Edgar Allan Poe s The Masque Of - amazonia.fiocruz.br

Edgar Allan Poe s The Masque Of Video

William S. Burroughs Recites Edgar Allan Poe’s The Mask Of The Red Death

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A far-cry from the talented, eloquent writer we all all know him to be — Poe dies a haggard, frail shell of a man. Yours, in haste, Jos. It seemed baffling how he ended up in this condition, and Poe himself was in no shape to answer any questions about his plight. With the rain in Baltimore cascading down in a blitz, Poe stumbled its streets mumbling incoherent gibberish. But Edgar had not always been like this. Just days before, he had left Richmond, Virginia, bound for Philadelphia to undertake some editing work for an up-and-coming writer. Still only forty, Poe was robust, energised, and working regularly. Edgar Allan Poe s The Masque Of

Daguerreotype by unknown artist; restored by Yann Forget and Adam Click. Wikimedia public domain. InEdgar Allan Poe published one of his most famous stories, which turns out to be a parable for The Masque of the Red Death concerns a prince who gathers his wealthy friends within the walls of his castle when the Red Death rampages through the countryside, killing everyone who is exposed to it.

The prince hosts a lavish ball for his thousand friends in seven rooms lavishly decorated for the occasion. At the stroke of midnight, a masked intruder arrives bringing the dreaded plague. Thanks to Laurence H. Tribe the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard University for his tweet reminding me of this macabre story, so perfect for our time. Also recommended for reading aloud during this scary season.

No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, wit h dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid Edgwr from the sympathy of his fellow-men.

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And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour. But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts.

They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned.

With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself.

Poe and the English Language

In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. It was towards the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand PPoe at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence. This file has been provided by the British Library from its digital collections.

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It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. These were seven—an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time.]