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/lit/ - Literature


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16564302 No.16564302 [Reply] [Original]

Is Edgar Allan Poe highbrow or lowbrow?

I'm asking because I might have just been filtered by one of his poems.

>> No.16564344
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16564344

>> No.16564523

>>16564302
Yeats is indebted to him. Take that as you will.

Also, "Annabel Lee" is one of the best short poems ever written.

>> No.16564533

>>16564523
Yeats and Baudelaire. I think you can make up your mind OP

>> No.16564554

>>16564533
Also Valéry, Mallarmé, and some even say Dostoevsky.

>> No.16564564

>>16564554
Isn't Mallarmé influenced by him through Baudelaire and Valéry through Mallarmé? Also I don't really see it for Valéry, what are you thinking about?

>> No.16564575

>>16564564
Mallarmé said he learned English as a young man after reading Baudelaire's translations of Poe to experience him first hand.

>> No.16564579

>>16564302
Why do you care, he's great

>> No.16564619

>>16564579
I've seen both praise as well as derision for him on /lit/, and I was hoping to find out what the general consensus on him is. I personally find him to be great.

>> No.16564635

He's middle -brow.

>> No.16564643

>>16564554
and Verne

>> No.16564649

He's apparently much more esteemed in Europe than he is in the States; I'm not sure why.

>> No.16564655

>>16564649
Probably because Poe shittalked burgers whenever he got the chance.

>> No.16564678

>>16564575
Alright thanks. Anything about Valérie? Also fun fact: I stumbled upon an English translation exercice book written by Mallarmé the other day. I was super excited because I thought it would be weird and beautiful sentences, but no, just a regular English book.

>> No.16564738

>>16564649
The college I attend to in Spain is obsessed with him. We have yearly expos on Poe's writings and personal life, and the entire English department has done a lot of research and writing on him over the years. My English professor's office alone is filled to the brim with several editions of most if not all of Poe's works.

>> No.16565006

>>16564302
Lowbrow writer with a highbrow fanbase.

>> No.16565127

I read a lot of his stories between the ages of 12 and 16, so I tend to think of him as a kids author but he isn’t really.

>> No.16565131

>>16564302
Pleb-tier readers, high school students: "omg Poe is so based!!!"

Midwit, reddit-tier pseuds: "Poe? So cringe bro - you should check out serious horror like Stephen King and real sci-fi like Dune; perhaps some modern YA instead?"

Nabokov, Baudelaire, Dostoyevsky, Huysmans, Apollinaire, Mallarme, Valery: "omg Poe is so based!!!"

>> No.16565146

Read a biography about him recently, and was quite surprised to see what a frankly indecent man he was. Very selfish, egotistical, hostile and untrustworthy. It's clear he had high ambitions at an early age, but it seems like he played up his poverty and orphan status in later life. I was surprised to find out he was raised well in rather wealthy circumstances.

>> No.16565152

>>16564564
They got interested in him because of their respective forerunners, but they all read him on their own and formed their appreciations for their own reasons.

Valéry was fascinated by Poe's somewhat systematic, deductive approach to literature (he called him "the engineer of literature" which in Valéry's mind is not a slur).
Young Valéry himself what trying to get at something systematic of which literature is only a particular product. Something like a general grasp of the variations of the mind. Hard to grasp stuff, and he failed to attain it, but he worked diligently at it for years until he gave up but kept writing. Poe was like an early explorer of that kind of stuff.

>> No.16565155

>>16564678
Mallarmé's day job was English highschool teacher in France, he hated it, so no surprise here.

>> No.16565175

>>16565146
Poe was a complex character. He was known to be very gentlemanly and composed except when he was drunk (which he got easily, he was probably alcoholic in the genetic sense). He also was pretty bad at managing finances and building a career and didn't have the success he hoped he would have. When he buried his wife, who died young, he was so destitute he wore her jacket to the funeral because he had nothing else to keep him warm. He really had that cursed poet destitute life, that wasn't a pose on his part. So I would cut him some slack.

