not to use a dictionary pretty often, but you'd never hate him for that because his words are all sentimental and idealistic and somehow you will feel smart reading them.. Dacă Poe ar fi dezvoltat şi latura psihologică a personajului şi, prin urmare, ar fi făcut scrierea mai amplă, mai fluentă şi mai uşor de savurat, ar fi ieşit o capodoperă!This is a good description of how Poe goes about writing his tales, in particular “The Gold-Bug”. But it also helps to understand the Post-Modernist preoccupation with maximalism, with size or length or quantity over subject or merit or quality. Poe himself adds: Shall we descend into madness? Shall we be haunted by our own desires? Shall we be consumed by that terrible facet of life known only as death? Shall we cling to what cannot be reanimated? Shall we wish for a return of something that has long been in darkness? Poe asserts that “the analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis...Between ingenuity and the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater, indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of a character very strictly analogous. It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.” The Fall of the House of Usher is a story I don't remember a lot of, so I'll definitely re-read it soon.

M-a ZĂPĂCIT!!! Nuvela asta este, par excellence, o metaforă!!! Nici n-am cuvinte să o descriu! E prima scriere-metaforă pe care o citesc! "Ochelarii", auzi?! am rămas complet buimăcit! He is credited with writing the first detective story with The Murders in the Rue Morgue. The same main character recurs in The Mystery of Marie Roget and The Purloined Letter, which were just okay. I've never liked the genre, and while I can appreciate it as the pioneering work that it is, those kind of tales are absolutely not my cup of tea.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue": 3 - read 10/3/2021. A murderous orangutan in France. Odd. I'm pretty sure I've read this before because the explanation was familiar. The Masque of the Red Death": 4 - read 9/19/2021. Oddly timely considering that the MET Gala still happened while the COVID pandemic rages on... This short story is a marvel. It appears confusing and contradictory, but if you stop and consider who is actually speaking then its true nature is revealed. Admittedly, on my first read I was a little lost, though after a second read I began to see it for what it was. This is not as approachable as some of Poe’s other works, and it really isn’t an advisable starting point for the author. But, the short story is wonderful, truly wonderful. It highlights the working of the mind in a state of sheer depravity; it is disturbing and brilliant. I have no idea what to think of Four Beasts In One: The Homo-Cameleopard. It was boring, ridiculous and did not even include a message of its own. A story which can definitely be skipped without regretting it.

William Wilson": 5 - read 11/20/2021. Reminded me of "The Double" by Dostoevsky. He definitely took inspiration from Poe! There's also similarities to "The Picture of Dorian Gray," which makes me think Oscar Wilde was also inspired by Poe. Stories about doppelgängers are always unsettling to me.The Raven is a macabre poem depicting a man driven to excruciating loneliness and grief from being unable to let go of the memories of his dead lover Lenore. It's a tragic tale full of death and sorrow, a tale of how one's unwillingness to let go of dark memories and past tragedies will only push them to the edge of insanity. My rating for this collection may seem harsh, but let me explain... When Poe is good, he is GREAT. But when he is not... it is torture and absolutely unbearable at times. I have zero intention of revisiting about 75% of this collection. In comparison, I'm pretty sure I would be happy to revisit the majority of Lovecraft tales at some point in the future. A lot of readers will compare the two, but for me, when comparing their complete bodies of work, there is no competition. Poe pursues the counter-intuitive in “The Purloined Letter”, the facts of which Dupin describes as “simple and odd”, as well as a mystery that is “a little too plain, a little too self-evident”.

The Mystery of Marie Roget": 1 - read 1/22/2022. Based on the real murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers in NYC in 18141. DNF. Found it boring, lots of tell don't show. I don't enjoy police procedurals/detective stories that much. In contrast, in “Von Kempelen and His Discovery”, the narrator detects that a paragraph in a newspaper detailing an invention is “apocryphal, principally upon its manner. It does not look true.” Ironically, what allows the narrator to come to this conclusion is an excess of particularity, which is not customary. Annotated translations of passages in French, Latin, Greek or other foreign languages, along with Poe’s own notes dai oare seama ce minunată întâmplare a fost faptul că toate aceste evenimente s-au petrecut în acea singură zi a anului în care a fost destul de frig ca să facem foc, şi că fără foc sau amestecul câinelui, tocmai în clipa aceea când a intrat, eu n-aş fi luat cunoştinţă de capul de mort şi, prin urmare, n-aş fi ajuns niciodată în stăpânirea comorii?" Mă gândesc adesea dacă nu cumva stările oamenilor, cele negative adică, nu sunt nimic altceva decât o rană care sângerează latent. Ştiu eu?! Ceea ce citim, ceea ce vedem, ceea ce auzim (şi nu dăm importantă)... Cred că toate acestea sunt o sămânţa în sufletul nostru, o sămânţa plantată la voia ei şi care încolţeşte în timp. Nu mă pasionează problema fatalismului de ordin supranatural (nu cel în stilul lui Poe), însă citind seria asta de scrieri mă simt că un om în alb-negru, iar tot ce este în jurul meu deprinde aceeaşi culoare.

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Never Bet the Devil Your Head": 3 - read 1/1/2022. Oscar Wilde definitely followed this philosophy, as evident by "Dorian Gray": "provided the morals of an author are pure, personally, it signifies nothing what are the morals of his books." Some Words with a Mummy” reprises “The Thousand-And-Second Tale”, only the mummy compares the current world unfavourably with his own world thousands of years before. There is a growing suspicion on the part of the reader that this other William is a doppelganger, especially since he seems to follow the storyteller around the world dogging his footsteps. Despite the cogent rational descriptions, the narrator seems almost to be haunted by his namesake, and is losing his sanity. It is interesting too that the other William seems to be a better version of himself, as if he is acting the part of his conscience. Despre Poe nu mai are rost să se spună că e sumbru, însă această scriere depăşeşte limitele admise (stiu ca literatura nu are niciun fel de limite). Povestirea, cu nuanţă mitologică, are un iz din descrierea biblică (de factură iudaică): Nowadays we would probably categorise this condition as sleep paralysis but it was a common fear of the time. Indeed it is one of Poe's favourite themes, as is the crypt. After the careful build-up of "true cases" we are presented with a personal experience. The narrator has lived a shallow life avoiding reality through his catalepsy. He has indulged in fantasies and visions because of his obsession with death, and many precautions were taken on his part to avoid being buried alive. The ending to this tale provides a nice twist.