Edgar A. Poe
noble ideas. The motives of death, decay, destruction that permeate Poe's work
present a strong contrast to the general spirit of American national life in the first half
of the 19th century but in keeping the decadent atmosphere of Virginia
· His stories and poems usually deal with love, beauty and death. He was
concerned with the literary effect he could produce. In every genre, he explores the
psyche. His heroes are tortured solitaries, often addicted to drink or drugs. He
accurately described the underside of the American dream of the self-made man and
showed the price of materialism and excessive competition loneliness and
alienation. Themes of death-in-life, especially being buried alive or returning from the
grave, appear in many of his works ("The Fall of the House of Usher"). His most
famous stories are his ,,ratiocinative" stories, known as detective tales ("The Murders
in the Rue Morgue").
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