Pantomima é um teatro gestual que faz o menor uso possível de palavras e o maior uso de gestos. É a arte de narrar com o corpo. É uma modalidade cênica que se diferencia da expressão corporal e da dança, basicamente é a arte objetiva da mímica, é um excelente artifício para comediantes, cômicos, clowns, atores, bailarinos, enfim, os intérpretes.
Nesta modalidade, os pantomímicos precisam buscar a forma perfeita, a estética da linha do corpo, pois através do gesto tudo será dito, uma boa pantomima está na habilidade adquirida pelo pantomímico em se transfigurar no ato da interpretação, passando para a plateia todas as ações e mensagens pelos gestos. É uma das artes que exige o máximo do artista para que este receba o máximo de retorno do público, ou seja, a atenção da plateia para que a mensagem seja passada devidamente.
Por mais que seja difícil e trabalhoso introduzir a pantomima em um grupo que esteja acostumado com textos orais, sempre é possível criar através da gestualidade do corpo. A pantomima costuma impressionar e chamar a atenção da plateia; por ser de fácil assimilação, por chamar a atenção, por ser praticamente universal, ela é bastante utilizada.
Pode-se dizer que a pantomima é tão antiga quanto a dramaturgia, e ambas têm a mesma origem: Grécia Antiga. Foram encontrados indícios de pantomima também em rituais religiosos sumérios, hindus e egípcios, além dos gregos, há mais de cinco mil anos. Ao narrar epopéias e tentar transmitir sensações do divino, os sacerdotes acabavam demonstrando características pantomímicas, e isso era muito mais claro na Grécia. Esta foi a primeira semente pantomímica, a pantomima sagrada.
No século IV a.C., a Grécia helênica promove seus festivais dionisíacos. A tragédia é muito popular. Aristóteles escreveu em sua obra A Poética sobre o texto da tragédia e cita no primeiro parágrafo os mimos de Sófron e Siracusa, como uma expressão teatral, à parte, com a necessidade de uma denominação específica. Nos vasos jônicos é fácil de encontrar as pinturas retratando esses artistas que mimicavam os governantes locais ou os tipos populares engraçados. Essa foi a pantomima antiga.
O imperador romano Augusto promoveu os pantomímicos. Os festivais realizados no Palácio dos Esportes eram assistidos por 40.000 pessoas. Muito foi escrito sobre esse apogeu da pantomima. O poeta Lívio Andrônico é considerado o primeiro one-man-show da história do teatro. Foi inventor da pantomima romana. Ele fez a ponte entre a pantomima grega e a latina. Também vale reportar a citação de Cícero sobre a interpretação de dois grandes pantomímicos romanos, Bathylle e Pylade, quando apresentaram suas versões para a tragédia grega Prometeu, de Ésquilo, - Como se existisse uma língua em cada ponta de seus dedos. Essa foi a pantomima clássica.
Após o obscuro período da Idade Média onde a Inquisição proibiu qualquer livre manifestação artística, surgiu na França em 1813 um genial pantomímico que reavivou o gênero. Jean-Gaspard Debureau criou o personagem Baptiste oriundo da família dos Piêrrots da comédia francesa. Elaborou um repertório e motivou o surgimento de um estilo romântico. Houve uma efervescência da pantomima romântica nos anos posteriores e por toda a Europa muitos artistas aprimoraram o estilo se apresentando em teatros, music-halls, boulevares e circos. Sua figura e estilo foi imortalizado no cinema pelo filme de Marcel Carné "Les Enfants du Paradise" (Boulevard du Crime, em português) onde o grande ator e mímico francês Jean Louis Barrault protagonizou. Já nos filmes de cinema mudo os pantomimos Chales Chaplin e Buster Keaton são os mais expressivos herdeiros desta pantomima. Essa foi à pantomima romântica.
No início do século XX as artes em geral tiveram seus conceitos e estéticas transformadas com rupturas aos conceitos tradicionais e o surgimento de novas tendências estéticas. Na França Etiênne Decroux começou a codificar uma gramática para o movimento corporal, resultando numa técnica que acabou sendo as diretrizes para o surgimento de um novo estilo de pantomima. O mais representativo pantomímico dessa técnica é Marcel Marceau que criou o personagem Bip e um repertório neo-clássico.
Hoje, essa técnica é identificável como uma linguagem de acessório nos trabalhos de vários artistas. Por exemplo, nas coreografias de Michael Jackson com seus passos de dança sem sair do lugar. Nas performances dos shows de ilusionismo dos mágicos, como David Cooperfield ou nas performances cinematográficas do clown inglês Mr. Bean. Essa é a pantomima moderna, a pantomima como se conhece atualmente.
Até em Chaplin, a pantomima era apenas o pantomímico e o palco vazio, tudo dependia da expressão, mas graças a ele hoje pode-se utilizar cenário, objetos e figurino, pois era impossível fazer uma pantomima cinematográfica sem recursos cênicos.
No Brasil a técnica da mímica chega em 1952 através do ator, tradutor, diretor e mímico português Luís de Lima que encena o primeiro mimodrama - O ESCRITURÁRIO e ministra inúmeras oficinas e cursos de mímica pelo Brasil influenciando e criando uma nova geração de mímicos. Paralelo a isso a presença de Marceal Marceau com suas turnês influencia da mesma forma. Brasileiros precursores da década de 70 são Ricardo Bandeira, Juarez Machado, Denise Stoklos e dessa nova geração Josué Soares, Luiza Monteiro, Vicentini Gomes, Fernando Vieira, Alberto Gaus, Jiddu Saldanha, Sérgio Bicudo, Toninho Lobo, Alvaro Assad, Marcio Moura, Melissa Teles-Lôbo,…
A pantomima também tem sido utilizada por muitos grupos cristãos para promover sua fé, dentre os quais destaca-se a fundação norte-americana Jocum (Jovens Com uma Missão) que é uma das pioneiras neste tipo de pantomima cristã.
Figurino
A pantomima obedece ao objetivo de chamar a atenção, impressionar, impactar e transmitir a palavra da maneira mais fácil possível para os espectadores, isto faz do figurino acessório importante para a apresentação de uma pantomima de qualidade – isto é, uma pantomima que tenha o máximo de retorno.
Existem algumas maneiras de se utilizar o figurino. Nos grupos de pantomima cristãos, costuma-se utilizar dois tipos: padronização e casualidade. Ambas são muito utilizadas por diferentes grupos que apresentam diferentes gostos, por exemplo, a oficina de teatro do ministério Ajores trabalha somente com a padronizada, uma questão de gosto do diretor e seus integrantes.
A casualidade é quando numa determinada peça utiliza-se uma determinada roupa, exemplo: num papel de uma menina, se veste uma roupa de menina, assim como no teatro dramático.
Na padronização é diferente, costuma-se fazer um acordo com o grupo e decidir permanentemente como será o figurino das personagens (demônios, satanás, anjos, Deus, Jesus, etc,), seguindo uma padronização, como por exemplo: os personagens Jesus, Deus e anjos vestem roupas todas brancas, porém anjos com asas, Jesus e/ou Deus com um manto maior e mais longo, os demônios, pessoas comuns e satanás podem vestir roupas pretas, porém satanás com um manto longo e negro (a maquiagem também pode ser utilizada para caracterizar as personagens).
Independente da opção de figurino, a pantomima não pode ser ambígua nem confusa, deve ser acessível a todos e direta, o figurino não pode causar dúvidas no público, deve ser algo que quando o espectador assistir reconheça imediatamente qual personagem está sendo representado.
Maquiagem
A maquiagem na pantomima é tão importante quanto o figurino, é com ela que se diferenciam as personagens. A maquiagem é capaz de transmitir muita informação se feita com cuidados.
A maquiagem perfeita, que é utilizada para retratar machucados, cicatrizes, etnia, e outros pode ser deixada apenas para o teatro dramático, para a pantomima a maquiagem deve ser clara e direta, sem ter compromisso com a perfeição, pois a pantomima é uma arte completamente abstrata, e assim segue a maquiagem com ela.
