How is it that Poe is simultaneously overrated and underrated?
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How is it that Poe is simultaneously overrated and underrated?
How is it that Poe is simultaneously overrated and underrated?
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hows he underrated? everyone from lovecraft to king to ligotti has called him the greatest horror author to have ever lived. personally, i see the appeal but i'm not a huge fan myself
>greatest horror author
This is his overrated side. The underrated I suppose would be his poetic and prose side almost none comments about.
Very few people talk about his poetry compared to his spooky stories.
Comparatively few are able to meaningfully assess poetry, so it makes sense. He is well-liked by poets and academics, but has few proponents compared to others.
He was a crap poet, legitimately.
For a while I thought maybe it was because Baudelaire was his translator that he lucked out and owed his international appeal to that.
But then I found out he had a bunch of Bong fans as well. Including Stevenson and Machen.
To me he was just a slightly more pretentious Stephen King.
>To me he was just a slightly more pretentious Stephen King.
you're out of your mind. king achieved massive fame & cultural penetration simply because he adapted old gothic stories & concepts using post-boomer EC comics tales from the crypt imagery; i dont know that a single one of poe's bizarre, nightmare-confessional stories was as blatantly derivative
>adapted old gothic stories & concepts using post-boomer EC comics tales from the crypt imagery
NTA, you have that backwards and EC was amazing.
Also big in Japan. Their big iconic mystery writer went by the pen name Edogawa Ronpo.
The general vulgarization of ARPGs into "dopamine" or "muh loot", not to mention into internet drama about developers and streamers, is strictly in the eye of the player. PoE is overrated in this sense since it is not so much that it cannot provide more than other ARPGs, but that these vulgar parameters are themselves not only without "meaning" but without structure, i.e. MUH DROP and MUH BALD are both empty signifiers. Conversely, PoE is underrated in that the structural substance of the game far exceeds that of all other ARPGs.
Because people only know a few of his works and forget a lot of other poems and stories of quality.
I really, really want to like Poe more than I do. But his english is too aged for me and I do like to read old shit. I love Lovecraft and by this time his style isn't difficult for me at all since I nigh know every story by heart. But Poe I've tried multiple times and aside from his obvious stuff like Monteillado and the case of Valdemar I just don't click with his stuff. I will not read the poetry because poetry is gay and boring.
Poe mostly works as a gateway for people who are serious enough to research old literature and to find those coming before Poe and his lesser known contemporaries. Lovecraft himself works as a gateway to Poe and to many other authors considering Lovecraft never stopped jerking off those he was inspired by.
>poetry is gay and boring
this isn't true, but I understand why someone today would believe it
>his english is too aged for me
>I will not read the poetry because poetry is gay and boring
What a fricking disgrace.
That’s true of any great writer with a huge amount of fame.
Because his work gets hyped up as top tier horror but it isn't scary for modern readers, but we still manage to find value in other aspects of his stories.
No "horror" is scary.
>overrated
The French.
Too often people focus on Poe as a scion of genre fiction, pigeon holeing him into being a 'horror' guy. It's easy to forget that he was a pretty decent poet, probably the best of the pre-Whitman era
I also really like his literary criticisms and theories
>pigeon holeing him into being a 'horror' guy
It's the worst when people insist on reading every poem he wrote in a dark and brooding voice even when it's comedic like O Tempora, O Mores!. Of course, they do this with his lesser known short stories as well, like The Duc de L'Omelette or Four Beasts in One. Just as long as it's Poe, it always has to be dark. It gets on my nerves.
literally only read The Raven. I like it, but don’t feel like reading more of his stuff. I have a similar thing with H.P. Lovecraft - I really like The Shadow Over Innsmouth, but don’t have interest in reading more of his work.
Dissemination throughout the American educational curriculum, but only engaging in surface level analysis/with his most famous works, while his other publications remain generally overlooked.
Yeah most people dip their toes in and then pretend they’ve swam the ocean of Poe from coast to coast. It’s annoying.
This. It's mostly The Raven being flogged to death in schools. It's a great poem but it's not the only thing he ever did.
