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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page paper analyzing the way Edgar allan poe's life experiences are reflected in two of his most famous stories, 'The Fall of the House of Usher' and 'Ligeia.' Bibliography lists four sources including Poe's short story collection.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_Ushlig.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
(who died tragically when Poe was three) or the invalidism and death of his young wife Virginia, whom he married when she was thirteen and who died at twenty-four. How
much of Poes work is directly attributable to events in his life, and how much is the product of his Gothic imagination? Let us examine two of his works --
"Ligeia", and "The Fall of the House of Usher", and compare them against what we know of Poes life. Certainly Poe always had a very macabre sensibility. As a
boy he enjoyed dressing as a corpse or ghost to frighten family members, and also wrote letters home from school describing in the most graphic terms fights and accidents he
had witnessed: "I saw the arm afterwards -- it was really a serious matter -- it was bitten from the shoulder to the elbow -- and it is likely that
pieces of flesh as large as my hand will be obliged to be cut out" (Poe, quoted by Silverman, 31). This is not odd by itself, but the intensity of
his reports seemed to his family a little extreme. In 1832, Poe, who had previously had some success as a poet, entered a short-story writing contest. To his surprise, he
won, beating out a number of well-known short story writers. Poe needed money badly, and decided to embark on a side career as a short-story writer. In Davidsons words, "His
short-story writing career began with his burlesquing almost every best-selling tale there was -- the tale of terror, of mystery, of the Orient, of passion, of clever ratiocination -- and
ended with his own conviction that the art form he had begun by ridiculing was, after all . . . serious, purposeful, and distinguished" (Davidson, xv). Gothic horror was extremely
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