Os grupos de pantomima cristãos costumam padronizar o tipo de maquiagem. A respeito das tintas, sugere-se três opções. A primeira seria pasta d’água, porém esta pode manifestar alergia em alguns atores, por isto sugere-se a pasta d’água de farmácia de manipulação que é completamente antialérgica, a segunda opção é panqueique e a terceira tinta facial infantil, disponível em todas as cores e todas antialérgicas. Todas estas tintas são removíveis com água e facilmente diluídas.
Durante a maquiagem deve-se ter cuidado com os olhos. Maquiar perto demais dos olhos pode correr o risco de um contato e haver sérias complicações, além de estragar o espetáculo. Portanto, cuidado com os olhos e deve-se pedir para alguém mais experiente passar lápis de olho nos atores, assim a maquiagem não precisa chegar no olho e não fica um buraco sem maquiagem abaixo do olho.
Expressão facial
A técnica de um pantomímico é considerada boa ou má à medida que ele é capaz de usar gestos e sinais corporais para se comunicar com o público. Com a popularização do cinema falado e conseqüente perda dos aspectos não-verbais da representação, muitos pantomímicos caíram na obscuridade.
A expressão facial é de extrema importância na pantomima, afinal não costuma-se falar na pantomima, portanto grande parte da mensagem será transmitida pelo rosto. Por isto temos que conhecer nosso rosto.
Um excelente conselho é fazer expressões faciais de felicidade, tristeza, raiva, amor, compaixão, medo, angústia, espanto, etc em frente a um espelho. Nesta hora pode-se moldar a expressão facial a vontade, e se a expressão de feliz está parecida com um idiota alegre, podes-se treinar mais, até o ator convencer a si próprio de que está feliz. Também é importante que o grupo de pantomima chame a atenção dos pantomímicos que não estejam com uma boa expressão, sugerindo melhoras e pedindo para recomeçar. Não importa quantas vezes o ensaio recomece, deve-se aproveitar o ensaio para este tipo de correção.
“Uma pessoa feliz é aquela que está sorrindo, certo? Errado”. Somente em expressões com sorriso podere-se citar ao menos cinco e todos com emoções distintas. As crianças costumam ser aconselhadas por suas avós a “fazer uma cara feliz”, “dar um grande sorriso” e “mostrar os dentes brancos maravilhosos” ao conhecer uma pessoa. A vovó sabia, no plano da intuição, que isso causaria nos outros uma boa impressão. Os primeiros estudos científicos sobre o sorriso que se tem notícia foram os do cientista francês Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne, no início do século XIX. Boulogne descobriu que os sorrisos são controlados por dois conjuntos de músculos: os zigomáticos maiores, que percorrem todo o lado do rosto e se conectam com os cantos da boca, e os orbiculares ópticos, que puxam os olhos para trás. Os zigomáticos maiores puxam a boca para os lados, expondo os dentes e alargando as bochechas, ao passo que os orbiculares ópticos estreitam os olhos e produzem os pés-de-galinha. É importante entender o funcionamento desses músculos, porque os zigomáticos maiores são conscientemente controlados – são usados para produzir falsos sorrisos de satisfação que dão a impressão de cordialidade e subordinação. Os orbiculares ópticos que atuam independentemente, revelam os sentimentos que há por trás de um sorriso verdadeiro. Portanto, a primeira coisa que o público procura inconscientemente para saber se seu sorriso é verdadeiro são os pés de galinhas. É importante o grupo lembrar o ator de forçar os olhos ao sorrir, assim o sorriso fica com ar de felicidade.
Para um sorriso, não basta apenas um movimento com a boca, os olhos influenciam significantemente o sorriso, e pode-se reparar no espelho que o sorriso bem dado é capaz até de levantar as orelhas, curvar as sobrancelhas e esticar o nariz, por isso se sorri com o rosto, e não apenas com a boca. Esta regra vale para qualquer emoção. “Uma pessoa zangada é aquela que está com as sobrancelhas franzidas, certo? Errado também!” Analise o contexto, o rosto todo deve dizer que a pessoa esta zangada, a boca com ar sério, os olhos levemente arregalados e atesta um pouco franzida. Um sorriso com as sobrancelhas franzidas é sinal de felicidade ou de ira? De nada. Isso não existe! Cuidado para a expressão não deixar o público confuso.
Uma expressão bem feita, treinada, conscientizada e nítida é muito eficaz, diz muito sobre o personagem, vale apenas lembrar que o rosto não é um conjunto de partes, é o todo, e o todo deve passar a emoção, e não apenas uma parte.
Expressão corporal
Pouco importa um rostinho bonitinho se o corpo diz o contrário, a postura e a posição dizem muito para a plateia, principalmente para as mulheres – elas costumam ser mais observadoras – por isso vale entender o que o corpo diz. Segue abaixo alguns exemplos de expressão corporal utilizados na pantomima.
- Sinal de franqueza: Mãos espalmadas para cima, pode vir com braços abertos;
- Sinal de autoridade: Mãos espalmadas para baixo (lembra do gesto de Hitler?), ou dedo apontado;
- Em desacordo ou insegurança: Braços cruzados ou coçar/bater na cabeça ou pernas cruzadas;
- Atitude hostil: Braços cruzados fortemente com punhos cerrados;
- Resistente: Braços cruzados com as mãos agarrando os braços;
- Confiante, porém defensivo: Braços cruzados com os polegares para cima;
- Nervosismo: mexendo no punho da camiseta, na bolsa, no relógio, enfim, em algum lugar que possa formar uma barreira entre o mundo exterior e o pantomímico;
- Pessoa aberta: Braços paralelos apontando para frente;
- Pessoa fechada: braços sobrepostos, cruzando-se, criando uma barreira;
- Pessoa tomando decisão: Alisar o queixo;
- Pessoa neutra: pernas (em pé ou sentado) em posição de sentido, retas e juntas;
- Homem dominador: Pernas abertas;
- Pessoa emocionalmente retirada (“no mundo da lua”): Pernas e braços cruzados ao mesmo tempo;
- Homem competitivo: Pernas cruzadas com os tornozelos sobre o joelho;
- Pessoa reprimida: tornozelos trançados (homem com joelhos afastados, mulheres com joelhos abertos);
- Preparado para uma atitude ofensiva ou de ataque: Mãos sobre a cintura;
- Se achando “o macho”: Postura de caubói, isso é, polegares enfiados no cinto, ou no alto dos bolsos;
- Controlador ou manipulador: Montar na cadeira, isso é, virar a cadeira, sentar e manter as costas da cadeira na sua frente, apoiando o braço. Sentar ao contrário;
- Confiante, pessoa que acha que tem o segredo do sucesso: Catapulta, ou seja, mãos na nuca da cabeça, sentado com as pernas cruzadas com o tornozelo sobre o joelho;
- A postos: sentado, inclinar-se para frente com as mãos no joelhos;
- Fumante confiante, superior, positivo: Baforada para cima;
- Fumante negativo, reservado, desconfiado: Baforada para baixo;
- Pessoa que usa óculos e quer ganhar tempo: Um braço da armação na boca;
- Pessoa intimidadora que usa óculos: Olhar por cima dos óculos.
Música
Nem toda pantomima deve ter música, mas em diversos casos ela é utilizada para pontuar e acompanhar os sentidos despertando emoções nos espectadores de acordo com o objetivo da peça. É praxe utilizar músicas que sejam ricas em recursos para os movimentos, se movimentar no ritmo da música é muito interessante, pois realça os movimentos. Mas, claro dependerá do contexto cênico da pantomima em questão seja ela cômica, dramática ou mesmo abstrata.
Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.[1] He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.[2]
He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; he was orphaned young when his mother died shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. He attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. After enlisting in the Army and later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point, Poe parted ways with the Allans. His publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian".
Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move between several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845 Poe published his poem "The Raven" to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years after its publication. He began planning to produce his own journal, The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), though he died before it could be produced. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.[3]
Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields, such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today.
