"For Annie"
by Edgar Allan Poe
Thank Heaven! the crisis-
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last-
And the fever called "Living"
Is conquered at last.
Sadly, I know
I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
As I lie at full length-
But no matter!-I feel
I am better at length.
And I rest so composedly,
Now, in my bed
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead-
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.
The moaning and groaning,
The sighing and sobbing,
Are quieted now,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart:- ah, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!
The sickness- the nausea-
The pitiless pain-
Have ceased, with the fever
That maddened my brain-
With the fever called "Living"
That burned in my brain.
And oh! of all tortures
That torture the worst
Has abated- the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the naphthaline river
Of Passion accurst:-
I have drunk of a water
That quenches all thirst:-
Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground-
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.
And ah! let it never
Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;
For man never slept
In a different bed-
And, to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.
My tantalized spirit
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting its roses-
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses:
For now, while so quietly
Lying, it fancies
A holier odor
About it, of pansies-
A rosemary odor,
Commingled with pansies-
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansies.
And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie-
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.
She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast-
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.
When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm-
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.
And I lie so composedly,
Now, in my bed,
(Knowing her love)
That you fancy me dead-
And I rest so contentedly,
Now, in my bed,
(With her love at my breast)
That you fancy me dead-
That you shudder to look at me,
Thinking me dead.
But my heart it is brighter
Than all of the many
Stars in the sky,
For it sparkles with Annie-
It glows with the light
Of the love of my Annie-
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.
"For Annie" (1849)
"For Annie" was written for Nancy Richmond (whom Poe called Annie) of Lowell, Massachusetts. Richmond was a married woman and Poe developed a strong platonic, though complicated, relationship with her. The poem was first set to be published on April 28, 1849 in the journal Flag of our Union, which Poe said was a "paper for which sheer necessity compels me to write." Fearing its publication there would consign it "to the tomb of the Capulets," he sent it to Nathaniel Parker Willis for publication in the Home Journal on the same day as Flag of Our Union.[18] The poem talks about an illness from which Richmond helped Poe recover. It speaks about "the fever called 'Living'" that has been conquered, ending his "moaning and groaning" and his "sighing and sobbing." In a letter dated March 23, 1849, Poe sent the poem he wrote to Richmond saying, "I think the lines 'For Annie' (those I now send) much the best I have ever written."
Nancy Richmond would officially change her name to Annie after her husband's death in 1873.
"Eldorado"
by Edgar Allan Poe
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old-
This knight so bold-
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow-
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be-
This land of Eldorado?"
"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied-
"If you seek for Eldorado!"
"Eldorado" is a ballad poem by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in April 1849.
Summary
The poem describes the journey of a "gallant knight" in search of the legendary El Dorado. The knight spends much of his life on this quest. In his old age, he finally meets a "pilgrim shadow" who points the way through "the Valley of Shadow." It was first published in the April 21, 1849, issue of the Boston-based The Flag of Our Union.[1]
Analysis
The poem is made up of four six-line stanzas. Poe uses the term shadow in the middle of each stanza. The meaning of the word, however, changes with each use. First, it is a literal shadow, where the sun is blocked out. In the second, it implies gloom or despair. The third use is a ghost. The final use, "the Valley of Shadow," references the "Valley of the Shadow of Death," possibly suggesting that Eldorado (or riches in general) does not exist in the living world. Eldorado can also interpreted not as the worldly, yellowish metal, but as treasures that actually have the possibility of existence in the abode of spirits. These "spiritual" treasures are that of the mind: knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. In this case, Edgar Poe doubted the worthiness of humanity to possess such "mental wealth" and admitted to the inescapable worldliness of mankind.
The time of the poem's publication, 1849, was during the California Gold Rush and was Poe's reaction to that event.[2]
"Eldorado" was one of Poe's last poems. As Poe scholar Scott Peeples wrote, the poem is "a fitting close to a discussion of Poe's career."[3] Like the narrator of the poem, Poe was on a quest for success or happiness and, despite spending his life searching for it, he eventually loses his strength and faces death.[3]
Adaptation
1966: An abridged form of the poem, sung in verse appears in the John Wayne-Howard Hawks Western film of the same name, El Dorado. The poem was sung at the beginning of the film by George Alexander, accompanied by The Mellomen, with the lyrics adapted by John Gabriel and set to music by Nelson Riddle. It is sung and spoken in the movie by a young James Caan.
