Ravens, all things dark and gloomy? What else do you remember from Netflix's eye-grabber macabre, 'Wednesday'? Every piece of art has its muse, and Edgar, perhaps, is the muse of everything dark and gory. Why is it so? 

Let's take a look!

WHO IS EDGAR ALLEN POE?

Source: Wikipedia

* Edgar Allan Poe (Jan 19,1809-Oct 7, 1849), aged 40

* American poet, writer, editor, and literary critic

* Best at poems and short stories, particularly tales of mystery and macabre

* Central figure of Romanticism and as a reaction to Transcendentalism turned to Dark Romanticism

* Earliest practitioner of the short stories and inventor of detective fiction and also contributed to emerging science fiction

* In 1827, when enlisted in the army, he published his first collection, Tamerlane and Other Poems

* In 1845, he published 'The Raven' 

* The Mystery Writers of America present an annual Edgar Award.

LEGACY

* His best works are Gothic. In his critical work, 'The Poetic Principle', he stated his dislike for allegory and didacticism.

* Mostly a literary critic, he was caustic and targeted HW Longfellow for didacticism. 

* One of the first American authors in the 19th century to be more popular in Europe than in The United States. 

* Particularly popular in France because of Baudelaire's early translation of him.

*C. Auguste Dupin, a character created by Poe in his early detective fiction laid the groundwork for future detective novels. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was influenced by his work.

* H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and H.P. Lovecraft were heavily influenced by him. Verne wrote a sequel to Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket called An Antarctic Mystery, also known as The Sphinx of the Ice Fields. Lovecraft's At the Mountain of Madness is also influenced by Pym. You can also say the same for Alfred Hitchcock, the filmmaker. 

* Eureka: A Prose Poem included a cosmological theory.

STUDY MATERIAL

1. Egyankosh