He was born Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the second child of actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr. He had an elder brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, and a younger sister, Rosalie Poe.[4] Edgar may have been named after a character in William Shakespeare's King Lear, a play the couple was performing in 1809.[5] His father abandoned their family in 1810,[6] and his mother died a year later from consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis). Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful Scottish merchant in Richmond, Virginia, who dealt in a variety of goods including tobacco, cloth, wheat, tombstones, and slaves.[7] The Allans served as a foster family and gave him the name "Edgar Allan Poe",[8] though they never formally adopted him.[9]
The Allan family had Poe baptized in the Episcopal Church in 1812. John Allan alternately spoiled and aggressively disciplined his foster son.[8] The family, including Poe and Allan's wife, Frances Valentine Allan, sailed to Britain in 1815. Poe attended the grammar school in Irvine, Scotland (where John Allan was born) for a short period in 1815, before rejoining the family in London in 1816. There he studied at a boarding school in Chelsea until summer 1817. He was subsequently entered at the Reverend John Bransby’s Manor House School at Stoke Newington, then a suburb four miles (6 km) north of London.[10]
Poe moved back with the Allans to Richmond, Virginia in 1820. In 1824 Poe served as the lieutenant of the Richmond youth honor guard as Richmond celebrated the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette.[11] In March 1825, John Allan's uncle[12] and business benefactor William Galt, said to be one of the wealthiest men in Richmond, died and left Allan several acres of real estate. The inheritance was estimated at $750,000. By summer 1825, Allan celebrated his expansive wealth by purchasing a two-story brick home named Moldavia.[13] Poe may have become engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster before he registered at the one-year-old University of Virginia in February 1826 to study languages.[14] The university, in its infancy, was established on the ideals of its founder, Thomas Jefferson. It had strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco and alcohol, but these rules were generally ignored. Jefferson had enacted a system of student self-government, allowing students to choose their own studies, make their own arrangements for boarding, and report all wrongdoing to the faculty. The unique system was still in chaos, and there was a high dropout rate.[15] During his time there, Poe lost touch with Royster and also became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts. Poe claimed that Allan had not given him sufficient money to register for classes, purchase texts, and procure and furnish a dormitory. Allan did send additional money and clothes, but Poe's debts increased.[16] Poe gave up on the university after a year, and, not feeling welcome in Richmond, especially when he learned that his sweetheart Royster had married Alexander Shelton, he traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself with odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer.[17] At some point he started using the pseudonym Henri Le Rennet.[18]
Unable to support himself, on May 27, 1827, Poe enlisted in the United States Army as a private. Using the name "Edgar A. Perry", he claimed he was 22 years old even though he was 18.[19] He first served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor for five dollars a month.[17] That same year, he released his first book, a 40-page collection of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems, attributed with the byline "by a Bostonian". Only 50 copies were printed, and the book received virtually no attention.[20] Poe's regiment was posted to Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina and traveled by ship on the brig Waltham on November 8, 1827. Poe was promoted to "artificer", an enlisted tradesman who prepared shells for artillery, and had his monthly pay doubled.[21] After serving for two years and attaining the rank of Sergeant Major for Artillery (the highest rank a noncommissioned officer can achieve), Poe sought to end his five-year enlistment early. He revealed his real name and his circumstances to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Howard. Howard would only allow Poe to be discharged if he reconciled with John Allan and wrote a letter to Allan, who was unsympathetic. Several months passed and pleas to Allan were ignored; Allan may not have written to Poe even to make him aware of his foster mother's illness. Frances Allan died on February 28, 1829, and Poe visited the day after her burial. Perhaps softened by his wife's death, John Allan agreed to support Poe's attempt to be discharged in order to receive an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point.[22]
Poe finally was discharged on April 15, 1829, after securing a replacement to finish his enlisted term for him.[23] Before entering West Point, Poe moved back to Baltimore for a time, to stay with his widowed aunt Maria Clemm, her daughter, Virginia Eliza Clemm (Poe's first cousin), his brother Henry, and his invalid grandmother Elizabeth Cairnes Poe.[24] Meanwhile, Poe published his second book, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, in Baltimore in 1829.[25]
Poe traveled to West Point and matriculated as a cadet on July 1, 1830.[26] In October 1830, John Allan married his second wife, Louisa Patterson.[27] The marriage, and bitter quarrels with Poe over the children born to Allan out of affairs, led to the foster father finally disowning Poe.[28] Poe decided to leave West Point by purposely getting court-martialed. On February 8, 1831, he was tried for gross neglect of duty and disobedience of orders for refusing to attend formations, classes, or church. Poe tactically pled not guilty to induce dismissal, knowing he would be found guilty.[29]
He left for New York in February 1831, and released a third volume of poems, simply titled Poems. The book was financed with help from his fellow cadets at West Point, many of whom donated 75 cents to the cause, raising a total of $170. They may have been expecting verses similar to the satirical ones Poe had been writing about commanding officers.[30] Printed by Elam Bliss of New York, it was labeled as "Second Edition" and included a page saying, "To the U.S. Corps of Cadets this volume is respectfully dedicated." The book once again reprinted the long poems "Tamerlane" and "Al Aaraaf" but also six previously unpublished poems including early versions of "To Helen", "Israfel", and "The City in the Sea".[31] He returned to Baltimore, to his aunt, brother and cousin, in March 1831. His elder brother Henry, who had been in ill health in part due to problems with alcoholism, died on August 1, 1831.[32]
Publishing career
After his brother's death, Poe began more earnest attempts to start his career as a writer. He chose a difficult time in American publishing to do so.[33] He was the first well-known American to try to live by writing alone[2][34] and was hampered by the lack of an international copyright law.[35] Publishers often pirated copies of British works rather than paying for new work by Americans.[34] The industry was also particularly hurt by the Panic of 1837.[36] Despite a booming growth in American periodicals around this time period, fueled in part by new technology, many did not last beyond a few issues[37] and publishers often refused to pay their writers or paid them much later than they promised.[38] Poe, throughout his attempts to live as a writer, had to repeatedly resort to humiliating pleas for money and other assistance.[39]
After his early attempts at poetry, Poe had turned his attention to prose. He placed a few stories with a Philadelphia publication and began work on his only drama, Politian. The Baltimore Saturday Visiter awarded Poe a prize in October 1833 for his short story "MS. Found in a Bottle".[40] The story brought him to the attention of John P. Kennedy, a Baltimorean of considerable means. He helped Poe place some of his stories, and introduced him to Thomas W. White, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. Poe became assistant editor of the periodical in August 1835,[41] but was discharged within a few weeks for being caught drunk by his boss.[42] Returning to Baltimore, Poe secretly married Virginia, his cousin, on September 22, 1835. He was 26 and she was 13, though she is listed on the marriage certificate as being 21.[43] Reinstated by White after promising good behavior, Poe went back to Richmond with Virginia and her mother. He remained at the Messenger until January 1837. During this period, Poe claimed that its circulation increased from 700 to 3,500.[4] He published several poems, book reviews, critiques, and stories in the paper. On May 16, 1836, he had a second wedding ceremony in Richmond with Virginia Clemm, this time in public.[44]
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket was published and widely reviewed in 1838.[45] In the summer of 1839, Poe became assistant editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. He published numerous articles, stories, and reviews, enhancing his reputation as a trenchant critic that he had established at the Southern Literary Messenger. Also in 1839, the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was published in two volumes, though he made little money off of it and it received mixed reviews.[46] Poe left Burton's after about a year and found a position as assistant at Graham's Magazine.[47]
In June 1840, Poe published a prospectus announcing his intentions to start his own journal, The Stylus.[48] Originally, Poe intended to call the journal The Penn, as it would have been based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the June 6, 1840 issue of Philadelphia's Saturday Evening Post, Poe bought advertising space for his prospectus: "Prospectus of the Penn Magazine, a Monthly Literary journal to be edited and published in the city of Philadelphia by Edgar A. Poe."[49] The journal was never produced before Poe's death. Around this time, he attempted to secure a position with the Tyler administration, claiming he was a member of the Whig Party.[50] He hoped to be appointed to the Custom House in Philadelphia with help from President Tyler's son Robert,[51] an acquaintance of Poe's friend Frederick Thomas.[52] Poe failed to show up for a meeting with Thomas to discuss the appointment in mid-September 1842, claiming to be sick, though Thomas believed he was drunk.[53] Though he was promised an appointment, all positions were filled by others.[54]
