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Analysis Of Edgar Allan Poe 's ' The Raven And The Pit ' Essay

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The author Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most recognizable in American literature both by name and by work. He is famous for such pieces of literature as The Raven and The Pit and the Pendulum. He is most notable for his virtual invention of the detective/mystery genre as well as, in part, that of the horror genre. During the time of his life and activity in the world of American literature, the country was being swept by a new variety of thought known as Romanticism. The inevitable result of this new worldview was that Poe, along with others such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville, was influenced by this way of thinking in his writing. It was in this way that Poe exemplified the Romantic American culture of his time in such works as The Tell-Tale Heart. Romanticism was a movement that affected art, literature, philosophy, and nearly every other facet of the cultures of the countries that it affected. It started in Europe around 1750, originating there and pervading virtually every European country until it spread to the United States sometime around 1840 after the French Revolution and then continued on to affect Latin America as well. Major elements of this new worldview were the idea that nature is pure while civilization is corrupt and unnatural, that all of Man is inherently good, and a deep reliance and focus upon emotion as opposed to reason. In the Anthology of American Literature by George McMichael and James S. Leonard in

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