Fear of imminent death (2024)

Edgar Allen Poe (1809-49) shifted the boundaries of fiction in the genres of detective stories, science fiction, and tales of horror. Death—especially fear of it—is a recurring theme in Poe's work. This fascination may result from Poe's own losses: his parents died before he was 3 years old. Poe married his 13 year old cousin, Virginia, in 1836; she died at the age of 24.

Poe wrote The Masque of the Red Death while Virginia was sick with tuberculosis. Perhaps the blood she coughed up inspired Poe's fictional plague—the red death was “so fatal... so hideous... the madness and the horror of blood... sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores... the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease were incidents of half an hour.” The protagonist, Prospero, holds a masquerade to forget the suffering beyond his walls and forbids his guests to wear red. But one guest defies him. “And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death... And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.” The story parallels Virginia's struggle against death and her final inability to escape: “And darkness and decay and the red death held illimitable dominion over all.”

Ironically, Poe's death was as mysterious and controversial as his stories and his life. Poe was found dishevelled in Baltimore—he was living in New York—and was taken unconscious to hospital. He lapsed in and out of consciousness for several days, until, with the words, “Lord help my poor soul,” Poe died aged 40. The events that led up to his tragic and miserable death will never be known.

www.poemuseum.org celebrates Poe's life and includes The Masque of the Red Death—one of his most famous short stories.

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