One evening in January 1842, Virginia showed the first signs of consumption, now known as tuberculosis, while singing and playing the piano. Poe described it as breaking a blood vessel in her throat.[55] She only partially recovered. Poe began to drink more heavily under the stress of Virginia's illness. He left Graham's and attempted to find a new position, for a time angling for a government post. He returned to New York, where he worked briefly at the Evening Mirror before becoming editor of the Broadway Journal and, later, sole owner.[56] There he alienated himself from other writers by publicly accusing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism, though Longfellow never responded.[57] On January 29, 1845, his poem "The Raven" appeared in the Evening Mirror and became a popular sensation. Though it made Poe a household name almost instantly,[58] he was paid only $9 for its publication.[59] It was concurrently published in the American Review: A Whig Journal under the pseudonym "Quarles".[60]
The Broadway Journal failed in 1846.[56] Poe moved to a cottage in the Fordham section of The Bronx, New York. That home, known today as the "Poe Cottage", is on the southeast corner of the Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge Road. Virginia died there on January 30, 1847.[61] Biographers and critics often suggest Poe's frequent theme of the "death of a beautiful woman" stems from the repeated loss of women throughout his life, including his wife.[62]
Increasingly unstable after his wife's death, Poe attempted to court the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, who lived in Providence, Rhode Island. Their engagement failed, purportedly because of Poe's drinking and erratic behavior. However, there is also strong evidence that Whitman's mother intervened and did much to derail their relationship.[63] Poe then returned to Richmond and resumed a relationship with his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Elmira Royster.[64]
On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore delirious, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker.[65] He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849, at 5:00 in the morning.[66] Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition, and, oddly, was wearing clothes that were not his own. Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. Some sources say Poe's final words were "Lord help my poor soul."[66] All medical records, including his death certificate, have been lost.[67] Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms for deaths from disreputable causes such as alcoholism.[68] The actual cause of death remains a mystery;[69] from as early as 1872, cooping was commonly believed to have been the cause,[70] and speculation has included delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, meningeal inflammation,[3] cholera[71] and rabies.[72]
Griswold's "Memoir"
The day Edgar Allan Poe was buried, a long obituary appeared in the New York Tribune signed "Ludwig". It was soon published throughout the country. The piece began, "Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it."[73] "Ludwig" was soon identified as Rufus Wilmot Griswold, an editor, critic and anthologist who had borne a grudge against Poe since 1842. Griswold somehow became Poe's literary executor and attempted to destroy his enemy's reputation after his death.[74]
Rufus Griswold wrote a biographical article of Poe called "Memoir of the Author", which he included in an 1850 volume of the collected works. Griswold depicted Poe as a depraved, drunk, drug-addled madman and included Poe's letters as evidence.[74] Many of his claims were either lies or distorted half-truths. For example, it is now known that Poe was not a drug addict.[75] Griswold's book was denounced by those who knew Poe well,[76] but it became a popularly accepted one. This occurred in part because it was the only full biography available and was widely reprinted and in part because readers thrilled at the thought of reading works by an "evil" man.[77] Letters that Griswold presented as proof of this depiction of Poe were later revealed as forgeries.[78]
Poe's best known fiction works are Gothic,[79] a genre he followed to appease the public taste.[80] His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning.[81] Many of his works are generally considered part of the dark romanticism genre, a literary reaction to transcendentalism,[82] which Poe strongly disliked.[83] He referred to followers of the movement as "Frogpondians" after the pond on Boston Common.[84] and ridiculed their writings as "metaphor-run", lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "mysticism for mysticism's sake."[85] Poe once wrote in a letter to Thomas Holley Chivers that he did not dislike Transcendentalists, "only the pretenders and sophists among them."[86]
Beyond horror, Poe also wrote satires, humor tales, and hoaxes. For comic effect, he used irony and ludicrous extravagance, often in an attempt to liberate the reader from cultural conformity.[80] In fact, "Metzengerstein", the first story that Poe is known to have published,[87] and his first foray into horror, was originally intended as a burlesque satirizing the popular genre.[88] Poe also reinvented science fiction, responding in his writing to emerging technologies such as hot air balloons in "The Balloon-Hoax".[89]
Poe wrote much of his work using themes specifically catered for mass market tastes.[90] To that end, his fiction often included elements of popular pseudosciences such as phrenology[91] and physiognomy.[92]
Literary theory
Poe's writing reflects his literary theories, which he presented in his criticism and also in essays such as "The Poetic Principle".[93] He disliked didacticism[94] and allegory,[95] though he believed that meaning in literature should be an undercurrent just beneath the surface. Works with obvious meanings, he wrote, cease to be art.[96] He believed that quality work should be brief and focus on a specific single effect.[93] To that end, he believed that the writer should carefully calculate every sentiment and idea.[97] In "The Philosophy of Composition", an essay in which Poe describes his method in writing "The Raven", he claims to have strictly followed this method. It has been questioned, however, if he really followed this system. T. S. Eliot said: "It is difficult for us to read that essay without reflecting that if Poe plotted out his poem with such calculation, he might have taken a little more pains over it: the result hardly does credit to the method."[98] Biographer Joseph Wood Krutch described the essay as "a rather highly ingenious exercise in the art of rationalization".[99]
Literary influence
During his lifetime, Poe was mostly recognized as a literary critic. Fellow critic James Russell Lowell called him "the most discriminating, philosophical, and fearless critic upon imaginative works who has written in America", though he questioned if he occasionally used prussic acid instead of ink.[100] Poe was also known as a writer of fiction and became one of the first American authors of the 19th century to become more popular in Europe than in the United States.[101] Poe is particularly respected in France, in part due to early translations by Charles Baudelaire. Baudelaire's translations became definitive renditions of Poe's work throughout Europe.[102]
Poe's early detective fiction tales featuring C. Auguste Dupin laid the groundwork for future detectives in literature. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said, "Each [of Poe's detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed.... Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?"[103] The Mystery Writers of America have named their awards for excellence in the genre the "Edgars".[104] Poe's work also influenced science fiction, notably Jules Verne, who wrote a sequel to Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket called An Antarctic Mystery, also known as The Sphinx of the Ice Fields.[105] Science fiction author H. G. Wells noted, "Pym tells what a very intelligent mind could imagine about the south polar region a century ago."[106]
Like many famous artists, Poe's works have spawned innumerable imitators.[107] One interesting trend among imitators of Poe, however, has been claims by clairvoyants or psychics to be "channeling" poems from Poe's spirit. One of the most notable of these was Lizzie Doten, who in 1863 published Poems from the Inner Life, in which she claimed to have "received" new compositions by Poe's spirit. The compositions were re-workings of famous Poe poems such as "The Bells", but which reflected a new, positive outlook.[108
Even so, Poe has received not only praise, but criticism as well. This is partly because of the negative perception of his personal character and its influence upon his reputation.[101] William Butler Yeats was occasionally critical of Poe and once called him "vulgar".[109] Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson reacted to "The Raven" by saying, "I see nothing in it"[110] and derisively referred to Poe as "the jingle man".[111] Aldous Huxley wrote that Poe's writing "falls into vulgarity" by being "too poetical"—the equivalent of wearing a diamond ring on every finger.[112]
It is believed that only 12 copies of Poe's first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, have survived. In December 2009, one copy sold at Christie's, New York for $662,500, a record price paid for a work of American literature.[113]
Physics and cosmology
Eureka: A Prose Poem, an essay written in 1848, included a cosmological theory that presaged the Big Bang theory by 80 years,[114][115] as well as the first plausible solution to Olbers' paradox.[116] [117] Poe eschewed the scientific method in Eureka and instead wrote from pure intuition.[118] For this reason, he considered it a work of art, not science,[118] but insisted that it was still true[119] and considered it to be his career masterpiece.[120] Even so, Eureka is full of scientific errors. In particular, Poe's suggestions opposed Newtonian principles regarding the density and rotation of planets.[121]
Cryptography
