Preferable Poe

I found myself nodding in agreement to Onno's post with regard to how many of us find Poe's works to be much more enjoyable reads than those of Cooper. A few concrete reasons for my Poe preference came to me as I continued to read more of Poe's works. I found myself moving through the pieces more excitedly because of the enjoyment I was taking in reading them, as when I was reading Cooper, I was more inclined to count the pages left until the next chapter.

I'm not sure if "fun" is the best word for my experience in reading Poe; I think "intrigued" better describes my response to Poe's works. As a matter of fact, I think this is where both the power and beauty of Poe exists- in his ability to captivate us, disturb us, and keep our minds solely focused on the often grotesque and perverse events unfolding in his stories. It's so good we can't turn our attention away.

One aspect of Poe's writing that invited me in was his long, flowery descriptive style. As a creative writer myself, I am always a sucker for colorful phrasing, extensive imagery, and descriptive writing that paints a very clear scene for us readers. With Poe, not only do we remark an extensive descriptive style, but we remark it often in context of describing something perverse or grotesque or eerie- which pulls us in, or "intrigues" us at the very least! One can observe this habit of his in his descriptions of the interior and exterior of the Usher House, the revivification of Rowena and the change in her countenance as she moves from life to death cyclically, and (perhaps my favorite of his descriptions) the seeming obsession he has with eyes and aspects of the human face in several of his short stories.

Another clear aspect and appeal of Poe's works is just the type of worlds and settings that make up his tales. It's arguably science-fiction, a very popular genre nowadays as well. As a reader, there is nothing like being transported from our own banal daily lives to some creepy parallel universe where the limits of the reality we know are pushed and twisted, if not nonexistent! The horrific events that take place in Poe pieces are happenings that we can barely wrap our head around in our world, in which beautiful mistresses don't die and then come back to life, the living aren't normally buried alive and able to rise again to seek vengeance, among other happenings that are more suited to a wild imagination. These are events that are scary, unexpected, unsettling, peculiar- things that readers in search of entertainment (which is a huge part of why we read!) will find appealing!

Poe's language and the sheer perverseness of his subject matter are two salient features of his writing that stand out to me as what makes him attractive to readers, but also, what makes Poe POE.