ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Although his international fame has spread thanks to the tales of terror, Allan Poe also made works of poetry and essays and criticism in several newspapers.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Massachusetts in 1809. He lived and studied in England for five years, after which they also spent a time in Scotland. His literary output began to return to the United States, where he began to write poems in just 15 years. In 1826 he began his university studies, but economic problems had to drop out of college in less than a year. He spent two years in the military, which encouraged the growth of his literary work, first published between 1827 and 1829. Later, in 1832, would begin to publish in newspapers the stories that gave him so famous. Won a major award in 1833, although by then, Poe began to suffer from serious depression that marked his life, influenced by alcohol and debt. Opens a new stage in his life when he married his cousin Virginia in 1836, but failed to steady work until 1840. During these years he wrote many of his most famous poems like The Raven, which was adapted in 1935 to the big screen, and even comics. This would be the piece that won the admiration of the public and which would begin its next golden age of Virginia, where it could enjoy a reasonable economic stability. But in 1847, his wife dies, and begins to experience seizures aggravated by the growing consumption of alcohol. Although he continued to write stories and even a novel, died in 1849 in circumstances that have not yet been clarified.
His work greatly influenced the symbolism, and also in the Victorian writers, especially in Conan Doyle, the resemblance between the characters (Dupin and Sherlock Holmes) and between the stories and analysis which solves the riddle . But it was not until later when to begin to directly influence the writers of the United States itself. Currently, there is a writers' organization called "Mystery Writers of America, which awards prizes called" Edgars. " It is curious how Poe's writings begin their wave propagation in Europe rather than by the United States itself, even in France, where Poe becomes an author of worship for the people.
To understand the work of Allan Poe, is also necessary to understand some aspects of his life that made a dent in depression and melancholy character. The bad relations with his stepfather, problems with alcohol and money, and, above all, death, Poe always around, they were making him a tortured individual by constant delusions. His writings are filled with grotesque stories of the supernatural aspects of buried alive, tortured, brutally murdered. Many of his works are difficult to understand, perhaps because they are imbued with the essence of his thinking. And so, their stories are much more than short stories: in them there are deep reflections on the functioning of the human mind, life and death. We can not forget who is the master and originator of the detective novel, a genre that begins with short stories that would start to what was called "crimes of the locked room." All of them can solve this case by analysis. It creates an archetypal detective novel would be spread among the writers of the century and some later. Events unfold in a closed room, where apparently no escape. Within this room is committed a crime that, in the eyes of the curious or the police can not solve. Only logical deductions from Dupin, through explaining what happened, are able to solve the enigma. The complexity of analysis performed is one of the biggest attractions of history, whose enigmas, though grotesque and unexpected, they become perfectly credible through the chain of conclusions that Dupin states. There is another element in common between the three stories featuring Dupin, in all of them is involved in research through a friend who has been charged and he owes a favor.
MENTAL CAPACITY OF HUMAN
mental capacities that humans have are the basis of this report, especially the analytical capacity and ability to concentrate. We can see (especially in the prologue that begins the story) that the author has developed a kind of essay on mental acuity and their special qualities. Notes by Dupin, analytical ability, as a result of reflective intelligence, not the concentration, linked to care.
But according to Poe, the most important skill and occupying the thoughts of this report is the capacity for analysis. This reveals a more acute sense of perception that the merger itself. Through analysis, we can study the movements of our opponents and even his thoughts by a hand movement, or by observing the direction in which his gaze. Sometimes, some movement could be predicted, but it is the result of intuition, but the analysis because the analyst can even identify with their own adversary. It is important not to confuse the mental capacity to predict, since they are almost opposite terms. The capacity for analysis, although complex and not yet fully explored, there is nothing supernatural or fantastic: it is a real quality that can be found in normal people. They can develop a greater capacity to succeed in tasks that require inference processes that allow them to analyze the external elements of the situation and also get information about the subject you discuss.
Poe illustrates this point with an example: a person who has a greater ability to concentrate can be much better than your opponent when playing chess, because this game requires more attention and rapidly to the opponent. However, in the ladies game the best is the most insightful, because the speed or concentration are not important in this game than the deductive method of an analyst. In the ladies there is only one possible move, and while the chances are smaller, the easier it is for the analyst to deduce the movements of his adversary.
