How Did Edgar Allan Poe Impact Society

Ryan Mahaffey

Mr. Webre

English 215

October 28, 2015

Edgar Allan Poe

Throughout the years of American progression becoming what it is today, there have been a countless number of writers and storytellers impacting its culture and identity. Out of all of these writers and storytellers, Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most influential of all time. Poe is credited with being the master of psychological horror, the inventor of the detective story, considered the pioneer of science fiction, and is also one of the greatest poets of all time. Because Poe accomplished so much with his works, his influence is still evident in the arts today such as cinema, literature, and art.

Poe was not the first person to make a horror story or a piece of gothic fiction,

What made Poe’s scientific fiction stories more prominent to the others is the fact that he incorporated real science into the story. In some of his stories Poe wrote about the technological limits at the time. In Poe’s story “The Man Who Was Used Up,” he talks about a guy who was wounded in a war and has several of his body parts replaced by synthetic ones. In “Melona Tauta,” he talks about a future that includes trans-Atlantic air travel. Thinking about trans-Atlantic air travel being a big idea for a future is funny to us now, but back in the day that was a huge statement about the future and technology. His most successful science fiction story however, is “The Unparalled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall.” The story is about a guy trying to get to the moon by a revolutionary new balloon, which is known as an air balloon to us today. Things that Poe wrote about in his science fiction stories were very true predictions of what would actually happen in society. Poe has influenced so many writers and people from his revolutionary science fiction works. The science fiction genre is a multi-million dollar industry in the entire world. There are conventions and events all around the globe like comic con that people attend dressed in their favorite sci-Fi characters outfit. We have an entire television channel dedicated to just science fiction called the Sci-fi channel. Also, there are a ton of science fictions movies

Some of Poe’s poetry is considered some of the best works of art to date alongside other famous poets. A few of Poe’s more famous poems are still taught in school today. He always paid a great deal of attention to the lyrical qualities in his poetry. Poe had a signature theme throughout most of his poetry. Most of his poetry was very suspenseful and about the death of a beautiful woman, which Poe stated was the most poetical topic in the world. Also, his poetry used just about every literary device that could be used. Annabel Lee is a narrative Poe that has the reader in a magical realm at a kingdom by a sea. The narrator falls in love with Annabel Lee when they are young and he continues to love her deeply after she has died. In the poem, Poe uses personification, internal rhyme, imagery, spondee or consecutively stressed syllables, and repetition, which is one of the most important parts about this poem. The repetition he uses creates a relationship for the words “Annabel Lee,” “kingdom by the sea,” and the forms of “love.” The most world-renowned poem that Poe has ever written is “The Raven.” “The Raven,” is a narrative poem about a talking ravens mysterious visit to a distraught lover descending into madness. Like many of his other poems, Poe used his signature style with the death of a beautiful woman and made the dead woman’s lover the narrator of the poem. Poe believed the long “o”