One of the best books I own, honestly.
He's too difficult
I can't understand what the hell he's trying to say and so I think most people won't rate him highly
YOUR PROSE SHOULDNT BE IMPENETRABLE COMPARED TO YOUR POETRY
ESL? Actually, if you know English and you're still struggling, go learn French and German, then try again.
>Gaily bedight,
>A gallant knight,
>In sunshine and in shadow,
>Had journeyed long,
>Singing a song,
>In search of Eldorado.
>But he grew old—
>This knight so bold—
>And o'er his heart a shadow
>Fell as he found
>No spot of ground
>That looked like Eldorado.
>And, as his strength
>Failed him at length,
>He met a pilgrim shadow—
>"Shadow," said he,
>"Where can it be—
>This land of Eldorado?"
>"Over the Mountains
>Of the Moon,
>Down the Valley of the Shadow,
>Ride, boldly ride,"
>The shade replied—
>"If you seek for Eldorado!"
I think I understand what OP meant by overrated yet underrated.
Everyone knows Poe, or at least has a surface knowledge of him "Oooh the raven" "ooOOOOoOOo so spoooky scary"
However, Ask that same person what "The Raven" is about, and they at most will say "nevermore", forgetting it's about coping with loss, same with Annabel Lee
He is considered the "Father of Mystery stories" due to Dupin, but in that case, he is a neglecting father. Completely mediocre, with Dupin being an obvious self insert in the Marie Roget one, where the entire story is a thinly veiled essay of what Poe thinks happened in the real case.
But by god I LOVE the Raven. It's just so smooth to read aloud. I'm impressed at how many words end with the sound "-ore". And there is many a moment when I'm asked if I remember something to which I find myself reciting
>yes I remember it was in the bleak December
>And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
December doing inner rhyme with dying ember is great. And the Raven is filled of similar examples
Holy Based, I was about to mention this one. So simple yet so nice. His rhyme scheme is deliciously tight
Pleading guilty. I've only read Amontillado, Masque of Red Death, Raven, a couple other poems, and all his Dupin stories. He is a better poet imo
>
I'm grateful for Poe because he's the reason I like reading. I was about 15 and randomly borrowed my sister's copy of his complete tales and poems and lay on my parents' bed and read The Murders in the Rue Morgue and it opened something up in my head and I've been reading ever since.
William Wilson is probably the most important short story that has been ever written.
Poe is the only writer i can read hundreds of times and it never gets boring, Lovecraft on the other hand gets me asleep after a few sentences
First half of William Wilson is very good, had the potential to be among my favorite short stories, but the latter half is very bland, it loses too much on imagery and atmospheric sensation that the first half accomplished to impress on me. It ends up being just another moral tale like the Tell Tale Heart.
I’m very open to discuss Poe’s work and the above critique of mine.
Nice trips
Yeah i get your point but i think it was written like that on purpose, Poe want to let us know how the protagonist "curse" begins specifically, the rest is less important.
Also i don't think there is nothing wrong with moral stories if written like this or the Tell Tale Heart.
Ah yeah I don’t think there is a problem either, it is just that in the case of William Wilson I liked so much the first half that the story being divided thus made me have the sensation I read two different stories. Not that there is a problem with Poe’s linear development of the story, quite the contrary, he writes very well, just that the first half had a greater impression on me than the latter.
Oh and that is founded on my personal preference for vivid depictions of sensation in prose, impressing with liveliness the ambience, atmosphere, the characters subjective feelings etc. than moral considerations.
A lot of people heard about him but they never read his books.
You know, the same thing as with Lovecraft.
>tfw no Eleonora girlfriend
Hey Anons, who is your favourite waifu in Edgar's stories?
I fell in love with Eleonora and Berenice.
I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when or even precisely where, I fell in love with the lady Ligeia.
He's overrated for his lesser work and underrated for his better work. I haven't met anyone who read him and disliked it.
>There comes Poe with his Raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
>Three-fifths of him genius, two-fifths sheer fudge