Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe (hosted by Sam) > Likes and Comments
Welcome to the topic devoted to works of Edahr Allan Poe. Before going further, let me apologize for not arranging the schedule better because I suddenly realized that I had plotted four days to nurse a discussion on a poem that only deserves two. Thankfully real life interceded and my responsibilities took extra time today leaving me far from home at the moment without my laptop and notes. So I am winging it on my tablet but I'm afraid my fat fingers are not doing a very good job. So this will just be an introductory post on Poe and the poem with more analysis tomorrow. One thought that came late to me was that since this a Dickens group with an international membership probably more familiar with Victorian British literature than Edgar Allan Poe. In the U.S., most every student would have some exposure to Poe, but what about internationally? Have the members read him? Also, in my school years Poe was on a downward trend with most of my professors tending to dismiss him as a lesser talent. I am not going to try an argue Poe's merits compared to authors like Dickens, but I think he has a place in the canon and for our group's topic I can't think of a more fun author to read.
So I chose a poem, The Bells, for our introductory read. For today, all I ask of you is that you read the first poem aloud. Do not fear looking foolish. If you have children, grandchildren, a cat or dog, they will be an accepting audience no matter how poorly you think you sound.
Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
All you need do is read the poem and feel the musicality. Try and recognize the Poe is putting all his effort into writing material that you will respond to and he is pushing the envolope in his attempt. So the goal today is just to hear that in the poem. We will get to the analysis and some bio details tomorrow.
I am keeping the saved posts for some early remarks tomorrow when I am home. Fell free to respond on anythi g about the first stanza.
Sam, that was a good idea to read the first part of the poem aloud. We can hear a light, happy sound in this onomatopoeic poem. There is repetition as there would be in actual ringing of bells, and lots of rhyming "l" sounds. The short "e" vowel sounds also give it a light feel.
To answer your question personally, I'm definitely more familiar with Victorian British literature, Sam! Specifically English. Edgar Allan Poe was never mentioned at schoolIn fact even later I only really knew about Edgar Allan Poe from films, and perhaps the odd short story in an anthology. Once I knew that Charles Dickens rated him highly, I read a few more, but this wasn't until I was middle aged! I still found M.R. James's type of horror more effective ... a mere whiff of dread: a suggestion of creepiness, rather than literal (and often repellent) descriptions.
But I realise this is personal taste, and wonder if it is culturally influenced(?) English fiction is as a general rule perhaps more restrained and less graphic? I do try, and have written 16 separate reviews of Edgar Allan Poe's stories and collections for Goodreads. I am here to be converted 😊
I love that you had me read this aloud, Sam! You were right about my dog being an appropriate audience. She listened to me with a tilted head and ears perked up, which I think indicates she was intrigued by this new behavior of mine :-)I actually read it aloud twice, and the second read I didn't stumble over "tintinnabulation" which I admit ruined my rhythm the first time.
This might be a crazy thought, but here it goes. It sort of reminds me of something Dr. Seuss would write. Something about the rhyming and the rhythm, I think.
Thank you for all your comments. I will address them tomorrow but for now I have today's post.
Welcome to the next post on The Bells. What better way to begin a reading of Poe's works then to choose what is presumed his last poem, written in 1848, yet only published after his death in 1849! Poe was forty years old. He had been born in the U.S. but his mother was a British actress who had come to America and married a U.S. actor. His father soon abandoned the family and his mother died soon after from tuberculosis so Poe was fostered by John and Frances Allan. John had emigrated from Scotland and Frances was a Richmond VA.socialite when they married. This couple brought Young Edgar to England and Scotland to spend five of his formative years from when he was six through eleven. His foster mother died when he was twenty. From this brief early biography I want to make two points. Poe has a fair British background and he suffered from or may have even been a product of losses. A further loss came a few short years after he married when his young wife contracted tuberculosis and died five years later. The poem is a good introduction to Poe because it shows Poe's seeming drive to evoke emotions in his audience through the power of words. The poem also exhibits elements that will be evidenced in much of Poe's work and become his trademarks of mystery and horror.