Poe had a keen interest in cryptography. He had placed a notice of his abilities in the Philadelphia paper Alexander's Weekly (Express) Messenger, inviting submissions of ciphers, which he proceeded to solve.[122] In July 1841, Poe had published an essay called "A Few Words on Secret Writing" in Graham's Magazine. Realizing the public interest in the topic, he wrote "The Gold-Bug" incorporating ciphers as part of the story.[123] Poe's success in cryptography relied not so much on his knowledge of that field (his method was limited to the simple substitution cryptogram), as on his knowledge of the magazine and newspaper culture. His keen analytical abilities, which were so evident in his detective stories, allowed him to see that the general public was largely ignorant of the methods by which a simple substitution cryptogram can be solved, and he used this to his advantage.[122] The sensation Poe created with his cryptography stunt played a major role in popularizing cryptograms in newspapers and magazines.[124]
Poe had an influence on cryptography beyond increasing public interest in his lifetime. William Friedman, America's foremost cryptologist, was heavily influenced by Poe.[125] Friedman's initial interest in cryptography came from reading "The Gold-Bug" as a child—interest he later put to use in deciphering Japan's PURPLE code during World War II.[126]
Poe as a character
Main articles: Edgar Allan Poe in popular culture and Edgar Allan Poe in television and film
The historical Edgar Allan Poe has appeared as a fictionalized character, often representing the "mad genius" or "tormented artist" and exploiting his personal struggles.[127] Many such depictions also blend in with characters from his stories, suggesting Poe and his characters share identities.[128] Often, fictional depictions of Poe use his mystery-solving skills in such novels as The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl.[129]
No childhood home of Poe is still standing, including the Allan family's Moldavia estate. The oldest standing home in Richmond, the Old Stone House, is in use as the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, though Poe never lived there. The collection includes many items Poe used during his time with the Allan family and also features several rare first printings of Poe works. The dorm room Poe is believed to have used while studying at the University of Virginia in 1826 is preserved and available for visits. Its upkeep is now overseen by a group of students and staff known as the Raven Society.[130]
The earliest surviving home in which Poe lived is in Baltimore, preserved as the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum. Poe is believed to have lived in the home at the age of 23 when he first lived with Maria Clemm and Virginia (as well as his grandmother and possibly his brother William Henry Leonard Poe).[131] It is open to the public and is also the home of the Edgar Allan Poe Society. Of the several homes that Poe, his wife Virginia, and his mother-in-law Maria rented in Philadelphia, only the last house has survived. The Spring Garden home, where the author lived in 1843–1844, is today preserved by the National Park Service as the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site.[132] Poe's final home is preserved as the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage in the Bronx, New York.[61]
Other Poe landmarks include a building in the Upper West Side, where Poe temporarily lived when he first moved to New York. A plaque suggests that Poe wrote "The Raven" here. In Boston, a plaque hangs near the building where Poe was born once stood. Believed to have been located at 62 Carver Street (now Charles Street), the plaque is possibly in an incorrect location.[133][134] The bar in which legend says Poe was last seen drinking before his death still stands in Fells Point in Baltimore, Maryland. Now known as The Horse You Came In On, local lore insists that a ghost they call "Edgar" haunts the rooms above.[135]
Poe Toaster
Main article: Poe Toaster
Adding to the mystery surrounding Poe's death, an unknown visitor affectionately referred to as the "Poe Toaster" paid homage to Poe's grave annually beginning in 1949. As the tradition carried on for more than 60 years, it is likely that the "Poe Toaster" was actually several individuals, though the tribute was always the same. Every January 19, in the early hours of the morning, the person made a toast of cognac to Poe's original grave marker and left three roses. Members of the Edgar Allan Poe Society in Baltimore helped protect this tradition for decades. On August 15, 2007, Sam Porpora, a former historian at the Westminster Church in Baltimore where Poe is buried, claimed that he had started the tradition in the 1960s. Porpora said the claim that the tradition began in 1949 was a hoax in order to raise money and enhance the profile of the church. His story has not been confirmed,[136] and some details he gave to the press have been pointed out as factually inaccurate.[137] The Poe Toaster's last appearance was on January 19, 2009, the day of Poe's bicentennial.
He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; he was orphaned young when his mother died shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. He attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. After enlisting in the Army and later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point, Poe parted ways with the Allans. His publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian".
Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move between several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845 Poe published his poem "The Raven" to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years after its publication. He began planning to produce his own journal, The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), though he died before it could be produced. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.[3]
Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields, such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today.
He was born Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the second child of actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr. He had an elder brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, and a younger sister, Rosalie Poe.[4] Edgar may have been named after a character in William Shakespeare's King Lear, a play the couple was performing in 1809.[5] His father abandoned their family in 1810,[6] and his mother died a year later from consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis). Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful Scottish merchant in Richmond, Virginia, who dealt in a variety of goods including tobacco, cloth, wheat, tombstones, and slaves.[7] The Allans served as a foster family and gave him the name "Edgar Allan Poe",[8] though they never formally adopted him.[9]
The Allan family had Poe baptized in the Episcopal Church in 1812. John Allan alternately spoiled and aggressively disciplined his foster son.[8] The family, including Poe and Allan's wife, Frances Valentine Allan, sailed to Britain in 1815. Poe attended the grammar school in Irvine, Scotland (where John Allan was born) for a short period in 1815, before rejoining the family in London in 1816. There he studied at a boarding school in Chelsea until summer 1817. He was subsequently entered at the Reverend John Bransby’s Manor House School at Stoke Newington, then a suburb four miles (6 km) north of London.[10]
Poe moved back with the Allans to Richmond, Virginia in 1820. In 1824 Poe served as the lieutenant of the Richmond youth honor guard as Richmond celebrated the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette.[11] In March 1825, John Allan's uncle[12] and business benefactor William Galt, said to be one of the wealthiest men in Richmond, died and left Allan several acres of real estate. The inheritance was estimated at $750,000. By summer 1825, Allan celebrated his expansive wealth by purchasing a two-story brick home named Moldavia.[13] Poe may have become engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster before he registered at the one-year-old University of Virginia in February 1826 to study languages.[14] The university, in its infancy, was established on the ideals of its founder, Thomas Jefferson. It had strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco and alcohol, but these rules were generally ignored. Jefferson had enacted a system of student self-government, allowing students to choose their own studies, make their own arrangements for boarding, and report all wrongdoing to the faculty. The unique system was still in chaos, and there was a high dropout rate.[15] During his time there, Poe lost touch with Royster and also became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts. Poe claimed that Allan had not given him sufficient money to register for classes, purchase texts, and procure and furnish a dormitory. Allan did send additional money and clothes, but Poe's debts increased.[16] Poe gave up on the university after a year, and, not feeling welcome in Richmond, especially when he learned that his sweetheart Royster had married Alexander Shelton, he traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself with odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer.[17] At some point he started using the pseudonym Henri Le Rennet.[18]
Unable to support himself, on May 27, 1827, Poe enlisted in the United States Army as a private. Using the name "Edgar A. Perry", he claimed he was 22 years old even though he was 18.[19] He first served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor for five dollars a month.[17] That same year, he released his first book, a 40-page collection of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems, attributed with the byline "by a Bostonian". Only 50 copies were printed, and the book received virtually no attention.[20] Poe's regiment was posted to Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina and traveled by ship on the brig Waltham on November 8, 1827. Poe was promoted to "artificer", an enlisted tradesman who prepared shells for artillery, and had his monthly pay doubled.[21] After serving for two years and attaining the rank of Sergeant Major for Artillery (the highest rank a noncommissioned officer can achieve), Poe sought to end his five-year enlistment early. He revealed his real name and his circumstances to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Howard. Howard would only allow Poe to be discharged if he reconciled with John Allan and wrote a letter to Allan, who was unsympathetic. Several months passed and pleas to Allan were ignored; Allan may not have written to Poe even to make him aware of his foster mother's illness. Frances Allan died on February 28, 1829, and Poe visited the day after her burial. Perhaps softened by his wife's death, John Allan agreed to support Poe's attempt to be discharged in order to receive an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point.[22]
