Mary Ellen Clubb
American Literature I
Harthorn
Fall 2008
Edgar Allan Poe’s Writing Styles and Inconsistencies
In the book Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays, editor Robert Regan begins the text by
saying, “To say that Edgar Poe has been the least understood of America’s major writers would
have invited a fruitless debate, but surely no one will deny that he has been the most
misunderstood.” (Regan, 1) Regan’s quotation probably could not have been any more correct
or accurate regarding Edgar Allan Poe in both his writing styles and strategies, and the content
of his works. Though he is most famous posthumously for his short stories and tales, Poe’s
source of income came chiefly from his works for magazines and other articles he wrote that
were published during his lifetime. Regardless of whether he was writing fictional stories,
criticisms, factual articles, or other prose, Poe was a man of deep disturbance that was
reflected in his writing despite the content of the written material.
Very often in his criticism of works by other authors, Poe would mock, put down, and
poke fun at other writers whom he envied. He would accuse them of plagiarism, condemning
the particular author for drawing inspiration from other authors and creating a work that was
similar in nature. The irony of Poe’s harsh criticism on other good writers was that Poe himself
often drew his inspiration from other authors and works, often those whom he consistently put
down. Furthermore, Poe would often create works of his own that were in fact quite inferior to
those in which he so outwardly and harshly criticized. Edgar Allan Poe is very similar to the
character of Galileo in Bertolt Brecht’s play The Life of Galileo. In scene three of the play, the
character Galileo says, “The only way a man like me can land a good job is by crawling on his
stomach….I have no patience…with a man who doesn’t use his brains to fill his belly.” (Klaus,
Gilbert, et. all, 842) Like Galileo, Poe used his brains to fill his belly by working odd jobs that
were truly under his skill level and intellectual capacity in order to make money. Just as Galileo
took time away from his scientific discoveries to create inventions that the public would
appreciate and purchase, Poe took time away from his complicated stories and essays to create
pieces that would be profitable. This fact is another inconsistency in Poe’s writing, as he often
criticized writers for not being original and creative with their work and merely publishing what
was pleasing to the masses. Poe would not only write inferior pieces to gain income, but also to
gain favor or support from leaders during his time. Edgar Allan Poe was indeed an extremely
callous critic when he analyzed the works of other writers, proving to be hypocritical in his own
writing.
Another inconsistency in Poe’s writing is his use of allegories, despite his proclaimed
distaste for figurative speech. Although he often expressed how much he disliked the use of
allegory, Poe’s stories often brought life to moral, psychological, or emotional qualities,
disorders, and dispositions with the use of personification and symbolism. For example, The Fall
of the House of Usher illustrates obsession represented by Roderick’s hallucinations that
Madeline’s corpse is lingering in the hallways of the House of Usher. Literary critic Richard
Wilbur said, “The House of Usher is, in allegorical fact, the physical body of Roderick Usher, and
its dim interior is, in fact, Roderick Usher’s visionary mind.” (Regan, 11) Even the physical
description of Roderick is symbolic of Poe himself and suggests that the character is a reflection
of Poe’s own personality and characteristics. The book Poe and the British Magazine Tradition
states that the physical description of Roderick Usher is an idealized portrait of Poe himself, in
which Poe created an extremely accurate mental image of himself when he wrote, “His head
was of colossal dimensions, and overshadowed by a dense mass of straight raven hair, two
huge locks of which, stiffly plastered with pomatum, extended with a lachrymose air down the
temples, and partially over the cheek bones...But the face itself was the chief oddity.” (Allen,
118) It is difficult to interpret The Fall of the House of Usher as anything other than an
allegorical and symbolic tale much like Moby Dick by Herman Melville, in which the entire book
and all of its contents are representative of something on a larger scale. Despite the fact that
Poe claimed he did not like or even appreciate the use of allegories in literature, he used them
often in his work, creating yet another inconsistency in his writing style.
Regarding his ideas on poetry and how it should be written and read, Poe stated, “a
poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul” and “the value of the
poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement.” (Regan 4) Though he was probably unaware
of it at the time, Poe was creating ideas for his own successes and failures when he stated his
ideas on poetry. His poems like The Raven fail to create an emotional climax, making the work
seems pointless and perhaps a bit on the absurd side. However, in his poems like To Helen the
emotional excitement builds with the very beginning of the poem when Helen is adored by the
poet in her roughest prototype. When she finally reaches her archetype as completely
idealized, the poet states, “Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy-Land!” and the emotional
climax is reached after the ascent is completed. (Regan 4) Poe’s ideas of what constituted
effective poetry set him up for criticism by other authors because he did not always abide by his
own standards in his poems. The poetry he wrote that built up to and contained an emotional
high point was much more successful than his poetry that emotionally flat-lined and did not
reach an utmost point of interest. Because he criticized such poetry with no emotional
movement, it comes as no surprise that Poe’s poetry is often regarded as being absurd and an
obvious reflection of a man who was deeply disturbed intellectually. Poe’s inconsistency in his
poetry creates another reason why he is such a controversial and misunderstood writer.
Further critics of Poe’s work suggest that his inconsistencies divide his works into two
categories: flawed Gothic works and flawed comically satirical works. (Thompson, 1) His comic
and satire tales are disturbing in nature because they are not only often morbid and truthfully
humorless, but also somewhat foreign to Poe’s personality and writing style. Poe was known as
being a Gothic-Romanticism writer, and in fact found his forte in the genre. By writing satire
and attempting humor, Poe was stepping out of his comfort level and making it painfully
obvious to the reader that he was writing in a way that was not natural for him. Like the ancient
Greeks who wore masks during plays to hide their true identities, Poe used humorous satire to
mask who he really was and the style of writing in which he was much more equipped for and
psychologically capable of understanding on a deeper and more intense level. In Vincent
Buranelli’s book Edgar Allan Poe, Buranelli states, “It is false to call him little more than an
artist of nightmares, hallucinations, insane crimes and weird beauties, little more than an
intuitive poetic genius dabbling in pretentious logic when he is not lost in the black forest of
pathological psychology. Nor is he a frigid allegorist living in an ivory tower safely away from
the contamination of the world. Poe is a dreamer (in the widest sense of the term), and that is
where an analytical study may properly begin; but it must not end until it has accounted for Poe
the rationalist, the scientist, the hoaxer, the humorist, and the literary and social critic.”
(Buranelli, 21) As Buranelli says, it seems almost impossible to categorize Poe into one specific
genre or prose style because he was so inconsistent with his works.
In attempting to relate Poe’s various writing into the context of his life, it would seem as
if Poe wasted an extreme amount of time attempting to defend his strategies and find a more
dependable and positive direction for his career. During the more successful and happier years
of his marriage and other life successes, between 1839 and 1845, inconsistencies seem to be
less apparent in Poe’s writing and integration development seems more genuine. (Allen, 117)
He depended greatly on the attitudes of his audience, changing his disposition to fit that of his
hearers. Perhaps the pressure of being a journalist and even more intense pressures to make
himself a success financially did not allow time for Poe to be consistent with his writing.
Perhaps he really was just a man who was obsessed with macabre and whose multiple
personalities prevented him from writing in a consistent and logical manner. The core of the
causes for Edgar Allan Poe’s inconsistency in writing styles will never be truly discovered.
However, it may be considered a blessing in disguise due to the fact that it is in fact his
inconsistent styles that have made him famous in the time after his life. Ultimately, Poe and his
writing strategies will be studied and analyzed for many times to come.