Style of Writing

Being born in 1809, Poe was heavily influenced by the Romantic Movement which occurred in the 18^th and 19^th century. His works often talked about death and love, often merging the two to make tragedies. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth were the initiators of the movement in England. It was retaliation to the Industrial Revolution and Age of Enlightenment and was against the scientific rationalization of nature, instead focusing on the feelings and the imagination of man to come up with ideas. Poe wrote mainly about the supernatural and occult, death and afterlife or a surreal existence being the main themes of many of his works. Poe was also the first ever American author to try to make a living and was affected by the lack of there being any copyright law in place. Due to this, many works were plagiarized and hence, writing could not be depended on as a sole source f income. Despite this, after the publication and success of his poem ‘The Raven’, Poe’s name became bonded with the literary works of that time.

Poe’s writing style often included the macabre and dark themes, and a lot of his genre was of Gothic taste. Dark romanticism and satires and hoaxes were also a great part of his work. He is the first American writer to be credited for inventing the genre of detective fiction. There is a large amount of irony and extravagance in his comedic works. Poe also played a major role in the developing genre of science fiction. His writing appealed to the masses and therefore wrote about many items included in pseudoscience. Horror was also a major genre Poe contributed to in his time.