1993: "Eldorado," along with "Hymn" and "Evening Star", was adapted by choral composer Jonathan Adams as Three Songs from Edgar Allan Poe for SATB chorus and piano.
1996: The poem was used for the lyrics of a Donovan's song on his album Sutras.
2000: "Eldorado" was adapted as song by the Darkwave band Sopor Aeternus on the album Songs from the inverted Womb.
2008: Craig Owens released a demo version of a song titled "El Dorado" on his Myspace page. The song uses Poe's poem as lyrics.
2009: The Jim O'Ferrell Band, of Richmond, Virginia (where Poe was raised), released a song based on the poem (retitled "El Dorado") on their album Back to the World.
References
Silverman, Kenneth (1991). Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance (Paperback ed. ed.). New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 0060923318.
Sova, Dawn B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z (Paperback ed. ed.). New York: Checkmark Books. ISBN 081604161X.
1.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, Paperback ed., Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. ISBN 0801857309. p. 605.
2.^ Campbell, Killis. "The Origins of Poe," The Mind of Poe and Other Studies. New York: Russell and Russell, Inc., 1962: 159.
3.^ Peeples, Scott. Edgar Allan Poe Revisited. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1998: 172. ISBN 0-8057-4572-6
"The Oval Portrait" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe involving the disturbing circumstances surrounding a portrait in a chateau. It is one of his shortest stories, filling only two pages in its initial publication in 1842.
Plot summary
The tale begins with an injured narrator seeking refuge in an abandoned mansion in the Apennines, with no explanation for his wound. He spends his time admiring the works of art decorating the strangely-shaped room and perusing a volume which "purported to criticize and describe" the paintings. He eventually discovers a painting which shocks him with its extreme realism, which he refers to as "absolute life-likeliness of expression." He spends a moment ("for an hour, perhaps," the reader is told) in silent awe of it until he cannot bear to look any more, then consults the book for an explanation.
The remainder of the story is a selection from this book discussing how the painting was created — a story within a story. The book explains that the picture was painted by an eccentric artist depicting his young wife, but that he grew obsessed with his painting to the point that he paid no attention to the woman he was painting. When he finishes the painting he is appalled at his own work, and exclaims, "This is indeed Life itself!" Then he turns to see his bride, and discovers that she has died and her spirit was transferred into the lifelike painting.
Analysis
The central idea of the story resides in the confusing relationship between art and life. In "The Oval Portrait," art and the addiction to it are ultimately depicted as killers, responsible for the young bride's death. In this context, one can synonymously equate art with death, whereas the relationship between art and life is consequently considered as a rivalry. It takes Poe's theory that poetry as art is the rhythmical creation of beauty, and that the most poetical topic in the world is the death of a beautiful woman (see "The Philosophy of Composition"). "The Oval Portrait" suggests that the woman's beauty condemns her to death.[1]
Poe suggests in the tale that art can reveal the artist's guilt or evil and that the artist feeds on and may even destroy the life he has modeled into art.[2]
Major themes
Monomania – see also "Berenice," "The Man of the Crowd"
The death of a beautiful woman – see also "Ligeia," "Morella"
Publication history
"The Oval Portrait" was first published as a longer version titled "Life in Death" in Graham's Magazine in 1842. "Life in Death" included a few introductory paragraphs explaining how the narrator had been wounded, and that he had eaten opium to relieve the pain. Poe probably excised this introduction because it was not particularly relevant, and it also gave the impression that the story was nothing more than a hallucination. The shorter version, renamed "The Oval Portrait" was published in the April 26, 1845 edition of the Broadway Journal.[3]
Critical reception and impact
The story inspired elements in the 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Five years before the novel's publication, Wilde had praised Poe's rhythmical expression.[3] In Wilde's novel, the portrait gradually reveals the evil of its subject rather than that of its artist.[2]
A similar plot is also used in Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1843 tale "The Birth-Mark."[4]
French film-maker Jean-Luc Godard cited passages from the story in his 1962 film Vivre sa vie. Many saw this as Godard acknowledging the complexities of using his then-wife Anna Karina in the leading role for his films.