On the technical end the poem is exceptional. It is often used as a definition for onomatopoeia where words are formed in imitation or suggestion of their sound. Tintinnabulation is probably the word readers most associate with the poem and it is the perfect example, meaning, "a jingling or tinkling sound as if of bells." But Poe also used rhyme, assonance, repetition and more to create his verbal soundscape. Note his use of rhythm. I don't know how much you remember of your terms on metrical feet but here is Coleridge's mnemonic to refresh you.
Trochee trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactyl trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long;
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng;
One syllable long, with one short at each side,
Amphibrachs hastes with a stately stride;
First and last being long, middle short, Amphimacer
Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud high-bred Racer.
Poe opens with a line of trochaic tetrameter but then he utilizes all the metrical feet to mimic the sounds of the bells in his poem. If you read the poem out loud you will note how the words cause you to speed up you reading or sometimes slow it down. I decided not to post any more of the actual poem text but instead will link some youtube interpretations. Some of these are musical and I hope you get to listen to them. I must run for today. More tomorrow.
Basil Rathbone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc0FJ...
Christopher Lee:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uHgj...
Helen Atkinson Wood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMC4P...
Eric Woolfson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgyoF...
Phil Ochs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xS5L...
Here are some illustrations form an 1881 edition of a book of the poem.
R. Riordan
F.O.C. Darley
Got to take a break for now. The summary and my attempt to tie this to our themes will come tomorrow as well as replies to comments. Thanks for your patience.
Thanks, Sam, for the links to recordings. I'm really stumbling over all those bells on my own!
I love that poem, Sam. As I was reading it (and yes, I can see why you asked us to read it out loud), I could hear the bells in the Christmas song, Carol of the Bells. The Bells is a joyful poem to me.I did study Edgar Allan Poe in high school, and he has always been one of my favorite American authors. I recently re-read The Raven for the first time in many years. It really struck me with its sadness and overwhelming grief.
Thanks for those recordings Sam. I listened to the Rathbone version. The lyrics really make the poem feel so light. It's weird because we always associate Poe with so much dark, heavy, and foreboding subject matters, but this one feels almost like a Christmas song like Shirley mentions, full of hope and emotion.
This isn't a poem I knew, but it's certainly very powerful. Within moments I was thrust back to my 19 year-old self, still in bed on an early Sunday morning, groaning and pulling the covers over my head! I lived in a bedsit (i.e. one room) in Oxford, and the parish church had an enthusiastic bell-ringing team (of "ghouls") who did their main practice then. 😱 "jangling and wrangling" ... "clanging and clamouring" ... Edgar Allan Poe captures that cacophony and monotony very well!
Thanks Sam and everyone all for the analysis. It was an inspiration to provide these recording links, thanks especially for this, the bio and visuals, Sam. How sad that the poem was published posthumously.
Of the recordings, I liked the Helen Atkinson Wood one best. It was excellent: exactly right.This surprised me, as she is a comedienne, (precisely 2 years younger than me 😁) whose work is mainly satirical. She captures the insistence and mystery of the poem, and the background bells enhanced her recording in each section. (It starts after 5 and a half minutes, for those who want to miss the bumph.)
I expected to like a reading by Christopher Lee - he's an obvious choice isn't he? But in fact this recording was not made by him but by an impressionist reading in his style. So I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected, because I spent the whole time wondering what was wrong with his voice 🙄!
Basil Rathbone was OK, though his voice was a little light for this I think. I liked the sleigh bells intro - Mahler's 4th symphony - (beginning of the 4th movement I think?) but would have preferred it to be faded out. That's the case with all the "background" music, as surely the poem does not need this?
Eric Woolfson - different for sure! A vocal rendering.
