THE MYTHS OF POE

Poe was such a pivotal figure in the development of modern-day metaphenomenal literature that I devoted several essays on my companion-blog OUROBOROS DREAMS. All of these posts analyzed the phenomena in each of Poe's stories in order to determine whether it was naturalistic, uncanny, or marvelous. I sometimes "doubled up" more than one story per post because I felt like it, so my labels for each phenomenality don't always reflect one story per post. However, skewed though this count was, it suggested that Poe was invested in all three phenomena in terms of the prose fiction he produced, with roughly 16-20 stories fitting each category.

Then it occurred to me that Poe was also unique in creating so many iconic images, usually with Gothic or horrific overtones, that I ought to detail which of his works I rated as high in mythicity.

The following is a list of those works, but the only analysis I'll provide, if any, appears in the linked OUROBOROS essays.

METZGERSTEIN (1832)

BERENICE (1835)

MORELLA (1835)

KING PEST (1835)

SILENCE-- A FABLE (1835)

THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM (1837)

LIGEIA (1838)

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (1839)

MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (1840)

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1842) 

MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1842)

THE TELL-TALE HEART (1843)

THE BLACK CAT (1843)

THE SYSTEM OF DR. TARR AND PROF. FETHER (1844)

"THOU ART THE MAN!" (1844)

THE PREMATURE BURIAL (1844)

THE SPECTACLES (1844)

THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE (1845)

THE POWER OF WORDS (1845)

THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO (1846)

As it happens, I chose exactly 20, with very few examples of "the naturalistic," somewhat more of "the marvelous," and with the majority fitting the domain of "the uncanny." Most of the Usual Suspects fit my criteria for high mythicity, though there are a few obscurities-- "Thou Art the Man," "The Spectales," and "The Power of Words"-- that loomed larger for me than comparative favorites like "William Wilson" and "M. Valdemar," and "Hop-Frog."