References
1.^ Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972: 311 ISBN 0807123218
2.^ Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York: Cooper Square Press, 1992: 290. ISBN 0815410387
3.^ Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2001: 178. ISBN 081604161X
4.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998: 331. ISBN 0801857309
"To F——"
by Edgar Allan Poe
Beloved! amid the earnest woes
That crowd around my earthly path-
(Drear path, alas! where grows
Not even one lonely rose)-
My soul at least a solace hath
In dreams of thee, and therein knows
An Eden of bland repose.
And thus thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea-
Some ocean throbbing far and free
With storms- but where meanwhile
Serenest skies continually
Just o'er that one bright island smile.
To F—— (1845)
The poem that begins "Beloved! amid the earnest woes..." was published by the Broadway Journal twice in 1845 - once in the April issue then cut down to four lines in the September 6 issue with the more revealing title "To Frances." Referring to Frances S. Osgood, the speaker discusses the chaos and woes of his life, and how they are calmed by dreams of this woman he is addressing.
It was actually a re-working of "To Mary," first published in the Southern Literary Messenger's July 1835 issue. It was also revised into "To One Departed," printed in Graham's Magazine, March 1842, before it was ever addressed to Frances Osgood.
"Morella" is a short story by 19th century American author and critic Edgar Allan Poe.
Plot summary
An unnamed narrator marries Morella, a woman who delves into "forbidden pages" of mysticism. As a result of her experimentations her soul can never die, but her physical form continues to deteriorate. She spends her time in bed and teaches her husband the black arts. Realizing her curse, her husband, the narrator, becomes frightened and wishes for his wife's death and eternal peace. She dies in childbirth but her soul passes into the new baby. As the daughter gets older the narrator notices she bears an uncanny resemblance to her mother, but he refuses to give the child a name. By her tenth birthday the resemblance to Morella is frightening. Her father decides to have her baptized to release any evil from her, but this event brings the mother's soul back into her daughter. At the ceremony, the priest asks the daughter's name, to which the narrator replies, "Morella." Immediately, the daughter replies, "I am here!" and dies. The narrator himself bears her body to the tomb and finds no trace of the first Morella where he lays the second.
Analysis
The narrator's decision to name his daughter Morella implies his subconscious desire for her death, just as he had for her mother.[1] Morella's rebirth may be her becoming a vampire to wreak vengeance on the narrator.[2]
Poe explores the idea of what happens to identity after death, suggesting that if identity survived death it could exist outside the human body and return to new bodies.[3] He was influenced in part by the theories of identity by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, who he mentions in the story.[4]
There are a number of possible origins for the name "Morella." It is the name of the Venerable Mother Juliana Morell (1595–1653), who was the fourth Grace and tenth Muse in a poem by poet Lope de Vega.[3] "Morel" is the name of black nightshade, a poisonous weed related to one from which the drug belladonna is derived. It occurs in Presburg, a home of black magic.[3]
Major themes
Poe features dead or dying wives in many of his tales (see also "Berenice," "Ligeia") and resurrection or communication from beyond the grave (see "Eleonora," "The Fall of the House of Usher")."
Publication history
"Morella" was first published in the April 1835 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger, and a revised version was re-printed in the November 1839 issue of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. The first publication included a 16-line poem of Poe's called "Hymn" sung by Morella, later published as a stand-alone poem "A Catholic Hymn."
Adaptations
"Morella" is the title of one segment of Roger Corman's 1962 film Tales of Terror. The film stars Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone. The film has two other segments named after "The Black Cat" and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar."
A film of the same name is currently being produced in Oklahoma and Hollywood by Executive Producers Adam Ropp and Ford Austin with the screenplay by Adam Ropp. The cast includes Indie film star Ford Austin, Golgen Globe nominee Tom Sizemore, Academy Award winner Margaret O'Brien, film star Randal Malone, indie icon Marc Wasserman, and the beautiful and talented Jennifer Arcuri. Release date is said to be December 2011.[5]
References
Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. Checkmark Books, 2001.
