Being that he died in 1849 it could be a bit late for a Eulogy, but then you know the saying, right?
“I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.”
I am a woman with a classical
bent. Or just bent. Probably both (you can almost hear the snare drum during
one of my posts, eh?). In the past, I’ve mentioned a few of my favorite classic
literature titles and authors on my blog and will
continue to do so in the future. Just try and stop me. Hah!
An old love of mine is getting some recent press due to the
film The Raven, starring John Cusack. I fell in love with Mr. Poe at the ripe age
of eleven. Yeah, I had weird taste at eleven. In case you haven’t noticed, my
taste is even weirder now. While most eleven year old girls were swooning over Donny
Osmond, I was devouring Mr. Poe. Gruesome, no?
Years later I became aware of a modern day Goth movement in
both music and art…and make-up. People (myself included, for a brief
period) who find an odd solace in donning a wardrobe of primarily black, along with
heavy black eyeliner, lipstick, and fingernail polish…and I wondered if they
knew the man who truly lived Goth (and to my knowledge without the heavy black
eyeliner, lipstick, and fingernail polish).
“…All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
How beautiful is A Dream Within a Dream? Achingly so. And here
I am not alone, this poem cleaves the heart (notice my use of
nineteenth century phrasing?). His hero was Lord Byron and Poe’s earliest
writings were indeed poetry. So, a romantic dreamer was Mr. Poe? Uh, well sort
of…
Literary critic, Cryptologist, and Cosmologist, he also put his
own unique spin on Gothic writing, leaving us with what flavors the genre
today. I think what makes his horror
tales so absolutely horrific is that he did not write them as horror…but
perhaps more as cautionary tales. Don’t let how someone else views the world
upset your applecart to the point that you smoother him in his sleep, cut him
up into pieces, and hide the parts under the floorboards. You’ll only end up
hearing the incessant beating of your victim’s heart and it will drive you up
the wall. If you’re abusive to a cat and then kill your wife, don’t bother to
brick up her body in the basement. The cat will only tattle on you. In case you
ever wondered what would happen if you do these things, Mr. Poe tells us.
Horror fan or not, regardless of which side of the fence you
sit (and even if you didn’t know that there was a fence) you must admit Mr. Poe
has an enviable style, as well as a flair for evoking strong reactions. Mundane
he was not. Otherworldly? Most certainly, yes.
I think some (if not all) of the original intent of
the horror genre has been lost in a sea of gore and
oh-boy-look-what-we-can-do-with-make-up-and-special-effects. Mr. Poe knew what
it was about. No matter how smart or rich or angry you are, perform evil deeds
and you will never truly escape the consequences.
Since he wrote about madmen, alcoholics, and murderers, and
made it all so creepily believable, it’s no wonder that most of us still think
of Mr. Poe as some sort of coked-out, drunken, necrophiliac freak. And all of
this is thanks to a bogus obituary written by a man who hated him.
Personally, I believe that Mr. Poe was simply comfortable on
the darker side of life. The scars of one’s childhood run deep and quite often
will shadow our entire lives. Poe experienced the heavy loss of loved ones at a
very early age, compounded by further losses later in life. Grief changes us
forever. For a rare few, loss leaves them with a willingness to explore the
shadow that causes so many others to shudder and look the other way.
And certainly, as his tales attest, though he may have
shuddered he did not look the other way. He chose instead to become a master of
his craft, an artist true, squeezing out every drop of sadness, terror, beauty,
darkness, and ugliness with each word he penned. I cannot help but tip my
imaginary hat to him and give him a very real and hearty nod of appreciation.
“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those
who dream only by night.”
Whatever dreams you may be dreaming in daylight, keep
dreaming them with the certain knowledge that they are what sets you apart from
the weak and weary and oh-so-dreary mundane.
Wondering about “Cront
Ardead?” I’ll tell you, anyway. As far as I know, it means nothing. You know
those prove-that-you’re-not-a-robot thingies? Yeah, everyone hates them and
most of the time I too, find them unnecessarily annoying; however, sometimes
I’ve discovered interesting inspiration and a bit of amusement from the
not-words that the characters spell out. “Cront Ardead” seemed appropriate for
a post about the late Mr. Poe.
