Week 2 post 2

Rules:

Post 2: Reply to a classmate regarding post 1; be sure to offer a new quote or idea to keep the conversation flowing!  Be sure to quote, cite, and reference from the text(s) using appropriate APA format.  Your post must be at least 150 words.

THE POST BELOW IS THE POST YOUR REPLYING TO FROM ONE OF MY CLASSMATES. THIS IS HIS ANSWER TO POST ONE. Book used in class American Literature 8th edition (2013)

Robert Krout

Week 2 Discussion

The two terms of elements of fiction I used was with the character and setting.  When Poe approchaes The House of Usher, he describes the house as decrepid.  He even at one points describes the house with " vacant eye-like windows", and the "white trunks of decaying trees", (Poe pg299).  When he talks about Roderick Usher, he talks about M.S, and a "mental disorder that oppossed him" (Poe, pg300).  The reason I picked these examples of elements of fiction is because the way her wrote brought the reader to that place.  I felt like I was in decrepid house standing in front of a sickly man.  I have always liked Poe's writing.  His short stories are captivating and really bring the reader into his writing.  I am even considering getting him tattooed on me somewhere because I am such a fan.  The thing I like most about Poe is his poetry.  Its beautiful, and it proves that no matter dark and morbid his writing can be, he can also show a side of love and caring.  My one guitar I have is named " Lenore".  I think that Poe's writing is still popular today because his writing is epic, but also the story that follows.  He was an odd, interesting man who drank a lot, and experimented with drugs.  He worked as an editor, attended the military school V.M.I., but dropped out.  Even his death is still mystery today.  Some say it was alcohol  poisoning, some say it was koop gangs.  Who knows.  It just adds to the mystery of Poe.  Going back to his childhood he was around some horrible things.  He watched his mother die of T.B, and I believe that these explicit visions and morbid illuions carried into his writing.  The story of Poe will forever intrigue past and future readers, and to really get the understanding of Poe, you must read all of his works.  He did love and care at one time, which is proof that he was human.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  Both of his parents died while Poe was a small child, and he was subsequently taken to Richmond, Virginia, and raised by a foster family (John and Frances Allan).  He began writing at a very young age, but his foster father and school headmaster discouraged it.  Poe had continued problems with John Allan, which resulted in Poe's leaving the University of Virginia and subsequently being dismissed from West Point.  When Allan died, Poe was left out of the will.  By that time, Poe was becoming an established writer.  Poe had a difficult life, losing many of the women of his life to early deaths.  Poe's work is very macabre as a result, and even his own death, the cause of which remains a mystery, seems to have come right from one of his writings. He is  considered the father of the modern-day short story because he broke many of the rules in terms of structure of plot.  "The Tell-Tale Heart," for example, has no denouement.  Click on the video link below to view a short video about Poe.

Watch Video

Mini BIO - Edgar Allan Poe

Duration: (3:50)User: biographychannel - Added: 9/21/12

Dawn B. Sova, 2006.   The Complete Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Barnes and Nobel New York, 2007.  "The Fall of the House of Usher" pg, 299, 300.