A Very Literary Halloween, Part 1 - Metzengerstein, Morella, and The Oval Portrait

For this year's celebration of the macabre, I'm journeying through American horror fiction by revisiting some of its greatest writers. Today, we'll start with a look at three lesser-known short stories from the granddaddy of them all, Edgar Allan Poe.

America was in its infancy during Edgar Allan Poe's career, so it's not surprising that his work often reincarnated the Old World into the New.  In "Metzengerstein," Poe's first published short story, the two great houses of Berlifitzing and Metzengerstein form the backdrop for a tale about a man and a most unusual horse. The story co-opts the trappings of eastern European noble identity - barons, castles, and counts - to make a larger point about the immortal soul and the things that can sicken it.

A later Poe story, "Morella," digs even deeper into antiquity. It starts off with a quote from Plato ("Itself, by itself, solely, one everlasting, and single") and then uses some more Greek to hit you over the head with the theme ("Παλιγγενεσια of the Pythagoreans"). The unnamed narrator in "Morella" becomes haunted by his daughter's uncanny resemblance to his dying wife. At the end of the story, he makes a startling discovery - startling only to him, that is, thanks to the foreshadowing provided for the reader.

Poe examined metempsychosis once again in "The Oval Portrait," which also contains one of his most atmospheric frame stories. In this one, the narrator confronts an eerie, seemingly alive painting in a gloomy chateau, and then learns the sad tale behind its creation. If you believe art can be stronger than death, and that love can be stronger than art, then you will appreciate the transfiguration presented here.

"Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term 'Art,' I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'"