Phil Ochs's voice reminded me of Tom Lehrer! I enjoyed this one for itself; it was very pleasant, but I'm not sure it captured the true sense of the poem.
I had only ready Part 1 of the poem yesterday when I posted, so I didn't see that the mood would change as the poem progressed through human events.It is a beautiful poem, and I did thoroughly enjoy it. Sam, thank you for posting the links to the YouTube videos. Like Jean, I was not a fan of the readings by Basil Rathbone and Christopher Lee (thank you, Jean, for letting us know this was not truly Christopher Lee - it didn't sound right to me either). I thought they would be perfect for this poem, but again, like Jean, I really loved Helen Atkinson Wood's reading. I thought she nailed it!
I love how Poe changed the bells' voices based on their material (silver, gold, brass and iron) and on their purpose. It was so well done.
American readers, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think our ancestors would have been quite as in tune with ringing of the bells as in Europe. In Europe, I believe most cities and villages would have had at least one Catholic Church with a bell tower. In the States, with protestants outnumbering Catholics, I think bell towers would have been limited to large urban areas, such as Boston and New York, or large concentrations of Catholics, as in New Orleans. I bring this up because I wonder how much Poe's travels abroad inspired a poem he wouldn't have thought of had he been raised solely in the US.
I also liked Helen Atkinson Wood's recording best. She gave a good sense of the four parts of the poem, and the bells in the background were used sparingly so we could hear the poem well.The recording in the style of Christopher Lee did not differentiate in tone well as he went from one part of the poem to another.
I liked Basil Rathbone's excellent reading of the poem, but the Gustav Mahler music in the background was too loud, drowning out the words in parts.
Phil Ochs made the poem into a folk song, accompanied it with a guitar, and returned in the end to the first part. While I like folk music in general, it didn't fit a poem about bells.
Eric Woolfson's recording was a choral performance with the orchestra changing styles as the poem progressed. It was interesting, but the emphasis was on the music and not the poem. If someone did not know the poem, some of the words would be lost when listening to a chorus.
It helps to have a copy of the poem when listening to these recordings so you can see Poe's word choices to mimic the sounds of the different bells.
Shirley, I read that the bells at Fordham University, formally St John's College, near Poe's residence were thought to be the inspiration for the poem. This is a Catholic university run by the Jesuits in New York City.
That’s great information, Connie! I’ll have to check out St. Joseph’s College. It’s nice to know what inspired him. Thank you!
Wonderful idea to read these. Looking forward to it. And many thanks for all of the details and links.
Amazing how we all seem to agree about the merits of the various recordings! I expected mine to be an outlying opinion. This is tricky ... I don't want to spoil the finale work in Sam's slot leading works by Edgar Allan Poe ... but I keep being reminded of Trotty Veck in The Chimes: Charles Dickens second Christmas book which was published in 1844. We had an excellent group read of this, led by Petra, if anyone needs a reminder 😊. Now Sam has told us that The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe was actually written in 1848 i.e. just four years later than The Chimes.
Given what we know about the origins of another of Poe's poems, and the two author's mutual admiration, I'm tempted to think that The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe might be an homage to Charles Dickens's "Goblin Story of some Bells ...". At the very least it could have been the inspiration: I suspect Edgar Allan Poe must have read that novella, and had it in mind.
Do you know anything about this, Sam?
Bionic Jean wrote: "Amazing how we all seem to agree about the merits of the various recordings! I expected mine to be an outlying opinion. This is tricky ... I don't want to spoil the finale work in Sam's slot lead..."
There is much speculation on origins and connections in Poe's work. Because there is so much and some contradictory, I was going to leave my specific Dickens connection to The Raven. But on The Bells, there is a story told that Mrs. Shew, the nurse for Poe's wife who then remained friends with Poe after had a visit from Poe who claimed he needed to write a poem but because town church bells were ringing at the time Poe could not concentrate. She claimed to have written the first line of a couple of stanzas to help encourage him to write the poem.