Poe finally was discharged on April 15, 1829, after securing a replacement to finish his enlisted term for him.[23] Before entering West Point, Poe moved back to Baltimore for a time, to stay with his widowed aunt Maria Clemm, her daughter, Virginia Eliza Clemm (Poe's first cousin), his brother Henry, and his invalid grandmother Elizabeth Cairnes Poe.[24] Meanwhile, Poe published his second book, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, in Baltimore in 1829.[25]
Poe traveled to West Point and matriculated as a cadet on July 1, 1830.[26] In October 1830, John Allan married his second wife, Louisa Patterson.[27] The marriage, and bitter quarrels with Poe over the children born to Allan out of affairs, led to the foster father finally disowning Poe.[28] Poe decided to leave West Point by purposely getting court-martialed. On February 8, 1831, he was tried for gross neglect of duty and disobedience of orders for refusing to attend formations, classes, or church. Poe tactically pled not guilty to induce dismissal, knowing he would be found guilty.[29]
He left for New York in February 1831, and released a third volume of poems, simply titled Poems. The book was financed with help from his fellow cadets at West Point, many of whom donated 75 cents to the cause, raising a total of $170. They may have been expecting verses similar to the satirical ones Poe had been writing about commanding officers.[30] Printed by Elam Bliss of New York, it was labeled as "Second Edition" and included a page saying, "To the U.S. Corps of Cadets this volume is respectfully dedicated." The book once again reprinted the long poems "Tamerlane" and "Al Aaraaf" but also six previously unpublished poems including early versions of "To Helen", "Israfel", and "The City in the Sea".[31] He returned to Baltimore, to his aunt, brother and cousin, in March 1831. His elder brother Henry, who had been in ill health in part due to problems with alcoholism, died on August 1, 1831.[32]
Publishing career
After his brother's death, Poe began more earnest attempts to start his career as a writer. He chose a difficult time in American publishing to do so.[33] He was the first well-known American to try to live by writing alone[2][34] and was hampered by the lack of an international copyright law.[35] Publishers often pirated copies of British works rather than paying for new work by Americans.[34] The industry was also particularly hurt by the Panic of 1837.[36] Despite a booming growth in American periodicals around this time period, fueled in part by new technology, many did not last beyond a few issues[37] and publishers often refused to pay their writers or paid them much later than they promised.[38] Poe, throughout his attempts to live as a writer, had to repeatedly resort to humiliating pleas for money and other assistance.[39]
After his early attempts at poetry, Poe had turned his attention to prose. He placed a few stories with a Philadelphia publication and began work on his only drama, Politian. The Baltimore Saturday Visiter awarded Poe a prize in October 1833 for his short story "MS. Found in a Bottle".[40] The story brought him to the attention of John P. Kennedy, a Baltimorean of considerable means. He helped Poe place some of his stories, and introduced him to Thomas W. White, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. Poe became assistant editor of the periodical in August 1835,[41] but was discharged within a few weeks for being caught drunk by his boss.[42] Returning to Baltimore, Poe secretly married Virginia, his cousin, on September 22, 1835. He was 26 and she was 13, though she is listed on the marriage certificate as being 21.[43] Reinstated by White after promising good behavior, Poe went back to Richmond with Virginia and her mother. He remained at the Messenger until January 1837. During this period, Poe claimed that its circulation increased from 700 to 3,500.[4] He published several poems, book reviews, critiques, and stories in the paper. On May 16, 1836, he had a second wedding ceremony in Richmond with Virginia Clemm, this time in public.[44]
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket was published and widely reviewed in 1838.[45] In the summer of 1839, Poe became assistant editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. He published numerous articles, stories, and reviews, enhancing his reputation as a trenchant critic that he had established at the Southern Literary Messenger. Also in 1839, the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was published in two volumes, though he made little money off of it and it received mixed reviews.[46] Poe left Burton's after about a year and found a position as assistant at Graham's Magazine.[47]
In June 1840, Poe published a prospectus announcing his intentions to start his own journal, The Stylus.[48] Originally, Poe intended to call the journal The Penn, as it would have been based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the June 6, 1840 issue of Philadelphia's Saturday Evening Post, Poe bought advertising space for his prospectus: "Prospectus of the Penn Magazine, a Monthly Literary journal to be edited and published in the city of Philadelphia by Edgar A. Poe."[49] The journal was never produced before Poe's death. Around this time, he attempted to secure a position with the Tyler administration, claiming he was a member of the Whig Party.[50] He hoped to be appointed to the Custom House in Philadelphia with help from President Tyler's son Robert,[51] an acquaintance of Poe's friend Frederick Thomas.[52] Poe failed to show up for a meeting with Thomas to discuss the appointment in mid-September 1842, claiming to be sick, though Thomas believed he was drunk.[53] Though he was promised an appointment, all positions were filled by others.[54]
One evening in January 1842, Virginia showed the first signs of consumption, now known as tuberculosis, while singing and playing the piano. Poe described it as breaking a blood vessel in her throat.[55] She only partially recovered. Poe began to drink more heavily under the stress of Virginia's illness. He left Graham's and attempted to find a new position, for a time angling for a government post. He returned to New York, where he worked briefly at the Evening Mirror before becoming editor of the Broadway Journal and, later, sole owner.[56] There he alienated himself from other writers by publicly accusing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism, though Longfellow never responded.[57] On January 29, 1845, his poem "The Raven" appeared in the Evening Mirror and became a popular sensation. Though it made Poe a household name almost instantly,[58] he was paid only $9 for its publication.[59] It was concurrently published in the American Review: A Whig Journal under the pseudonym "Quarles".[60]
The Broadway Journal failed in 1846.[56] Poe moved to a cottage in the Fordham section of The Bronx, New York. That home, known today as the "Poe Cottage", is on the southeast corner of the Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge Road. Virginia died there on January 30, 1847.[61] Biographers and critics often suggest Poe's frequent theme of the "death of a beautiful woman" stems from the repeated loss of women throughout his life, including his wife.[62]
Increasingly unstable after his wife's death, Poe attempted to court the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, who lived in Providence, Rhode Island. Their engagement failed, purportedly because of Poe's drinking and erratic behavior. However, there is also strong evidence that Whitman's mother intervened and did much to derail their relationship.[63] Poe then returned to Richmond and resumed a relationship with his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Elmira Royster.[64]
On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore delirious, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker.[65] He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849, at 5:00 in the morning.[66] Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition, and, oddly, was wearing clothes that were not his own. Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. Some sources say Poe's final words were "Lord help my poor soul."[66] All medical records, including his death certificate, have been lost.[67] Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms for deaths from disreputable causes such as alcoholism.[68] The actual cause of death remains a mystery;[69] from as early as 1872, cooping was commonly believed to have been the cause,[70] and speculation has included delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, meningeal inflammation,[3] cholera[71] and rabies.[72]
Griswold's "Memoir"
The day Edgar Allan Poe was buried, a long obituary appeared in the New York Tribune signed "Ludwig". It was soon published throughout the country. The piece began, "Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it."[73] "Ludwig" was soon identified as Rufus Wilmot Griswold, an editor, critic and anthologist who had borne a grudge against Poe since 1842. Griswold somehow became Poe's literary executor and attempted to destroy his enemy's reputation after his death.[74]
Rufus Griswold wrote a biographical article of Poe called "Memoir of the Author", which he included in an 1850 volume of the collected works. Griswold depicted Poe as a depraved, drunk, drug-addled madman and included Poe's letters as evidence.[74] Many of his claims were either lies or distorted half-truths. For example, it is now known that Poe was not a drug addict.[75] Griswold's book was denounced by those who knew Poe well,[76] but it became a popularly accepted one. This occurred in part because it was the only full biography available and was widely reprinted and in part because readers thrilled at the thought of reading works by an "evil" man.[77] Letters that Griswold presented as proof of this depiction of Poe were later revealed as forgeries.[78]
Poe's best known fiction works are Gothic,[79] a genre he followed to appease the public taste.[80] His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning.[81] Many of his works are generally considered part of the dark romanticism genre, a literary reaction to transcendentalism,[82] which Poe strongly disliked.[83] He referred to followers of the movement as "Frogpondians" after the pond on Boston Common.[84] and ridiculed their writings as "metaphor-run", lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "mysticism for mysticism's sake."[85] Poe once wrote in a letter to Thomas Holley Chivers that he did not dislike Transcendentalists, "only the pretenders and sophists among them."[86]
