As I sit here to work out my thoughts I have the Oscars on in the background and couldn't help but find it a little spooky that the Oscars just presented a "mash-up" if you will as a tribute to horror films AND this week we studied the man of horror himself. Poe was the one to start it all, in America at least, and the "Fall of the House of Usher" was one of the very first horror films ever made (dating back to 1928). What are the chances? Although, Poe is the master of the dark and austere I would like to work through my surprises this week...which was really one main surprise I suppose--the fact that Poe can write beautifully stunning love narratives. Now, by no means do I think that he needs to change his last to Austen or Bronte but I can honestly say old Ed sure threw me for a bit of a loop. Now, of course his "love stories" ( a term that I will cautiously use out of respect for Ed's primary image)are complete with the typical Poe paraphernalia but I will give credit where credit it due and within the pages of Ligeia, Bernice and Morella there is some truly beautifully writing. Take for instance:
"Hour after hour, would I linger by her side, and dwell upon the music of her voice" --from Morella
"The character of my beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet placid cast of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low musical language, made their way into my heart by so steadily and stealthily progressive, that they had been unnoticed and unknown" --from Ligeia
If you had plucked out those quotes and handed them to me, I would have never in a million years guessed that Poe had penned those words. However,they become sensical when you put them in context with narrations such as:
"During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me, Had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind. Through the gray of the early morning--among the trellised shadows for the forest at noonday--and in the silence of the library at night--she had flitted by my eyes, and I had seen her--not as the living and breathing Bernice, but as the Bernice of a dream; not as being of the earth, earthy, but as the obstraction of such a being; not as a thing to admire, but to analyze; not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculation. And now-- now I shuddered in her presence, and grew pale at her approach; yet, bitterly lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to mind that she had loved me long, and, in a never moment, I spoke to her of marriage."
The above proves to me that the second set of readings for this week are truly Poe because of the complexity. None of the narrators in those 3 pieces could simply love or love simply and it is within the intricacies of their psychology that we are once again able to see Poe's brilliant mind at work.
In class on Thursday we tackled the subject of "does/can love conquer all," and by no means did this prove to be a question with a simplistic answer. Rather, it has no definite answer at all. Love has the power to overcome someone, on a personal level, without a doubt but "conquering all" is a pretty large-scale designation. Love has an ability to completely consume, which has been very obviously seen with the tale of Ligeia, which is interesting coming from Poe because we usually expect psychological paranoia to overcome his protagonists.
We asked some brutal questions, including is it possible that Ligeia willed her own death...after all she is will personified...and really got into the depths of the reading. It was interesting how almost every member of the classroom had a different take on the reading and responded to the psychological deterioration in a variety of ways. Does Poe speak to our own myriad levels of psychology? I don't think we will every be able to fully comprehend the immortal genius of the man.
We read the classic Poe this week for Tuesdays class and gained new insight to the man on Thursdays class. Who would have thought Poe could enlighten? Though he must be an incredible if the New York Times is willing to grant him the space of an entire page... NYT page
I agree with your opinion of Poe's love descriptions. They move something deep inside of me too. But I think Poe is eloquent in this way becuase he lost so much love in his lifetime as well. Almost every woman he loved he lost somehow, most often to violent and or sudden death. He used to haunt the graveyards at night and visit the grave of his first love. *shudder* And now we see hoe Ligeia came about... But yes, it is beautiful as only someone who knows so much darkness understands light when it visits him.
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