You can read her full letter # 32 in the following link.
https://www.eapoe.org/papers/misc1921...
And hear is a copy of the Shew Manuscript for which she supposedly wrote the first line of each stanza. Poe continued to rewrite the poem and sold each rewrite with the final rewrite the poem we know today.
The Bells
By Mrs. M. L. Shew.
The bells! — ah, the bells!
The little silver bells!
How fairy-like a melody there floats
From their throats. —
From their merry little throats —
From the silver, tinkling throats
Of the bells, bells, bells —
Of the bells!
The bells! — ah, the bells!
The heavy iron bells!
How horrible a monody there floats
From their throats —
From their deep-toned throats —
From their melancholy throats!
How I shudder at the notes
Of the bells, bells, bells —
Of the bells!
Now there is obviously some truth to this but like much of the stories that surround Poe it is difficult to tell the truth from fiction and there is a heck of a lot of fiction.
Personally, I think there is probably a lot of possible sources to this and other Poe works.
Welcome at last to a summary of The Bells. Before I begin, I want to remind everyone that this is just one interpretive summary and if you have a different one please feel free to share. I actually see more than one myself but I chose to link this summary to some words in Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition," linked below. I will be referring to this essay more than once over our exploration of Poe and you are welcome to read it and form your own ideas. https://www.eapoe.org/works/cmprs/pep...
In the paragraph I am quoting, Poe puts words to his considerations when writing a piece and those of you that know Poe, know Poe did not necessarily follow his own philosophy when it came to originality or other things he says in the essay, but for our benefit, it is the thought that counts.
I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view — for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest — I say to myself, in the first place, “Of the innumerable effects, or impressions, of which the heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select?” Having chosen a novel, first, and secondly a vivid effect, I consider whether it can best be wrought by incident or tone — whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident and tone — afterward looking about me (or rather within) for such combinations of event, or tone, as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect.
So we see Poe seeks an original subject and then considers the effect he can have on his reader with the subject Then he looks to how to achieve that effect through incident or tone and how the two can be combined for best effect on the reader.
In the first stanza of the poem, our narrator celebrates sleigh bells and the effect on us is positive. We are riding at night under the stars in a sleigh decorated with silver bells. Thoughts come to mind of a childhood with the innocence and simple joy of being alive. The sounds and the words like merriment and melody are bright and cheerful. There is that phrase however, "Runic rhyme," that to me suggests mystery and the unknown but it does not take from our mood.
The second stanza celebrates a wedding with Golden Bells, and we get the sense the narrator has grown into a young adult. The stanza is more complex and note the introduction of long O sounds and open vowels or vowels followed by glides and nasal voiced consonants that extend the tone of the sound. The message is still upbeat and positive and the idea of the future is mentioned. I cannot help but read a slight sense of irony in the tone of the stanza, though. There is the phrase below that almost seems to be making fun of itself and it has the word, gloats, which seems so diabolical.
"From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!"
It is the same with the number of "el" rhymes. They seem exaggerated almost mocking.
The third stanza depicts Brazen (brass) bells sounding to alarm for a fire. This is the first complication to our happy narration and it is told franticly with discordance and a complexity that literally has one running out of breath when reciting the lines:
"Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now—now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon."
I physically feel these lines. And when the narrator voices the word, "Despair!', there is no sense this is a mild hiccup in life's happy journey. It is big turn in tone from the earlier stanzas.
The fourth stanza hears the tolling of iron funeral bells. Someone has died and it is not the narrator since we hear the same narrator's voice in this stanza. But it seems someone close to him and his response swings from melancholic depression to manic imagination.
"For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone—
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human—
They are Ghouls:"
Poe delivers the full effect here and we get a sense of a broken narrator, pushed to the brink of madness from despair. His imaginings of the people in the steeple grow more exaggerated as he grows more distraught and the sound of the bells overwhelms us as well as the narrator.