Beyond horror, Poe also wrote satires, humor tales, and hoaxes. For comic effect, he used irony and ludicrous extravagance, often in an attempt to liberate the reader from cultural conformity.[80] In fact, "Metzengerstein", the first story that Poe is known to have published,[87] and his first foray into horror, was originally intended as a burlesque satirizing the popular genre.[88] Poe also reinvented science fiction, responding in his writing to emerging technologies such as hot air balloons in "The Balloon-Hoax".[89]
Poe wrote much of his work using themes specifically catered for mass market tastes.[90] To that end, his fiction often included elements of popular pseudosciences such as phrenology[91] and physiognomy.[92]
Literary theory
Poe's writing reflects his literary theories, which he presented in his criticism and also in essays such as "The Poetic Principle".[93] He disliked didacticism[94] and allegory,[95] though he believed that meaning in literature should be an undercurrent just beneath the surface. Works with obvious meanings, he wrote, cease to be art.[96] He believed that quality work should be brief and focus on a specific single effect.[93] To that end, he believed that the writer should carefully calculate every sentiment and idea.[97] In "The Philosophy of Composition", an essay in which Poe describes his method in writing "The Raven", he claims to have strictly followed this method. It has been questioned, however, if he really followed this system. T. S. Eliot said: "It is difficult for us to read that essay without reflecting that if Poe plotted out his poem with such calculation, he might have taken a little more pains over it: the result hardly does credit to the method."[98] Biographer Joseph Wood Krutch described the essay as "a rather highly ingenious exercise in the art of rationalization".[99]
Literary influence
During his lifetime, Poe was mostly recognized as a literary critic. Fellow critic James Russell Lowell called him "the most discriminating, philosophical, and fearless critic upon imaginative works who has written in America", though he questioned if he occasionally used prussic acid instead of ink.[100] Poe was also known as a writer of fiction and became one of the first American authors of the 19th century to become more popular in Europe than in the United States.[101] Poe is particularly respected in France, in part due to early translations by Charles Baudelaire. Baudelaire's translations became definitive renditions of Poe's work throughout Europe.[102]
Poe's early detective fiction tales featuring C. Auguste Dupin laid the groundwork for future detectives in literature. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said, "Each [of Poe's detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed.... Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?"[103] The Mystery Writers of America have named their awards for excellence in the genre the "Edgars".[104] Poe's work also influenced science fiction, notably Jules Verne, who wrote a sequel to Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket called An Antarctic Mystery, also known as The Sphinx of the Ice Fields.[105] Science fiction author H. G. Wells noted, "Pym tells what a very intelligent mind could imagine about the south polar region a century ago."[106]
Like many famous artists, Poe's works have spawned innumerable imitators.[107] One interesting trend among imitators of Poe, however, has been claims by clairvoyants or psychics to be "channeling" poems from Poe's spirit. One of the most notable of these was Lizzie Doten, who in 1863 published Poems from the Inner Life, in which she claimed to have "received" new compositions by Poe's spirit. The compositions were re-workings of famous Poe poems such as "The Bells", but which reflected a new, positive outlook.[108
Even so, Poe has received not only praise, but criticism as well. This is partly because of the negative perception of his personal character and its influence upon his reputation.[101] William Butler Yeats was occasionally critical of Poe and once called him "vulgar".[109] Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson reacted to "The Raven" by saying, "I see nothing in it"[110] and derisively referred to Poe as "the jingle man".[111] Aldous Huxley wrote that Poe's writing "falls into vulgarity" by being "too poetical"—the equivalent of wearing a diamond ring on every finger.[112]
It is believed that only 12 copies of Poe's first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, have survived. In December 2009, one copy sold at Christie's, New York for $662,500, a record price paid for a work of American literature.[113]
Physics and cosmology
Eureka: A Prose Poem, an essay written in 1848, included a cosmological theory that presaged the Big Bang theory by 80 years,[114][115] as well as the first plausible solution to Olbers' paradox.[116] [117] Poe eschewed the scientific method in Eureka and instead wrote from pure intuition.[118] For this reason, he considered it a work of art, not science,[118] but insisted that it was still true[119] and considered it to be his career masterpiece.[120] Even so, Eureka is full of scientific errors. In particular, Poe's suggestions opposed Newtonian principles regarding the density and rotation of planets.[121]
Cryptography
Poe had a keen interest in cryptography. He had placed a notice of his abilities in the Philadelphia paper Alexander's Weekly (Express) Messenger, inviting submissions of ciphers, which he proceeded to solve.[122] In July 1841, Poe had published an essay called "A Few Words on Secret Writing" in Graham's Magazine. Realizing the public interest in the topic, he wrote "The Gold-Bug" incorporating ciphers as part of the story.[123] Poe's success in cryptography relied not so much on his knowledge of that field (his method was limited to the simple substitution cryptogram), as on his knowledge of the magazine and newspaper culture. His keen analytical abilities, which were so evident in his detective stories, allowed him to see that the general public was largely ignorant of the methods by which a simple substitution cryptogram can be solved, and he used this to his advantage.[122] The sensation Poe created with his cryptography stunt played a major role in popularizing cryptograms in newspapers and magazines.[124]
Poe had an influence on cryptography beyond increasing public interest in his lifetime. William Friedman, America's foremost cryptologist, was heavily influenced by Poe.[125] Friedman's initial interest in cryptography came from reading "The Gold-Bug" as a child—interest he later put to use in deciphering Japan's PURPLE code during World War II.[126]
Poe as a character
Main articles: Edgar Allan Poe in popular culture and Edgar Allan Poe in television and film
The historical Edgar Allan Poe has appeared as a fictionalized character, often representing the "mad genius" or "tormented artist" and exploiting his personal struggles.[127] Many such depictions also blend in with characters from his stories, suggesting Poe and his characters share identities.[128] Often, fictional depictions of Poe use his mystery-solving skills in such novels as The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl.[129]
No childhood home of Poe is still standing, including the Allan family's Moldavia estate. The oldest standing home in Richmond, the Old Stone House, is in use as the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, though Poe never lived there. The collection includes many items Poe used during his time with the Allan family and also features several rare first printings of Poe works. The dorm room Poe is believed to have used while studying at the University of Virginia in 1826 is preserved and available for visits. Its upkeep is now overseen by a group of students and staff known as the Raven Society.[130]
The earliest surviving home in which Poe lived is in Baltimore, preserved as the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum. Poe is believed to have lived in the home at the age of 23 when he first lived with Maria Clemm and Virginia (as well as his grandmother and possibly his brother William Henry Leonard Poe).[131] It is open to the public and is also the home of the Edgar Allan Poe Society. Of the several homes that Poe, his wife Virginia, and his mother-in-law Maria rented in Philadelphia, only the last house has survived. The Spring Garden home, where the author lived in 1843–1844, is today preserved by the National Park Service as the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site.[132] Poe's final home is preserved as the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage in the Bronx, New York.[61]
Other Poe landmarks include a building in the Upper West Side, where Poe temporarily lived when he first moved to New York. A plaque suggests that Poe wrote "The Raven" here. In Boston, a plaque hangs near the building where Poe was born once stood. Believed to have been located at 62 Carver Street (now Charles Street), the plaque is possibly in an incorrect location.[133][134] The bar in which legend says Poe was last seen drinking before his death still stands in Fells Point in Baltimore, Maryland. Now known as The Horse You Came In On, local lore insists that a ghost they call "Edgar" haunts the rooms above.[135]
Poe Toaster
Main article: Poe Toaster
Adding to the mystery surrounding Poe's death, an unknown visitor affectionately referred to as the "Poe Toaster" paid homage to Poe's grave annually beginning in 1949. As the tradition carried on for more than 60 years, it is likely that the "Poe Toaster" was actually several individuals, though the tribute was always the same. Every January 19, in the early hours of the morning, the person made a toast of cognac to Poe's original grave marker and left three roses. Members of the Edgar Allan Poe Society in Baltimore helped protect this tradition for decades. On August 15, 2007, Sam Porpora, a former historian at the Westminster Church in Baltimore where Poe is buried, claimed that he had started the tradition in the 1960s. Porpora said the claim that the tradition began in 1949 was a hoax in order to raise money and enhance the profile of the church. His story has not been confirmed,[136] and some details he gave to the press have been pointed out as factually inaccurate.[137] The Poe Toaster's last appearance was on January 19, 2009, the day of Poe's bicentennial.