1.^ Kennedy, J. Gerald. "Poe, 'Ligeia,' and the Problem of Dying Women" collected in New Essays on Poe's Major Tales, edited by Kenneth Silverman. Cambridge University Press, 1993. p. 119. ISBN 0521422434
2.^ Tate, Allen. "Our Cousin, Mr. Poe," collected in Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays, Robert Regan, editor. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1967. p. 39
3.^ Morella
4.^ Campbell, Killis. The Mind of Poe and Other Studies. New York: Russell and Russell, Inc., 1962: 13.
5.^ http://morella.wonderhowto.com/
The Terror (1963) is an American horror film produced by Roger Corman, and famous for being filmed on leftover film sets from other AIP productions, including The Haunted Palace. The movie was also released as Lady of the Shadows, The Castle of Terror and The Haunting, and was later featured as an episode of Cinema Insomnia and of Elvira's Movie Macabre.
Production
Although credited to Corman, parts of the film were shot by Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill, and Jack Nicholson. Corman shot footage of Karloff and other actors walking across the sets and downstairs with the belief that he would be able to make sense of them later. In the next three days Coppola, Helman and Hill all tried to do something. Nicholson, who was keen to get directing experience himself, also took a turn behind the camera.
In the early 1990s, actor Dick Miller, who plays Karloff's major domo, was hired to shoot new scenes to use as a framing sequence for an overseas version of The Terror. Under this scheme, the main action of the film is presented in flashback. Today, the film is in the public domain since there is no copyright notice in the credits for the film.
Leftover sets from other AIP films were used when shooting the film, notably those from The Haunted Palace, a Vincent Price horror film made the same year. The tree against which Sandra Knight expires was the same one Price was tied to and burned in Palace.
Clips from the film were used years later in the Peter Bogdanovich movie Targets (1968), also starring Karloff. In 2010, the film was featured in the second episode of the revived, syndicated TV series, Elvira's Movie Macabre.
Plot
Set in 1806, the film tells the story of a lost French soldier named Andre Duvalier (Jack Nicholson) saved by a strange young woman named Helene (Sandra Knight). She looks like Ilsa, the baron's (Boris Karloff) wife, who died 20 years before.
Andre begins an investigation to uncover who the woman really is, and stumbles upon a hidden secret of the Baron: he had found Ilsa sleeping with another man named Eric, and in his rage the Baron killed the two of them. Or so he explained.
All the while, the phantom of Ilsa remained under the control of a peasant witch (Dorothy Neumann), who has commanded the ghost to torment the Baron for the previous two years. Over the course of the film, Ilsa's ghost beseeches the Baron to kill himself, so they could be together. After much hesitation, the Baron decides to do so, perhaps to atone for his crimes.
During the climactic scenes, Andre, as well as the Baron's butler Stefan (Dick Miller), try to stop him, eventually forcing the witch into compliance. Here it is revealed that the witch Katrina is in fact the mother of Eric, who was allegedly killed by the Baron twenty years before, and that is why she has tried to make him commit suicide and damn his soul to hell in the process. In a stunning revelation, Stefan reveals that Eric never died, that it was the Baron who was killed. Eric then took the Baron's place, living his life until he deluded himself into thinking he was the Baron.
Katrina, realizing her folly only too late, goes with the two men to stop Eric from flooding the castle crypt and killing himself. However, she is unable to go into the mausoleum, being a witch and therefore of evil association, and ends up being struck by lightning and burning to death outside the gate.
In the climax of the film, Ilsa's ghost attempts to kill Eric while the crypt floods, and Stefan joins the struggle. However, by the time Andre gains access to the crypt, it is already flooding and crumbling, and is only able to carry Helene's body away. The two share a touching moment together outside, only to have Helene begin to rapidly decompose and melt. Katrina's familiar hawk flies away as Helene turns to nothing, and there the film ends.
Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film producer and director. Sometimes nicknamed "King of the B-movies" for his output of B-movies (though he himself rejects this as inaccurate), Corman has mostly worked on low-budget films. Some of his work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films derived from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and he has also won an Academy Award for his work. Corman is also an occasional actor, taking minor roles in such films as The Silence of the Lambs, The Godfather Part II, Apollo 13 and Philadelphia.
Corman has served as a mentor to many famous directors early in their careers, stressing the importance of budgeting and resourcefulness; Corman once joked he could make a film about the fall of the Roman Empire with two extras and a sagebrush.