I'm going to call it here because I've written a lot. Tomorrow we will examine the effects on the reader in more detail, but it will be a short post.
F.O.C. Darley
Granville Perkins
R. Riordan
There is a lot to digest today. I hope it was not too much!! But while we are finishing with The Bells tomorrow, I just want you to know we will begin The Fall of the House of Usher on Monday. I am going to split the story summaries over the four days but if you wish to read the story as Poe intended, "in one sitting," please do do. I think you will enjoy the story if you appreciate horror, for it is one of Poe's most acclaimed stories.
"... there is a story told that Mrs. Shew, the nurse for Poe's wife who then remained friends with Poe after had a visit from Poe who claimed he needed to write a poem but because town church bells were ringing at the time Poe could not concentrate." This is fascinating Sam - thanks so much for the article!
The bells which inspired Trotty Veck's were different ones. As we learned in our group read of it, Charles Dickens wrote The Chimes during his year living in Italy. He was overcome by the clamour of the Genoese bells and as John Forster wrote:
"All Genoa lay beneath him, and up from it, with some sudden set of the wind, came in one fell sound the clang and clash of all its steeples, pouring into his ears, again and again, in a tuneless, grating, discordant, jerking, hideous vibration that made his ideas "spin round and round till they lost themselves in a whirl of vexation and giddiness, and dropped down dead.""
Immediately after this Charles Dickens began to write The Chimes. Perhaps Edgar Allan Poe was predisposed to have a similar reaction to some town bells after reading his friend's novella, perhaps not. But I can attest to their intrusive cacophony, especially when living "trapped" in one room close by!
Interesting information! I noticed right away that the poem suggests psychological/developmental stages in human life: innocence and wonder, optimism and hope, fear and awareness, and finally mortality.The Four Ages of (a) (Hu)Man in literature generally refer to childhood, youth, maturity, and old age. But there is also the antecedent Greek/Roman Four Ages of (Hu)Man(kind): the Golden Age (idyllic peace, harmony, abundance), the Silver Age (moral decline, seasonal flood/drought cycles), the Bronze Age (violence, strength), and the Iron Age (toil, suffering, moral corruption).
Poe manages to capture both of these senses in his poem, as not only are the life stages metaphorized but the bells themselves are made of silver, gold, bronze, and iron. The order of the first two is switched, but Poe must have been aware of the allusion.
Today I wish to briefly add some thoughts that may help our understanding of Poe and compare him with Dickens because there are similarities and differences. But first I think it helps to see Poe and Dickens as authors of their places and period. The generalizing helps us define the kind of literature being written in a specific place and time. So I would usually classify Dickens as a Victorian author and hope in using that distinction, I covered the social novel, the gothic novel, sensation novel, realism, serial novels, long novels, multiple characters, melodrama and so on. With Dickens we see all of that. Poe is more related to American Romanticism which occurs later than European and especially British Romanticism, but Poe's work seems more fitting with Byron's, Shelley's and Blake's than Dickens' or the Bronte's despite some similarities. Poe would be associated with the term Dark Romanticism and I think it needs no explanation. Where Transcendentalism tended to be optimistic about man, nature, and the future, Dark Romanticism emphasizes the opposite. All this categorization has exceptions but I just wanted to show that Poe is coming from a tradition rather than a vacuum. In this tradition, we see Poe ignore much of what Dickens did well. We won't see much humor, character development. or social commentary. While both authors seek to entertain, Dickens approach is broad while Poe is a specialist. Poe wants to entertain primarily by stimulating what we consider the reader's negative high-arousal emotions. So while authors like Dickens or the Brontes might include episodes that affect the reader in such a way, it seems in with Poe that it is his whole raison d'etre.
If we accept that, The Bells IMO, is a poem that is not just describing different moods that are associated with different types of bell ringing, but the poem seems more directional. Their seems an inevitability and fatalism present suggesting that is is the end to which we may all be headed. We may not feel the names negative outlook but we can empathize with the narrator's and that empathy is not as buffered with humor as we see in Dickens' Captain Murderer.
