I need to know what is the deal with the short story of the Sphinx. Can it be related to anything of his life, was he just bored out of his mind wen he wrote it. i need facts please, or just bull shit, anything convincible for a teacher. PLZ HELP!!!

-- Anonymous, April 16, 2002

Answers

The Sphinx is a story tweaking or reversing, sometimes humorously, Poe's darker tales and tales of detection. The common sense, astute friend, calms down the agitated imagination of the melancholy romantic narrator. It is a common inderpinning of Poe's stories(believe it or not) that logic can explain and cope with astounding mysteries and apparently supernatural threats. For a similar humorous letdown see The Premature Burial that gets the narrator so wrapped up and spooked he dreams he has been buried alive- and looks very foolish. An examination of the scientific and poetic percepptions important to Poe and how he gently derides the excesses of the imagination he loves to explore.

This imaginary misperception, the shock of a surpising phenomenon is common to dark romantic tales, that leads one swiftly beyond the boundaries of the normal with heightened sensations. Poe is rarer in that he gives reason the final word and preeminence(the practical Amemrican mind). Thomas Love Peacock did the same consistently with better and much more frequent satires on the Shelly/Byron/Scott lierary circles.

-- Anonymous, April 17, 2002

The sphinx was a Greek mythological creature, a flying monster with a woman's head and a lion's body. It posed riddles at people and killed those who could not solve them. The illusion of the sphinx insect being gigantic rather than a sixteenth of an inch is the riddle- the main character's conception of an inevitable death is related to the sphinx killing people.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2003

Don't worry. I don't have the answer but i am the same as you

I hope that you find the info that you need for school.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2004