End of Cruelty in Edgar Allen Poe’s Metzengerstein

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End of Cruelty in Edgar Allen Poe’s Metzengerstein
Introduction
Since prehistory, arts and literature have drawn inspiration from the physical environment and the interaction of human beings among themselves and with the environment CITATION Bue11 \l 2057 ( Buell, Heise and Thornber). Political, economic, and social interactions are essential aspects of inspiring literature environments. In essence, while authors and artists might be naturally gifted to perfection in their various areas of specialization, their work mirrors the events and occurrences in society. Human interaction on the planet has been marred by a variety of both good and bad outcomes. Historically, human beings have been cruel to each other, spreading violence and horror in different places of the earth. In Metzengerstein, Allen Poe shows us that the end to the cruel nature of human beings is a tragedy. This paper seeks to explore Metzengerstein while focusing on the cruel nature of people.
Edgar Allen Poe
Born on the 19th of January, 1809, Poe was an American literary critic, poet, editor, and writer. A variety of his literary work includes poems and short stories focusing on macabre and mystery. Literary scholars regard Poe as a key figure of Romanticism in American literature. According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary, romanticism was a style of art, literature or philosophical movement that began in the 18th century, characterized by a reaction against neoclassicism and an emphasis on emotions and imagination CITATION Hig10 \l 2057 (Higgins and Ruston). Key to romanticism and especially in Poe's work, is a tone of melancholy. Some scholars see romanticism as a rejection of the precepts of order, harmony, calm, rationality, and idealization of the classicism era.
Poe is among the first well-known authors to earn a living from writing alone, a career path that resulted in financial difficulties in his life. Born in Boston as the second child to David and Elizabeth Poe, Poe and his sibling were abandoned by their father in 1810, and his mother died the following year. He attended the University of Virginia, but dropped due to financial problems. Assuming a different name, he enlisted in the army in 1927 CITATION Jef92 \l 2057 (Meyers). After failing as a cadet officer, Poe declared his affection for poetry and writing. Focusing on prose, Poe spent several years studying literary journals and periodicals and developed a unique style of literary criticism. Due to the nature of his work, Poe spent time on the road, moving from Baltimore, through Philadelphia, and ended up in New York City, where he married his 13 year old cousin, Virginia Clemm, in 1836.
In 1845, Poe published his Poem The Raven, whose impact on literature is still significant in modern pop culture. At this time, plans were underway for Poe to start his own journal, The Penn. However, Poe died in 1849, aged 40 before his journal could begin operations CITATION Pau14 \l 2057 (Collins). While the cause of his death remains unknown, substance abuse, alcoholism, and suicide are thought to have been probable causes. For many, the name Poe spurs images of premature burials, murderous madmen, and mysterious female figures with abilities to return from the dead CITATION Poe20 \l 2057 (Poe_Museum). Apart form The Raven, Poe’s other famous works include The Tell-Tale Heart, and the The Fall of the House of Usher. In the modern world, Poe’s reputation is hinged on his tales of terror with his gothic style of narration and haunting lyric poetry CITATION Poe20 \l 2057 (Poe_Museum).
Among the major challenges in Poe’s life as a writer and poet were his inclinations to writing as the main source of income. At the University, for instance, where he excelled in his classes, Poe became so poor that he was forced to burn his furniture to keep warm in the hauntingly cold winters. Even after his career taking off as a literary critique, writer, and poet, he could barely make a living. The publication of his first collection of short stories, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque earned him twenty-five copies of his book CITATION Poe20 \l 2057 (Poe_Museum). It is from this experience that he became a champion for higher wages for writers. He also demanded the establishment of international laws that would protect authors and their work.
Allan Poe’s Style, Perception of the World, and Life Period
In analyzing psychic patterns in Poe’s later poems, Runcie (1987) argues that the critical elements that yield successful chemistry in Poe’s poems include love, woman, death, grief, and how they interrelate, resulting in either romantic agony or romantic joy CITATION Run87 \l 2057 (Runcie). The result of this combination is the gothic nature of Allen’s work that evokes fear of the unknown and paints the cruelty involved before death, especially when perpetrated by humans on other humans. In his rather short life in art and literature, Poe ruled the literary world of death around horror, which was an introduction of fiction into literature, a style that was ahead of its time then CITATION Eva08 \l 2057 (Pinkrová). Unlike other European Romanticists who focused on romantic love and respect for nature, Poe spent time exploring the dark side of human nature and the cruelty that come with it. Even in his romantic poetry, the chants of beautiful women, as described by Poe, are associated with death.
Some scholars have also argued that Poe drew structure and allusion from his interaction with classical literature, which informed his works with a classical worldview CITATION Unr95 \l 2057 ( Unrue ). Further, scholars have ascertained Poe’s prowess and status as a versatile and skilled craftsman conversant with classical rhetoric based on Brett Zimmerman’s stylistic analysis of some of Poe’s famous works. Apart from his style, Poe’s perception of the world was equally as important, especially when trying to understand the world from his point of view. People perceive the world through sensory information digested by their brains and, therefore, creating cognitive storage of what we know. Thus, the more something is perceived, the more the information human recognize. In this sense, the reality is formed by perception, and what can be imagined can influence what can be perceived. Imagination is a necessary ingredient of perception, and therefore, an imagined object is real to the brain and has the potential to influence how the real world is perceived CITATION Nan10 \l 2057 (Nanay).
In his poem A Dream within a Dream, Poe argued that all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. He, therefore, alludes to the concept of imagination and theory, providing a perception of the world that the world we live in an imaginary world, a construction of our brains. Experts argue that in the absence of a real world, the imagination of a human being is capable of producing distorted perceptions of reality CITATION Pea08 \l 2057 (Pearson, Clifford and Tong). In Poe’s story, The Fall of the House of Usher, for instance, some characters in the story strongly believed that the reality they had constructed around them was real to the extent that they fell victim to it. Poe’s 1843 poem, The Conqueror Worm seems to suggest that life is a worthless drama that leads to death eventually. Poe recaptures this assertion in the introduction of the story Metzengerstein, which, as mentioned earlier, is an explanation of the cruel nature of humans and how cruelty ends.
Metzengerstein
Metzengerstein was the first of Edgar Allen Poe’s short story to be printed. This story is told from an unnamed third-person narrator, and it takes place in Hungary at an unspecified date, which for this paper, will be assumed the period within which Poe was alive. Metzengerstein is a story focused on the historic feud between two wealthy families, Metzengerstein and Berlifitzings. The origin of this rivalry is based on an ancient prophecy that the two families have passed down the generations. The prophecy says:
A lofty name shall have a fearful fall when, as the rider over his horse, the mortality of Metzengerstein s...