Henry Fuselli The Nightmare
Erich C wrote: "Interesting information! I noticed right away that the poem suggests psychological/developmental stages in human life: innocence and wonder, optimism and hope, fear and awareness, and finally morta..."Erich is correct and I agree him feeling the poem illustrates both those time progressions. Poe is a classicist and we frequently have to read him from that perspective looking for the Classical allusions and even rooting out etymological meanings from the words he chooses. Thanks Erich!!
I want to mention Pandæmonium or pandemonium a term coined by John Milton in Paradise Lost. The term is rooted in Greek and means "all Demons," or "all Demon's place." Milton used it as "A solemn council forthwith to be heldAt Pandemonium, the high capital Of Satan and his peers.
(PL Book 1 lines 755-757)
Now we understand the meaning as "wild and noisy disorder or confusion; chaos"
I bring this up because some of Poe's stories and poems definitely head towards or end in pandemonium. We see this in the 4th stanza of The Bells. I to ask you to consider why this disorder and chaos seems so attractive to us? It is just something to consider throughout the rest of our readings. Horror was Poe's legacy. It is one of the fastest growing fiction genres today showing large percentage increases in Both America and the U.K. through the last few years. Again, the question, why are we so fond of this genre?
Granville Perkins
F.O.C. Darley
A.Fredericks
This should wrap up our discussion of The Bells. I hope the poem has stimulated your interest in his stories. I added the links to various adaptations to the poem to evidence the continued interest in Poe's work. Just to note, Sergey Rachmaninov wrote a symphony to a Russian adaptation of the poem and I was tempted but spared you from the various rap renditions of the poem. The illustrations were all from an 1881 edition of the poem with the exception of The Nightmare by Henry Fuselli which just goes along with the mood. Tomorrow we begin the summary of "The Fall of the House of Usher."
Reading and discussion schedule for The Fall of the House of Usher. 3/9/2026 From the beginning to the the end of the paragraph before "The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill..."
3/10/2026 From "The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill..." to the end of the poem before the line the begins "I well remember that suggestions..."
3/11/2026 From "I well remember that suggestions..." to "The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad Trist..."
3/12/2026 From "The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad Trist..." to the end of the story.
This is the plan I will follow for discussion but if you wish to read the story "in one setting" please do so.
Edited to correct dates of discussion.
Sam wrote: "Reading and discussion schedule for The Fall of the House of Usher. 3/8/2026 From the beginning to the the end of the paragraph before "The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill...."
My favorite Poe story! Look forward to this!
Welcome to summary # 1 for The Fall of the House of Usher.
The House of Usher by Robert Lawson
The story begins on an autumn evening as an unnamed narrator on horseback has arrived at his destination and the House of Usher has come into view, With this, the narrator suffers an "insufferable gloom." We are exposed to the details of the scene the narrator sees and the narrator asks himself a question, 'What was it --I paused to think --what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?' Which is also an invitation for us to try and solve this mystery with him. He thinks it might his perspective that is causing the gloom so he changes the perspective and tries looking at the house in its reflection in a tarn which borders it but the image in the tarn is as disturbing as when he viewed the house previously.
We get a back story where the narrator has been invited here to stay in a letter from a boyhood companion, Roderick Usher. Roderick Usher has not been physically or mentally well, and hopes a visit from his childhood friend will cheer him up. We get more back story, that though intimate his friend was "excessive and habitual," and somewhat a mystery. The family was known for charity and interest in art and music.The family descendants also have not extended beyond the house and the very last of the Ushers dwell there now. The narrator looks up from the tarn and notes feeling a whole unnatural atmosphere surrounds this house. He describes in detail the decaying house and discovers a "barely perceptible fissure," zigzaging down the center of the house.
