Edgar Allan Poe

Unpopular Opinion: I don't love Poe. Sure, I think that he is a literary genius but his stories are dark in a superstitious and ghostly way that I cannot connect to. With that said the pieces that I chose to read was one of his short stories "Eleanora" and one of his poems "Alone." I had read "Eleanora" before but wanted to revisit it and I had not read "Alone." I wanted to find some background on "Alone" so I went to eapoe.org. On this site, it was said that "Alone" was not published in Poe's lifetime and the piece is seen "as one of Poe's most revealing works." Out of all of the Poe works I have read, I found this one to actually be very accessible and different from his longer works of poetry because it is only about 20 lines. The imagery and metaphor that was used was actually easier to understand than some of his other works so I was pleasantly surprised by "Alone." As for "Eleanora," I was still just as confused the second time I read it as the first. I remember reading something by Poe in 7th grade but that was the only time that we really ever covered him.

I think that even more important than his works it is important to understand and research Poe's background. In our last class time, we were discussing at which point can you separate the author from their works. In Poe's case, I do not think you could ever separate the two because his life had so heavily influenced his works that it would be difficult to just discuss his literary merit without also talking about his life. But I believe that his life would be an important transition into other topics with my students because those are real things that affect them.