Edgar Allan Poe

[AE35Unit]

Yes Poe's works have a certain irony about them. Its like in certain horror tales the narrator is sniggering at the victim in the tale. As if to say,well you're in trouble now,should have stayed at home shouldn't you but no you got curious.

[j. d. worthington]

I wasn't particularly thinking about his horror tales in this instance -- which are actually only a small portion of his output -- but his genuine humorous tales, such as "Some Words with a Mummy", "The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade", "How to Write a Blackwood Article" and "A Predicament", or (one of my personal favorites because of its very perverse sense of humor) "Bon-Bon"....

However, yes, he did include such ironies as you mention in several of his horror tales; "Metzengerstein" itself being as much a parody as a straight example of the horror tale; while "Berenice" relies almost entirely on the grotesque humor of the central idea for its horrific impact....

[Lobolover]

I meant things like "the man who was used up"-where he piles up unknown names by half a dozen in a paragraph,numerous times,etc.

I mean,what was so funny about the story where they guy is famous for his NOSE?

[j. d. worthington]

Many such stories -- such as the two you name here -- would have been much more humorous, and the points of their satire much more obvious, to Poe's contemporaries. For the first, he was satirizing much of the idealized image of the War of 1812, as well as a particular figure of that war -- one to whom Poe was somewhat related:

The Man That Was Used Up - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On "Lionizing"... again, Poe is satirizing several different things, most especially, it would seem, the fickleness of public acclaim and the ridiculously misproportioned things upon which it based.

[Lobolover]

I know but-does the second story deserve to be in a horror anthology with "MS. found in a bottle" ,as it happened here?

[j. d. worthington]

This was included in a horror anthology? Or a collection of Poe's tales? What were the other contents? I can't see it as being a horror tale, no... but this is entirely new information; a completely different context than I had gathered from your original question....

[Lobolover]

The other stories were Malestorm,and-some other horror,"Imp of the perverse",besides "Angel of the odd",It was mostly horror,it has only 2 of those lighter storis and boy were they misplaced.

I mean,they put Irving's "the dead bridegroom" in a colection with Hawthorne.

[j. d. worthington]

Sounds more like a general collection of his tales rather than a horror anthology or collection as such. If this were an older book (even one with a recent reprint), this would be by no means uncommon, as it was long felt that a balance between different aspects of a writer's output was better than concentrating on a single facet....

[Lobolover]

Actualy,there were only two such-but youll find this kinda stuff even in serious horror anthologies-though there arent any REAL serious ones around, considering every one I ever read was labeled "for children".