In this story, the strange murder charge in the form of a puzzle, a challenge between reader and writer, in which the author seems to challenge the public to resolve or at least can get in your mind to develop an explanation of the facts. In this way, we managed to understand how strange and extraordinary mental power is to some people, and began a kind of exploration of the human mind.
STREET CRIMES OF THE MORGUE
The Murders in the Rue Morgue, also called The Murders in the Rue Morgue is one of the stories that make up the "crimes of the locked room."
It is a story that has locked itself a theory of the analytical capacity that distinguishes the ordinary men of those who are inside a kind of insight that goes beyond the natural, which is a hallmark for the type of detective Poe presents in his writings. In the prologue of this story can read reflections on this kind of mental capacity and that Poe knew of this issue. Today it is more common to speak of these matters, as scientific advances enable us to know ever better human nature, but when this story first appeared in Graham's paper was an issue that had been treated only above, so that was quite innovative and attractive to the public.
The story takes place in Paris where the narrator, of which we know the name, knows Dupin, a bohemian who shares with him his love of books not found anywhere. Both decide to live together in a house during the narrator's stay in Paris, where they spend time reading and studying. During this time, the narrator discovers that his friend has a very unique talent: he is a very perceptive. But what can not imagine how it can be useful is that sense of perception when attempting to solve a crime, in this case the crime of the Rue Morgue, without being suspected of any kind or tracks that may lead to the solution. During a night on the streets of Paris, Dupin begins to surprise his friend, who seems to read minds deducting their thoughts in such a way that linked a hiccup ten minutes before with a reflection about the theater.
few days later, in the newspaper a story appears online with some testimonies of witnesses of a strange crime in the Rue Morgue. The article reflected the information of physicians and residents who attended a series of screams after that, by forcing the front door to the building, were treated to a gruesome spectacle that bordered on the grotesque. Could find two badly mutilated bodies: that of the daughter, who had been introduced by the hole in the chimney after being strangled, and the mother, horribly maimed, whose head was almost severed from the body, covered in blood and thrown into the courtyard from a small window in a superior rooms. He had several crushed bones and other almost crushed. But apart from the terrible screams alerted neighbors, could not hear any more clear, only the voice of a Frenchman on the top floor. All agreed to have heard a voice, but could not decipher what he said, or the nationality of the speaker. The house was found in complete disorder, so that the police determined that it was a robbery. Dupin, after obtaining permission to inspect the house and be obliged to help a friend who was accused of the crime, takes action, as well as deductive-analytic method that manages to surprise the public and to those involved in crime. Tracks that Dupin gets analyzed are a few fingerprints and a lock of hair found in the hand of one of the victims.
This story appears in it a guide on how to be a detective and what are its fundamental characteristics and qualities. The basis of all logical-deductive analysis focuses on the observation of facts and mental acuity. And Dupin has both of these features that is capable of penetrating up to a human mind. This work is directly influenced the detective story that began to emerge from that moment, creating characters such as Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, which, although it refuses to accept that his character has some resemblance to Dupin, we see that broadly, the work of Poe exerted a strong influence on the writings of Conan Doyle.
Through the few pages in which this story unfolds we find some characteristic elements of Poe and Romanticism that was influential in the United States during the nineteenth century. There are certain elements that make history in particular, elements which tend to appear in the writings of romanticism, full of the magical and mysterious touch of the author.
Dupin • The figure embodies the bohemian spirit along with the narrator, who begins to see the strangeness of his friend. Seems to seek the dark, as if he felt more comfortable after dark, and light the candles, passing whole nights reading books and studying rare. In the house where they both move not receive visits of any kind, since almost no one knows where they live, and just leave the house during the day.
• The human mind and skills make her an object of study that revolves around the culture in general. It is the time the flowering of man as an individual and unique, which leads him to make a self-study, knowledge of the intellect.
· The unknown becomes an almost morbid, since it is an area that borders on elements that do not understand through human reason or by means of scientific explanation. The unknown, the grotesque, horror, turn into something aesthetically beautiful by the words used accurately to create an atmosphere of terror that affects the reader.
We see a double meaning in the same story: the philosophical sense, embodied primarily in the prologue to the story, which becomes a test in which mental processes are analyzed, and the literary sense, that is, the story itself, which combines terror with the detective novel. Maybe you can give the impression that the reflective effect dominates the story as it is presented as an excuse to write about issues almost unknown for the time it was written.
0 comments:
Post a Comment