Hello,

could you please tell me how his writings reflect his life?

felix

-- Anonymous, February 10, 2002

Answers

im doing a paper on this topic and this is what i have so far. If you Look at most of his writings they are about fear, death and being alone. Poe was a very paranoid person. if you look at his work "Premature Burial" he expalins how he had a condition ( somehting that starts with a "C" i can't think of what it is) where he apaers to be dead, faint heart beat and breath, and tells how he was burried alive. "Teh Cask of Amontillado" and :The tell Tale Heart" also show his fear of being burried alive. "The Mask Of the Red Death" reflect his fear of dying in general, and "The Raven " is about the insanity of being alone. In short he was paranoid of being alone, death and worst yet being burried alive. I hope this helped!

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2002

I find the ordinary reasons given for Poe's "woes" way out of line . . . for anyone who has not contributed substantially to spout out the opinion that a genius of Poe's calibre was as paranoid as she purports he was . . . how any such genius could make such a contribution to world literature--in spite of the fact that he was so paranoid--is poor judgment and hasty accusation. Poe's attempt at understanding death was more in line with a genius who understood that everybody--I mean every body--is paranoid of death. It's awfully easy to expound about the weaknesses of one or another--even if that other is the long-recognized American literary genius (one of American's greatest!), but it is another thing to tell the truth about one's own weaknesses. Poe wrote about universal human themes, death being central to the life of each human being born into the human family. THAT was Poe's purpose, to chose a theme (or themes) which would touch upon the concerns of any reader and thus increase his readership! He wasn't quite the inept paraoid man you make him out to be. Please, write about your own weakensses.

-- Anonymous, February 20, 2002