life help: On the subject of Edgar allen Poe… - Help.com

Poe was a fantastic writer. I would agree in saying that his American Dream was to be an individual. To be the one to give his fellow Americans something different, something new, something fresh.

http://www.eapoe.org/

creepy coolness…

I love Poe– his work was the first real literature to which I was introduced and I give him credit for the fact I majored in English later.

I like what you have so far, can I add some of my own observations?

I would also say that Poe saw death as a catalyst toward the prime human emotion: melancholy. He felt that melancholy was the ultimate, and that nothing piqued melancholy as much as the death of a innocent, beautiful woman. Search Poe and melancholy (melancholia?) for sources on this.

Also I differ a little on his writing about death and despair, although they are facet. I also think he was interested in probing the human psyche: what makes people tick, expecially those that others might consider “monstrous” or disturbed. Much of his fiction centered on this.

I also see his writing about death as probing that part of our heart that most of us want to deny– that sad, achy, part… of course this goes back to melancholy.

You might also want to search Poe and Romanticism, as that will give you other inisghtst to his views that might sync with an “American dream”

A Quick Guide to Researching Useful Information for Essays and Homework ( to give you some palces to search):

1. List key words with which you will search:
• five words or phrases that describe your topic perfectly and simply—how would someone “file” it.
• three words or phrases that “limit” that word or distinguish it from others
example: if I want to know about what makes children in a country sick, I would say: infants, children, illness, sickness—to limit it, I might say: U.S.A. or Africa, most common, etc.
You should use several combinations of these terms to search for your topic.

2. Head to an academic library, whether electronic version or in person. Libraries pay for access to information that you cannot easily find just out there. Plus, librarians are trained to help you. If you cannot do that, proceed to #3

3. Use search engines that are geared to find you more academic sources.
• http://www.academicinfo.us/ — you must click on the topic area and then keep clicking into more specific areas related to your topic.
• this link will not work but if it did you could click on the topic area and then search with one or two of your key words
• http://lii.org/ - you search with key words and Boolean operators
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez this is highly technical medical stuff (if you use this, be sure to click on the “limits” tab, then check “free full text” and “review” as the type of publication.)

4. If you cannot do that, use google.com, but don’t just search randomly.

a. First, try entering your key terms and add one of the following: “.org”, “.edu,” “article”. Search three times using all of these terms. This will take you to organizations, educational sites, and articles on the topic.

b. Or, Click on the little “advanced search” next to the Google search box on google..com
• Choose “100 results” to the right
• Enter your combinations of terms and terms you want to exclude

Be sure to evaluate the source, using this guide: http://www.library.jhu.edu/index.html

For more information on searching for information check out this site: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/index.html

sorry about the spelling…