Early life
Corman was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Anne and William Corman, an engineer. His brother Gene Corman has also produced numerous films, sometimes in collaboration with Roger. Roger Corman received an industrial engineering degree from Stanford University, beginning his film career in 1953 as a producer and screenwriter. Corman started directing films in 1955.
Career
In Corman's most active period, he would produce up to seven movies a year. His fastest film was perhaps The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), which was reputedly shot in two days and one night. Supposedly, he had made a bet that he could shoot an entire feature film in less than three days. Another version of the story claims that he had a set rented for a month, and finished using it with three days to spare, thus pushing him to use the set to make a new film (These claims are disputed by others who worked on the film, who have called it part of Corman's own myth-building). Although highly cost-effective, Corman's parsimonious approach to filmmaking was not without its critics; Charles B. Griffith, who wrote the original screenplay for Little Shop, later remarked that "[Corman] uses half his genius to degrade his own work, and the rest to degrade the artists who work for him."
Corman is probably best known for his filmings of various Edgar Allan Poe stories at American International Pictures, mostly in collaboration with writer/scenarist Richard Matheson, including House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Premature Burial (1962), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964). All but The Premature Burial starred Vincent Price. After the film version of The Raven was completed, he reportedly realized he still had some shooting days left before the sets were torn down and so made another film; The Terror (1963) on the spot with the remaining cast, crew and sets.
Phantom of the Rue Morgue is a 1954 film directed by Roy Del Ruth. It stars Karl Malden and Claude Dauphin.
Cast
Karl Malden as Dr. Marais
Claude Dauphin as Insp. Bonnard
Patricia Medina as Jeanette
Steve Forrest as Prof. Paul Dupin
Allyn Ann McLerie as Yvonne
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. It has been claimed as the first detective story;[1][2] Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination."[1] Similar works predate Poe's stories, including Das Fräulein von Scuderi (1819) by E.T.A. Hoffmann[3] and Zadig (1748) by Voltaire.[4]
C. Auguste Dupin is a man in Paris who solves the mysterious brutal murder of two women. Numerous witnesses heard a suspect, though no one agrees on what language was spoken. At the murder scene, Dupin finds a hair that does not appear to be human.
As the first true detective in fiction, the Dupin character established many literary devices which would be used in future fictional detectives including Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. Many later characters, for example, follow Poe's model of the brilliant detective, his personal friend who serves as narrator, and the final revelation being presented before the reasoning that leads up to it. Dupin himself reappears in "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" and "The Purloined Letter."
Plot summary
The story surrounds the baffling double murder of Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter in the Rue Morgue, a fictional street in Paris. Newspaper accounts of the murder reveal that the mother's throat is so badly cut that her head is barely attached and the daughter, after being strangled, has been stuffed into the chimney. The murder occurs in an inaccessible room on the fourth floor locked from the inside. Neighbors who hear the murder give contradictory accounts, claiming they hear the murderer speaking a different language. The speech is unclear, they say, and they admit to not knowing the language they are claiming to have heard.
Paris natives Dupin and his friend, the unnamed narrator of the story, read these newspaper accounts with interest. The two live in seclusion and allow no visitors. They have cut off contact with "former associates" and venture outside only at night. "We existed within ourselves alone," the narrator explains. When a man named Adolphe Le Bon has been imprisoned though no evidence exists pointing to his guilt, Dupin is so intrigued that he offers his services to "G–," the prefect of police.
Because none of the witnesses can agree on the language the murderer spoke, Dupin concludes they were not hearing a human voice at all. He finds a hair at the scene of the murder that is quite unusual; "this is no human hair," he concludes. Dupin puts an advertisement in the newspaper asking if anyone has lost an "Ourang-Outang." The ad is answered by a sailor who comes to Dupin at his home. The sailor offers a reward for the orangutan's return; Dupin asks for all the information the sailor has about the murders in the Rue Morgue. The sailor reveals that he had been keeping a captive orangutan obtained while ashore in Borneo. The animal escaped with the sailor's shaving straight razor. When he pursued the orangutan, it escaped by scaling a wall and climbing up a lightning rod, entering the apartment in the Rue Morgue through a window.