That said he did have dark aspects to his personality, sometimes incomprehensibly so. I remember reading in a biography of him about one of his fiercest critics, someone who was madly anti-Poe and would only write under a pseudonym. Turned out this critic was Poe himself.

He was a tormented and self-divided as his characters.

>> No.16565180

>>16564619
I don't understand how anyone could dislike Poe. He was a solid and quite unique writer. Whenever I want to read some good and comfy short stories, I usually open up his collection

>> No.16565309
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16565309

Thought Poe's prose and poetry were basic even as a kid, and nothing about him has grown with me like the similarly basic writing of Twain or Hemingway.

Where are these Poe masterpieces everyone's talking about? His poems come off like something from a novelty Halloween children's book and his stories are nothing but sub-Twilight Zone twists with horrible prose.

>> No.16565367

>>16565309
There's merit in writing the Twilight Zone a century before it even existed.

>> No.16565382

>>16565367
I was using a generous comparison, and it's not like the concept of writing twists is a 20th century invention.

>> No.16565387

>>16565152
Thanks for the answer anon!
>>16565155
Didn’t know that, i never bothered with his biography. I always imagined him secluded in a suburban house with a garden and Huysmans and Valéry taking turns sucking his cock. Makes more sense that way.

>> No.16565406

>>16564554
This also Jarry, and the whole decadent and symbolist school at the very least through Baudelaire.

>> No.16565416

>>16565309
Cope autist

>> No.16565525

>>16564523
>Nabokov

>> No.16565552

>>16565416
>reading spoopy genre poems to own the libs

>> No.16565560

>>16565552
the fuck are you on about, burger

>> No.16565577

>>16565560
>Telling me to cope with the shitty literature that you read.

>> No.16565609

>>16564302
Middlebrow. He does have some good stories, though.

>> No.16565614

>>16564635
This

>> No.16565666

>>16565577
Yeah, confirmed burger

>> No.16565675
File: 364 KB, 1609x2519, 81aB2j4VcZL.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16565675

He was an inspired platonic poet.
People should stop reading fake shit like Crowley, Theo-Sophists, Kybalion and Urantia crap—and read real inspiration, perhaps its shoved under the rug is a daemonical protection.

>> No.16565717

>>16565666
Meme all you want, still waiting for an example of Poe that's worth reading.

>> No.16565731

>>16565717
I'm not wasting my time convincing a politically obsessed burger with the refinements of literature and poetry. Feel free to carry on with your opinions.

>> No.16565747

>>16565731
Politics? You're the one who can't post without harping about nationality.

And my opinion is subject to change if anyone in this thread provides counter-examples.

>> No.16565766

>>16565309
Read Eureka.

>> No.16565781

>>16565387
>I always imagined him secluded in a suburban house with a garden and Huysmans and Valéry taking turns sucking his cock. Makes more sense that way.
Eh, it's not too far from the truth, he had a comfy life (despite his detestable job), and Valéry was pretty gay for him (in a non romantic and non sexual way). Read any piece on Mallarmé written by Valéry, you'll find nice poetic insight, interesting fragments of conversations, and the expression of an unrelenting admiration and friendship on Valéry's part. Some of those essays are even pretty moving.

>> No.16565794

>>16565766
Would it have any literary value if I'm not a navel gazel metaphysician with mild schizophrenia?

>> No.16566319

>>16565794
Guess you'll have to read and find out yourself anon.

Quit expecting to be spoonfed

>> No.16567390

>>16565781
Yes I read an article by Valery the other day about how Un coup de dés should not be adapted as a theatre play. He made some good points but overall it felt like there was this autistic friendship/admiration that was the main driver.

