Edgar Allan Poe
Thursday, 18 January 2024 10:40
Happy Birthday on 19th January to Edgar Allan Poe, US writer, editor, and literary critic and God of Goth. He struggled for recognition all his short life, being very much ahead of the game. The rest of the world caught up about half a century late and now Poe’s work is universally acclaimed. Without E.A Poe, we would not have the horror movie, gothic romance, or maverick detectives.
Poetry and the short story were his signature genres. He pioneered Science Fiction in the US and invented the detective story. His protagonist, C. Auguste Dupin, eccentric gentleman sleuth, first appeared in 1841, over forty years before Holmes met Watson.
Obsession with sex and death, moral and physical decay, guilt and shame characterises Poe’s oeuvre. (He also predated Freud). A little ray of gloom was he. This is not entirely unexpected, as his early life was grimly tragic, and he died unexpectedly in 1849, found on a Baltimore street delirious and raving and wearing another man’s clothes. He couldn’t have written it better himself.
One of his most macabre tales is ‘The Black Cat’ published August 19, 1843, in The Saturday Evening Post. It’s a study in paranoia, obsession, and the psychology of guilt, with a truly horrific denouement. Belvedere has been steering clear of walls ever since we read it.
We are glad to say it is not all darkness. Poe was very fond of cats in real life, and his special favourite was called Catterina, a tortoiseshell beauty, who used to perch on his shoulder as he wrote.