The narrator rides up, enters the house and is guided by a servant to Usher. He observes that the furnishings along the way, though familiar to him, incur more dark, uncomfortable feelings. A physician is seen whose expression further unnerves him. On entering the study of Roderick Usher, more details of dark corners, drapes, antiques, musical instruments, and the like are described which inspire him with more gloom. Usher rises from a sofa upon which he has been lying to greet our narrator. He has changed a lot since the narrator saw him last and the narrator describes his physical appearance in detail as well. He notes Usher's speech and behavior as altering between lively and reserved, comparing his behavior to that "which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium..." Usher is anxious and fearful for his life. He irrationally feels the house and tarn have gained an influence over him and his mood. But he also confesses a more rational source of his anxiety probably stems from his sister's long illness which would leave him, alone, "the last of the ancient race of the Ushers." At that moment the Lady Madeline comes in and crosses the room without even looking at our narrator. Roderick has dropped his face into his hands and sobs.
We are going to try something a little different today. Instead of adding commentary, I am leaving the commentary to you for this first post. There is much that can be said and I'm giving you first shot. I will chime in later. 
Arthur Rackham “The House of Usher”
I think Poe really sets the mood and pace at the outset with those opening lines as our narrator is approaching the House of Usher. The "insufferable gloom" seems to pervade and envelop the entirety of his feelings and it translates to the tone of the work.
Just to say that my edition is this one:
from 1935. The cover illustration is the same, but mine is a hardback and has a black background which is much more atmospheric. Here it is, opened out:
I'll add my edition to the database when I get a chance.
This is an oversize, sumptuous book 😊 I read the stories on kindle, but am so pleased you included Arthur Rackham's illustration for this particular story, Sam. Looking forward to starting tomorrow, (9th March i.e. alternatively 9/3 for we non-American readers!)
(Now linked in comment 1.)
Bionic Jean wrote: "Just to say that my edition is this one: from 1935. The cover illustration is the same, but mine is a hard..."Wow, that cover is pretty cool!
I probably won't reread the story; but will follow the discussion, and comment if I have anything worthwhile to contribute. :-)This story is not easy to adapt in movie format, but there was a pretty accurate adaptation done in 1976 as part of the Short Story Showcase series (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2169716/ ). I've watched it several times, both in 16 mm film format and online, and recommend it, but it takes some searching to track down.
Mentions of the vacant eye-like windows of the mansion gives the impression of a head, and personifies the house. This can be seen well in the illustration by Robert Lawson that Sam posted in comment 36. The home is described as dark, decaying, and oppressive. Very gothic! "The House of Usher" has a double meaning--the historical Usher family and the physical mansion.
Roderick Usher is described in words suggesting a corpse with a "cadaverousness of complexion" and "ghastly pallor of the skin." He also has a "morbid acuteness of the senses." Our narrator is feeling very uncomfortable about the whole situation.
Connie wrote: "Mentions of the vacant eye-like windows of the mansion gives the impression of a head, and personifies the house. This can be seen well in the illustration by Robert Lawson that Sam posted in comme..."I love the double meaning, and it seems to carry double meaning throughout the story.
Franky, I read the story years ago and am noticing things on this third or fouth read that are important later. If you taught the story to your students, what was their reaction to it?
Connie wrote: "Franky, I read the story years ago and am noticing things on this second read that are important later. If you taught the story to your students, what was their reaction to it?"They were confused, but that is to be expected. I think they don't get the level of how the literal story and the symbolic story blend and mesh together. There's so much allegorically going on, and honestly this is such a deeply complex story going on. Honestly I've read the story nearly 20 or 30 times and I think I still get some different takes out of it.
Werner wrote: "I probably won't reread the story; but will follow the discussion, and comment if I have anything worthwhile to contribute. :-)This story is not easy to adapt in movie format, but there was a pre..."
Yes, this film was an attempt at a faithful adaptation meant I believe for classroom use or that is how I heard of it being used. . I am not sure if its copyright license was renewed but it is available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVSSY...