>> No.16567404

DUHHH ME LIKE SPOOKY GHOST STORY WRITER

WOW AT THE END IT'S LIKE THE HEARTBEAT WASN'T REAL IT wAS JUST IN THE NARRATOR'S MIND LIKE HE WAS WHAT YOU MIGHT CALL AN "UNRELIABLE NARRATOR" WOW HOW ORIGINAL HUURRRR DUHHHRRR

Face it, Poe is just Lovecraft but you give yourself permission to like him because he's older and therefore more "classic."

>> No.16567454

I just remember the people who liked him were tryhard goth kids

>> No.16567482
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16567482

>>16564302
I bought this (just on a Halloween mood; I also got Dracula, Frankenstein, The Phantom Of The Opera, Dorian Grey and Jekyll/Hyde) the other day. I've never read EAP, and I'm ESL. Is it good? Will I understand the poems and such?

>> No.16567508

>>16567482
the watercolor is fine, but who the fuck thought those letters were a good idea on the cover?

>> No.16567541

>>16567508
They're embossed n the cover, and the gold is shiny, so they don't blend in with the background. It's honestly a nice cover. It's just that it's literally paper that's the problem. Almost as thin as the pages inside.

>> No.16567581

edgar allan poo haha

>> No.16567583

>>16564302
>I'm asking because I might have just been filtered by one of his poems.
They're just shit, OP.

>> No.16567587

>>16565675
>prose poem
Pure fucking autism.

>> No.16567591

>>16565131
>Nabokov
He literally called him an author for tweens, anon.

>> No.16567596

>>16564302
His poetry is absolute fucking trash, just awful really. I don't care about short stories.

>> No.16567601

>>16564302
Do you like Poe's influences? You will like Poe. Do you dislike Poe's influences? You will dislike Poe.

Simple as.

>> No.16567639

>>16564302
I once was maliciously tricked into reading The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket based on the promise of an unlimited Antarctic adventure. The prankster was an extremely handsome and intelligent white man of indeterminate nationality with a penchant for hooliganism. To this day I shudder whenever the name "Poe" is mentioned, as it takes me back to that miserable slog aboard the whaling ship Grampus, and the cunning scheme which I fell victim to.

>> No.16567648

>>16565146
Poe was very much aware he wasn't the best of people. Read The black cat and The Imp of the perverse they very much are aimed at himself as a person trying to reason and understand why he is the way he is.

>> No.16567685
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16567685

>>16564302
I think he is only popular due to his art-hoe-appealing, pop detective/fantasy horror aesthetic. Dumb people just pretend to like him. Got one or two of his books, given by their aunts who got them a "smart kid's present", and are like "OMG The Raven best poem everrrrrr" on their tumblrs.
And I don't mean to discredit him by saying that.

>> No.16567698

>>16565175
>I remember reading in a biography of him about one of his fiercest critics, someone who was madly anti-Poe and would only write under a pseudonym.
>Turned out this critic was Poe himself.
Based
I've been feeding some thoughts about separating the author from their works regardless of the circumstance, and am not sure if I'm 100% right. I think I'm still a bit salty about Mark Kozelek.

>> No.16567788

>>16564635
The best literature is usually pretty middlebrow.

>> No.16568197

Poe is a far far better critic than he is a fiction writer.

>> No.16568203

>>16567788
>middlebrow is the best because the highbrow is too hard for me and lowbrow is too dumb for me
Nice.

>> No.16568405

Unibrow. He’s one of those writers who has a mass popular audience but is still respected by great writers and critics.

>> No.16568480

>>16564302
He transcends brow relative to his influence.

>> No.16569056

>>16568203
"highbrow" is at times unbearably pretentious

>> No.16569141

>>16564302
All the French patricians loved him so don't feel too bad.

>> No.16569195

>>16567591
>Working title for Lolita was "The Kingdom by the Sea"

Yes, surely he hates Poe

>> No.16570138

>>16567404
You're a midwit. Recognizing tropes isn't equivalent to understanding or critiquing a story.

>> No.16571091

>>16567639
Underrated.

>> No.16571095

>>16569195
He might have been calling him a pedo for marrying his 13 year old cousin while he was 27.