Once in the room, the surprised Madame L'Espanaye could not defend herself as the orangutan attempted to shave her in imitation of the sailor's daily routine. The bloody deed incited it to fury and it squeezed the daughter's throat until she died. The orangutan then became aware of its master's whip, which it feared, and it attempted to hide the body by stuffing it into the chimney. The sailor, aware of the "murder," panicked and fled, allowing the orangutan to escape. The prefect of police, upon hearing this story, mentions that people should mind their own business. Dupin responds that G– is "too cunning to be profound."
Themes and analysis
In a letter to friend Dr. Joseph Snodgrass, Poe said of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "its theme was the exercise of ingenuity in detecting a murderer."[5] Dupin is not a professional detective; he decides to investigate the murders in the Rue Morgue for his personal amusement. He also has a desire for truth and to prove a falsely accused man innocent. His interests are not financial and he even declines a monetary reward from the owner of the orangutan.[6] The revelation of the actual murderer removes the crime, as neither the orangutan nor its owner can be held responsible.[7] Later detective stories would have set up M. Le Bon, the suspect who is arrested, as appearing guilty as a red herring, though Poe chose not to.[8]
Dupin's method emphasizes the importance of reading and the written word. The newspaper accounts pique his curiosity; he learns about orangutans from a written account by "Cuvier" – possibly Georges Cuvier, the French zoologist. This method also engages the reader, who follows along by reading the clues himself.[9] Poe also emphasizes the power of the spoken word. When Dupin asks the sailor for information about the murders, the sailor himself acts out a partial death: "The sailor's face flushed up as if he were struggling with suffocation... the next moment he fell back into his seat, trembling violently, and with the countenance of death itself."[10]
Poe wrote "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" at a time when crime was at the forefront in people's minds due to urban development. London had recently established its first professional police force and American cities were beginning to focus on scientific police work as newspapers reported murders and criminal trials.[1] "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" establishes an urban theme which will be reused several times in Poe's fiction, in particular "The Man of the Crowd," likely inspired by Poe's time living in Philadelphia.[11]
The tale has an underlying metaphor for the battle of brains vs. brawn. Physical strength, depicted as the orangutan as well as its owner, stand for violence: the orangutan is a murderer, while its owner admits he has abused the animal with a whip. The analyst's brainpower overcomes their violence.[12] The story also contains Poe's often-used theme of the death of a beautiful woman, which he called the "most poetical topic in the world."[4][13]
Literary significance and reception
Poe biographer Jeffrey Meyers sums up the significance of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue": "[it] changed the history of world literature."[2] Often cited as the first detective fiction story, the character of Dupin became the prototype for many future fictional detectives, including Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. The genre is distinctive from a general mystery story in that the focus is on analysis.[14] Poe's role in the creation of the detective story is reflected in the Edgar Awards, given annually by the Mystery Writers of America.[15]
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" also established many tropes that would become common elements in mystery fiction: the eccentric but brilliant detective, the bumbling constabulary, the first-person narration by a close personal friend. Poe also portrays the police in an unsympathetic manner as a sort of foil to the detective.[16] Poe also initiates the storytelling device where the detective announces his solution and then explains the reasoning leading up to it.[17] It is also the first locked room mystery in detective fiction.[18]
Upon its release, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and its author were praised for the creation of a new profound novelty.[4] The Pennsylvania Inquirer printed that "it proves Mr Poe to be a man of genius... with an inventive power and skill, of which we know no parallel."[18] Poe, however, downplayed his achievement in a letter to Philip Pendleton Cooke:[19]
These tales of ratiocination owe most of their popularity to being something in a new key. I do not mean to say that they are not ingenious – but people think them more ingenious than they are – on account of their method and air of method. In the "Murders in the Rue Morgue," for instance, where is the ingenuity in unraveling a web which you yourself... have woven for the express purpose of unraveling?"[5]
Modern readers are occasionally put off by Poe's violation of an implicit narrative convention: The reader should be able to guess the solution as they read. The twist ending, however, is a sign of "bad faith" on Poe's part because readers would not reasonably include an orangutan on their list of potential murderers.[20]
Inspiration