There is a lot of what we call foreshadowing in the story. but Poe takes this to extremes. In Poe's review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales he wrote:"A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents--he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction."
The above is called Poe's "unity of effect." In Poe's method of composition, after he found the effect he wanted to produce in the reader, he then sought to have everything in the story from beginning to the end, contribute to the achieving of that effect on the reader, from the way I read him.
Poe's aims are not those of every author and we can already see differences of philosophy with Dickens. Nor should we necessarily agree with Poe's ideas. But when it comes to short stories, as we see in this one or in A Christmas Carol when the author tends to aim everything in the story toward achieving one effect, it can make a very good story.
BTW, I am not by an means a Poe scholar as I stated earlier. Please correct my errors when I make them. My attempt is to give us a light introduction to Poe, relate him to the U.K., sensational fiction, and Dickens, and further encourage us to probe why this type of literature is important and enjoyable, hopefully even offering a positive use beyond its simple enjoyment. I'll take all the help I can get!
Welcome to summary #2 of The Fall of the House of Usher. I am posting early today because of chores. I will be in appointment most of tomorrow and will post as I find time. 
Albert Edward Sterner
We learn that Lady Madeline's illness is causing the behavior of a "partially cataleptical character," where one's body would become immobile or rigid and where a person may hold a fixed body posture for long periods of time. After Lady Madeline was seen by the narrator, her condition worsened, she took to bed, and our narrator doesn't see more of her nor is she mentioned while visiting with his friend. Instead he and Roderick spend time together reading, painting, and listening to Roderick's playing of the guitar. Despite their getting closer the narrator feels a futility in trying to cheer Roderick from his gloom. The music played and art painted by Roderick is described elaborately and our narrator notes the improvisations and abstractions fill him with awe. He states, "If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher." He describes one of Roderick's paintings as a long rectangular tunnel without outlet located beneath the surface of the earth but filled with light though no artificial light source was visible. The music Roderick played is also described by our narrator with an emphasis on its fantastical nature and, using words recited by Roderick as an accompaniment to a tune, as an example, he notes the, "artificial excitement,' in the sound of them and how he thinks in listening that Roderick is perhaps, losing his reason.
"The Haunted Palace"
I.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once fair and stately palace --
Radiant palace --reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion --
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.
II.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;
(This --all this --was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odour went away.
III.
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
IV.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
V.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate;
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
VI.
And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh --but smile no more.
The lyrics are allegorical and rather than spoil it, I will leave the poem open for summary by you. For a hint, note it is "Thought's Dominion," that is being described in the poem.
The theme attributed to Von Weber as "The Last Waltz," is one one know and is actually credited to Carl Gottlieb Reissiger. I am linking two versions of the tune. The first by Polivios Issariotis is a wonderful guitar version performed on a 19th century guitar:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5tkz...
The second is the tune played more simply on a fretless banjo by Timothy Twiss and ie here because I like fretless banjo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XxSR...
Regarding the opening of the story, it struck me that in the opening sentences Poe described the day as "dull, dark, and soundless." Why soundless? Who has ever traveled through the countryside by horse and heard only silence? The word "soundless" gave an immediate sense of isolation and creepiness to the scene, and that sense was increased by the distorted view of the house as seen in the tarn.
Sam will be leading his selection of these between 5th and 30th March 2026 for our "Ghosts, Ghouls and Gothic" year, and this thread will remain open for further stories by this author. Sam's choices (with links) are:
5th - 8th - The Bells (poem)
Beginning and Bio and More information
9th - 12th - The Fall of the House of Usher
Schedule and Summary 1
Summary 2
13th - 16th - William Wilson
17th - 20th - The Man of the Crowd
21st - 24th - The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales
25th - 28th - The Raven (poem)
Cindy may lead one later in the year.
The next post will be for possible future links.
**PLEASE ALLOW SAM TO COMMENT FIRST. Thanks