if poe was alive right now what would you ask him and why? i have a report and that is the question. can you guys help me. i will do something for you.

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2004

Answers

Honestly, I would ask him why he thought the death of a beautiful woman was so poetic to him. I understand why - but he found it "unquestionably poetic" - which is something I'd like to dig a little deeper with.

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2004

Although many authors use their writing as a form of release for their anxieties, Poe seemed to feed his with his writing. I would ask him if he felt that his writing was cathartic at all. What his motivations were for continuing to write, even as his health deteriorated from drug abuse; and if he feels that his writing would be much different if he did not use drugs.

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2004

I think one has to get into Poe's times. Poe would be so ticlkled about his influence and fame today it would be hard getting anything substantial out of him for a while. How does one ask someone to solve the mystery of himself? Poe presented and wrestled with it on the field of art not biography. Do we ask him to refute the slanders and scandals that arose after his death that persist stupidly today?

I would ask a few technical curiosities, such as whether he had considered then dropped plans froa brief sequel to his novel, whether he had become completely disenchated with the resolutions he found in "Eureka", what new directions he had hinted about for his work, what additions he would like to have made to his small but brilliant opus of short poems, whether on closer consideration his poetry is saying and centerring on something other than his conscious intention and asserted feelings. First there is the effect and beauty of a masterwork poem or tale, then there is the personal meaning underlying or grounding those choices that the poet does not have to examine too closely(an ironic blindness?). Then his poetics, though highly technical in theory he uses skillful constructions and music that he does NOT analyse.

OK, did he really have confidence in and appreciation of his own work always whatever the varied responses of critics and the public?

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2004

Edgar Allan Poe was a person comprised of two aspects in which enhanced his writing to the point of questioning. Within his works, he as the suffering victim he was, used high skills that collaberate with his dark mindset. I all in all, would ask Poe what he found to be most difficult in setting those codes of beauty in which his works withheld, and would question him on any hardships that he felt while writing under the dark eyes of depression, mourning, and pain.

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2004