The word detective did not exist at the time Poe wrote "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"[4] though there were other stories that featured similar problem-solving characters. Das Fräulein von Scuderi (1819), by E.T.A. Hoffmann, in which Mlle de Scudery, a kind of 18th century Miss Marple, establishes the innocence of the police's favorite suspect in the murder of a jeweler, is sometimes cited as the first detective story.[3] Other forerunners include Voltaire's Zadig (1748), with a main character who performs similar feats of analysis.[1]
Poe may also have been expanding on previous analytical works of his own including the essay on "Maelzel's Chess Player" and the comedic "Three Sundays in a Week."[18] As for the twist in the plot, Poe was likely inspired by the crowd reaction to an orangutan on display at the Masonic Hall in Philadelphia in July 1839.[2] The name of the main character may have been inspired from the "Dupin" character in a series of stories first published in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in 1828 called "Unpublished passages in the Life of Vidocq, the French Minister of Police."[21] Poe would likely have known the story, which features an analytical man who discovers a murderer, though the two plots share little resemblance. Murder victims in both stories, however, have their neck cut so badly that the head is almost entirely removed from the body.[22] Dupin actually mentions Vidocq by name, dismissing him as "a good guesser."[23]
Publication history
Poe originally titled the story "Murders in the Rue Trianon" but renamed it to better associate with death.[24] "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" first appeared in Graham's Magazine in April 1841 while Poe was working as an editor. He was paid an additional $56 for it - an unusually high figure; he was only paid $9 for "The Raven."[25] In 1843, Poe had the idea to print a series of pamphlets with his stories. He printed only one, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" oddly collected with the satirical "The Man That Was Used Up." It sold for 12 and a half cents.[26] This version included 52 changes from the original text from Graham's, including the new line: "The Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be profound," a change from the original "too cunning to be acute."[27] "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" was also reprinted in Wiley & Putnam's collection of Poe's stories simply called Tales. Poe did not take part in selecting which tales would be collected.[28]
Poe's "sequel" to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" was "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt," first serialized in December 1842 and January 1843. Though subtitled "A Sequel to 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" shares very few common elements with "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" beyond the inclusion of C. Auguste Dupin and the Paris setting.[29] Dupin reappeared in "The Purloined Letter," which Poe called "perhaps the best of my tales of ratiocination" in a letter to James Russell Lowell in July 1844.[30]
The original manuscript of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" which was used for its first printing in Graham's Magazine was discarded in a wastebasket. An apprentice at the office, J. M. Johnston, retrieved it and left it with his father for safekeeping. It was left in a music book, where it survived three house fires before being bought by George William Childs. In 1891, Childs presented the manuscript, re-bound with a letter explaining its history, to Drexel University.[31] Childs had also donated $650 for the completion of Edgar Allan Poe's new grave monument in Baltimore, Maryland in 1875.[32]
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" was one of the earliest of Poe's works to be translated into French. Between June 11 and June 13, 1846, "Un meurtre sans exemple dans les Fastes de la Justice" was published in La Quotidienne, a Paris newspaper. Poe's name was not mentioned and many details, including the name of the Rue Morgue and the main characters ("Dupin" became "Bernier"), were changed.[33] On October 12, 1846, another uncredited translation, renamed "Une Sanglante Enigme," was published in Le Commerce. The editor of Le Commerce was accused of plagiarizing the story from La Quotidienne. The accusation went to trial and the public discussion brought Poe's name into the French public.[33]
Adaptations
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" has been adapted for radio, film and television many times. The first full-length film adaptation of Poe's story was Murders in the Rue Morgue by Universal Pictures in 1932, directed by Robert Florey and starring Bela Lugosi, Leon Ames, and Sidney Fox, with Arlene Francis.[14] The film bears little resemblance to the original story. Another adaptation, Phantom of the Rue Morgue, was released in 1954 by Warner Brothers, directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Karl Malden and Patricia Medina. A film in 1971 directed by Gordon Hessler with the title Murders in the Rue Morgue had little to do with the Poe story. On January 7, 1975, a radio-play version was broadcast on CBS Radio Mystery Theater. A made-for-TV movie, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, aired in 1986. It was directed by Jeannot Szwarc and starred George C. Scott, Rebecca De Mornay, Ian McShane, and Val Kilmer. It has also been adapted as a video game by Big Fish Games for their "Dark Tales" franchise under the title "Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue."
