/lit/ - Literature

>>15378465
He pioneered a lot of stuff but ain't that great today, which is too bad.
A lot of his stuff would be pretty good if a good editor went through it.

>>15378465
Baudelaire and Mallarme admired him. Americans are too uncultured, then and now, to do the same.

>>15378592
>but ain't that great today
Fuck. Off.

>>15378803
But talkin' folksy like and callin' it high art is the proudest tradition of American literature, Huck!

>>15378810
All corn, no cob, no discernible talent

>>15378604
He is famous in America you retard, in fact he's especially famous among the 'uncultured' portion of the country, it's their elite that doesn't really like him.

>>15378465
He not only pioneered gothic and horror in America, he created the modern mystery story like the ones you see with Sherlock Holmes. He is very underrated, but if you talk to anyone in horror circles he's always at the top of the list. He was one of the people on the shortlist for having the HWA named after him.

Personally I really like his poetry, and he revolutionized the short story genre with his theories on it

>>15378465
>start reading him expecting some crazy horror stuff
>get crazy balloon adventures and treasure finding

>>15378829
But the corn is the best part. You don’t eat the cob, do you anon?

>>15378465
If you’ve never read the stories before, then you should read the famous ones. Aside from that, Pym comes up in academia. It’s not something I love or hate, but it’s often connected to a wider array of American writers, esp in the 20th century.

>>15378904
solid lel

>>15378465
his writing can be archaic and dense IMO and i find i'm constantly having to look up words, which interrupts the flow of the work. However, you won't find the gore and shock that has come to dominate the work of people that might be interested in his work now. But if you want to invest some time, Purloined Letter and Fall of the House of Usher are 2 really lesser-heralded stories. Masque of the Red Death is very topical, given COVID-19 and might be one of the more accessible

>>15378865

Edgar Allan Poe must have the strangest legacy in modern literature: he invented both pulp fiction and the literary avant-garde.

While these two tendencies may—in their shared commitments to sensationalism and formalism—be allies in a high-low war against the middle mind (exemplified in literature by the realist novel and the expressive lyric), it is quite a feat to have birthed them both. But Poe codified several important popular genres that would later flourish in the era of mass literacy and mass media (horror, detective fiction, science fiction) and thereby influenced such proto-pulp and pulp writers as Doyle, Stevenson, Wells, and Lovecraft, even as his theoretical insistence on a “pure” (i.e., non-mimetic) literary writing designed to affect the reader through the manipulation of form and surface, not to mention his depiction of disordered psychological states and waking dream-worlds, bequeathed a legacy to modernism and the avant-garde through Baudelaire and the French Symbolists and Decadents as well as such other admirers as Dostoevsky, Wilde, and Kafka.

Whether pulp fictioneer or avant-garde poet, Poe is the founder of a literature concerned with the production of forms (well-constructed generic tales or abstract sound-surface lyrics) rather than of truth or meaning. Neither a thriller nor an avant-garde poem can really be read as one is supposed to read Keats or Hawthorne, whose texts are dense entanglements of allusion and implication; thrillers and avant-garde poems are rather absorbed as intellectual structures and interpreted as sensational events. In this sense, Poe is one of first writers who, as in the German critical judgment that opens his story “The Man of the Crowd,” does not permit himself to be read.

>>15378993
>pseud word
>pseud word
>pseud word

>>15378993
This ironic meme answer pretty much sums up Poe. Poe was also into incest cunny so there's that too

>>15378993
Kek, alright nerd

>>15378837
He wasn't famous in his time, if it wasn't because the French discovered him and found worth in his work then we probably wouldn't be talking about him.

>>15378465
>I don’t enjoy the poetry
>are any off his works essential reading?
Yeah, his poem The Bells.

The Cask of Amontillado is my favorite of his stories

>>15379878
blatantly untrue, he was just known more as a critic, the French did not 'discover' him, and French translations would not have impacted people like Henry James and Lovecraft praising him.

>>15379921
He has an essay on writing.
https://www.eapoe.org/works/essays/philcomp.htm

>>15379921
>French translations would not have impacted people like Henry James and Lovecraft praising him.
Difficult to say. They created an aura of prestige and mysticism around his work. Back then if the French read them, you had to read them as well. His work reminds me of E.T.A. Hoffmann a lot btw, who predates Poe.

>>15378810
poe didn't do that, dumbass

>>15378904
he wrote those also, doesn't mean he didn't write horror as well.
read the pit and the pendulum or masque of the red death, dummy.

>>15378904
you picked The Gold Bug and Balloon Hoax looking for horror?
read the pit and the pendulum and masque of the red death, dummy.

>>15378465
Yes, his horror stories are notable and so are his non-horror stories.I have mixed thoughts about his satires though, but the first are definetly worth a read.

>>15380664
>.I have mixed thoughts about his satires though
What would those be? I liked the one with the Jew-devil in the belfry. It felt Dr Seuss-esque.

>>15378465
I had a book of his stories when I was about 8 or 9 I think, I don't know if they were abridged in any way but each facing page had a pretty decent line art drawing from the text, it wasn't like a child's reader or anything. I was absolutely gripped by the horror of it and I assume no one knew what the stories were like otherwise I wouldn't have been allowed it but it was so horrifying it was like knowing there's a murderer under your bed but you're too scared to tell anyone. I couldn't stop reading it and it had a big effect on me, I remember the stories like they were traumatic events in my childhood.
He had a great sense of rhythm in his poetry as well and he lived the goth life to the fullest extent possible.

>>15378465
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTdzAb0c_HQ

>>15378465
I read ‘Fall of the house of Usher’ last night, really not seeing the appeal of him.

I’m British and love The Raven, but have yet to enjoy anything I’ve read by him so far.

Legia (however it’s spelt) was the closest to being enjoyable.

The man who was all used up was literal meme core

>>15378465

He's alright, good atmosphere, can be corny at times, not necessarilly under or overrated imo. I think the French just liked him for the brooding quality they've always been fond of, although evidently, they improve on that style tenfold. It's not "uncultured" as >>15378604 thinks, it's more like American poetry is more strongly characterized by the likes of Whitman, Williams, and Stevens than stuff like Poe.

>>15378465
His own people failed to recognize him when he was alive, and his legacy was hijacked by goth kids.

The Purloined Letter inspired several philosophers, check the Wikipedia page for the sources.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLZVPbHtVbU

>>15383791
He was famous when he was alive why do people always make up this shit

>>15378465
I'm from Baltimore and so we actually talk about Poe a lot. I went to the Poe Fest they hold downtown a few years ago. It was a little weird, but there are tons of peopled around here who like him. For a bunch of years someone would do a toast and leave a bottle of cognac at his grave, you can look up The Poe Toaster for more info, it was a pretty based tradition. Anyway, I've read a good bit of his stuff casually and I would consider The Raven, The Cask of Amontillado, The Pit and The Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, his Dupin stories, The Black Cat, The Fall of The House of Usher, Annabel Lee as my favorites. I think as far as "essential Poe" probably The Fall of the House of Usher, The Raven, Cask of Amontillado, Pit and the Pendulum would be enough.

>>15383916

Some great stuff like masque of red death, tell tale heart and cask of amontillado come to mind.
But did anyone else WTF hard when they read Murder in the rue morgue? I mean the way it’s talked about, I am 100% sure most people never read it to the end to find out who the killer was.

>>15378465
his poetry is quite bad and extremely overrated, and ripped off of other, better poets.