References
1.^ Silverman, Kenneth (1991). Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance (Paperback ed.). New York: Harper Perennial. pp. 171. ISBN 0060923318.
2.^Meyers, Jeffrey (1992). Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York: Cooper Square Press, 123. ISBN 0815410387
3.^Booker, Christopher (2004). The Seven Basic Plots. Continuum, 507.
4.^Silverman, Kenneth (1991). Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance (Paperback ed.). New York: Harper Perennial. pp. 173. ISBN 0060923318.
5.^ aQuinn, Arthur Hobson (1998). Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 354. ISBN 0801857309
6.^ Whalen, Terance (2001). "Poe and the American Publishing Industry", A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe, J. Gerald Kennedy, editor. Oxford University Press, 86. ISBN 0195121503
7.^ Cleman, John (2001). "Irresistible Impulses: Edgar Allan Poe and the Insanity Defense", Bloom's BioCritiques: Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 65 ISBN 0791061736
8.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson (1998). Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 312. ISBN 0801857309
9.^ Thomas, Peter (2002). "Poe's Dupin and the Power of Detection", The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Kevin J. Hayes. Cambridge University Press, 133–134. ISBN 0521797276
10.^ Kennedy, J. Gerald (1987). Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 120. ISBN 0300037732
11.^ Silverman, Kenneth (1991). Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance (Paperback ed.). New York: Harper Perennial. pp. 172. ISBN 0060923318.
12.^ Rosenheim, Shawn James (1997). The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Poe to the Internet. Johns Hopkins University Press, 75. ISBN 9780801853326
13.^ Hoffman, Daniel (1972). Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 110. ISBN 0807123218
14.^ Sova, Dawn B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York: Checkmark Books, 162–163. ISBN 081604161X
15.^ Neimeyer, Mark (2002). "Poe and Popular Culture", The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge University Press, 206. ISBN 0521797276
16.^ Van Leer, David (1993). "Detecting Truth: The World of the Dupin Tales" The American Novel: New Essays on Poe's Major Tales, Kenneth Silverman, editor. Cambridge University Press, 65. ISBN 0521422434
17.^ Cornelius, Kay (2001). "Biography of Edgar Allan Poe" in Bloom's BioCritiques: Edgar Allan Poe, Harold Bloom, ed. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 33 ISBN 0791061736
18.^ Silverman, Kenneth (1991). Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance (Paperback ed.). New York: Harper Perennial. pp. 174. ISBN 0060923318.
19.^ Kennedy, J. Gerald (1987). Poe, Death and the Life of Writing. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 119. ISBN 0300037732
20.^ Rosenheim, Shawn James (1997). The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Poe to the Internet. Johns Hopkins University Press, 68. ISBN 9780801853326
21.^ Cornelius, Kay (2001). "Biography of Edgar Allan Poe" in Bloom's BioCritiques: Edgar Allan Poe, Harold Bloom, ed. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 31 ISBN 0791061736
22.^ Ousby, Ian V. K. (December 1972). "'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' and 'Doctor D'Arsac': A Poe Source", Poe Studies, vol. V, no. 2, 52.
23.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson (1998). Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 311. ISBN 0801857309
24.^ Sova, Dawn B. (2001) .Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York: Checkmark Books, 162. ISBN 081604161X
25.^ Ostram, John Ward (1987). "Poe's Literary Labors and Rewards", Myths and Reality: The Mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, 39, 40
26.^ Ostram, John Ward (1987). "Poe's Literary Labors and Rewards" , Myths and Reality: The Mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, 40
27.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson (1998). Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 399. ISBN 0801857309
28.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson (1998). Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 465–466. ISBN 0801857309
29.^ Sova, Dawn B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York: Checkmark Books, 165. ISBN 081604161X
30.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson (1998). Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 430. ISBN 0801857309
31.^ Boll, Ernest (May 1943). "The Manuscript of 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' and Poe's Revisions", Modern Philology, vol. 40, no. 4, 302.
32.^ Miller, John C. (December 1974). "The Exhumations and Reburials of Edgar and Virginia Poe and Mrs. Clemm". Poe Studies vii (2): 46–47. http://www.eapoe.org/pstudies/ps1970/p1974204.htm
33.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson (1998). Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 517. ISBN 0801857309