Russell Albion "Russ" Meyer (March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004) was a U.S. motion picture director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, actor and photographer.
Meyer is known primarily for writing and directing a series of successful low-budget sexploitation films that featured campy humor, sly satire and large breasted women.
Early years
Russ Meyer was born in San Leandro, Oakland, California to William Arthur Meyer, a German-American police officer, and his wife Lydia Lucinda Hauck.[1] His parents divorced shortly after he was born, and Meyer was to have virtually no contact with his father during his life. When he was fourteen years old, his mother pawned her wedding ring in order to buy him an 8mm film camera. He made a number of amateur films at the age of 15, and served during World War II as a U.S. Army combat cameraman for the 166th Signal Photo Company. In the Army Meyer forged his strongest friendships, and he would later ask many of his fellow combat cameramen to work on his films. Much of Meyer's work during World War II can be seen in newsreels and in the film Patton (1971).[2] On his return to civilian life, he was unable to secure cinematography work in Hollywood due to a dearth of industry connections. He made industrial films, freelanced as a still photographer for mainstream films (he did the still photography for Giant), and became a well known glamour photographer whose work included some of the initial shoots for Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine. Meyer would go on to shoot three Playboy centerfolds during the magazine's early years, one of his wife Eve Meyer in 1955. He also shot a pictorial of then-wife Edy Williams in March 1973.[3]
Film career
His first feature, the nudist comedy The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959), cost $24,000 to produce and eventually grossed more than $1,000,000 on the independent/exploitation circuit, ensconcing Meyer as "King of the Nudies." Over the next decade, he made nearly 20 movies with a trademark blend of odd humor, huge-breasted starlets and All-American sleaze, including such notable films as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) and Vixen! (1968). Russ Meyer was a true auteur who wrote, directed, edited, photographed and distributed all his own films. He was able to finance each new film from the proceeds of the earlier ones, and became very wealthy in the process.[4] Unlike many independent directors of his era, he chose to cast actresses like Shari Eubank or Cynthia Myers who were considered extremely beautiful and wholesome.[5]
Meyer's output can be divided into several eras. Earlier works like The Immoral Mr. Teas, Eve and the Handyman, and the Western-themed Wild Gals of the Naked West were stylistically similar to the nudie cutie fare of the era, though separated from the pack by their superior color cinematography. 1964's Lorna saw the ever-economical director revert to black-and-white; with this change came a greater emphasis on storyline, almost theatrical violence, domineeringly psychosexual women, and their insipid male counterparts. The "Gothic" period (as it was termed by Meyer) reached its apex with the commercially underwhelming Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, which would eventually be reclaimed as a cult classic. It has a following all over the world and has inspired countless imitations, music videos and tributes.
After producing the popular mockumentary Mondo Topless (1966) with the remnants of his production company's assets and two mildly successful color melodramas, Meyer made headlines once again in 1968 with the controversial Vixen!. Although its lesbian overtones are tame by today's standards, the film — designed by Meyer and longtime cohort Jim Ryan as a reaction to provocative European art films — grossed millions on a five-figure budget and captured the zeitgeist just as The Immoral Mr. Teas had a decade earlier. He followed it with Cherry, Harry & Raquel! (1970), which utilized long montages of the California landscape (replete with anti-marijuana voiceovers) and Uschi Digard dancing in the desert as the film's "lost soul." These plot devices were necessitated after lead actress Linda Ashton left the shoot early, leaving Meyer missing 20 minutes of footage.
After the unexpected success of Easy Rider and impressed by Meyer's frugality and profitability, 20th Century Fox signed him to produce and direct a long-proposed sequel to Valley of the Dolls in 1969, fulfilling his longstanding ambition to direct for a major Hollywood studio. What eventually appeared was Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), scripted by film critic (and Meyer devotee) Roger Ebert and bearing no relation to the novel or film's continuity (necessitated after Jacqueline Susann sued the studio). Many critics perceive the film as perhaps the greatest expression of his intentionally vapid surrealism — Meyer went so far as to refer to it as his definitive work in several interviews. Others, such as Variety, saw "BVD" "as funny as a burning orphanage and a treat for the emotionally retarded."[7] Contractually stipulated to produce an R-rated film, the brutally violent climax (depicting a decapitation) ensured an X rating (Later reclassified to NC-17). Though disowned by the studio for years to come and amid gripes from the director after he attempted to recut the film to include more titillating scenes after the ratings debacle, it still earned over $6 million domestically in the United States on a budget of less than $1 million.
After making his most subdued film, a commercially unsuccessful adaptation of the popular Irving Wallace novel The Seven Minutes (1971) for Fox, Meyer returned to grindhouse-style independent cinema in 1973 with the Blaxploitation period piece Black Snake, which was dismissed by critics and audiences as incoherent. In 1975, he released Supervixens, a return to the world of big bosoms, square jaws, and the Mojave desert that earned $17 million (American) on a shoestring budget. Meyer's theatrical career ended with the release of the surreal Up! (1976) and 1979's Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, his most sexually graphic films. Film historians and fans have called these last three films "Bustoons" because Russ Meyer's usage of color and mise en scène recalled larger than life pop art settings and cartoonish characters.[8]
In 1977, Malcolm McLaren hired Meyer to direct a film starring The Sex Pistols. Meyer handed the scriptwriting duties over to Ebert, who, in collaboration with McLaren, produced a screenplay entitled Who Killed Bambi? According to Ebert, filming ended after a day and a half when the electricians walked off the set after McLaren proved unable to pay them. (McLaren has claimed that the project actually died at the behest of main financier 20th Century-Fox, under the pretext that "We are in the business of making family entertainment.") The project ultimately evolved into The Great Rock & Roll Swindle.
Despite the fact that hardcore pornographic films would overtake Meyer's softcore market share, he retired in the late 1970s a very wealthy man.[8]
Use of satire
Russ Meyer was also adept at mocking moral stereotypes and flagrantly lampooning conservative American values. Many of his films feature a narrator who attempts to give the audience a "moral roadmap" of what they are watching. Like contemporary Terry Southern, Meyer realized that sex — as one of the few common interests among most humans — was a natural vehicle for satirizing values and conventions held by the Greatest Generation. According to Roger Ebert in a commentary recorded for the DVD release of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Meyer continually reiterated that this irreverence was the true secret to his artistic success.
Meyer's art is an example of the venerable Menippean satire, a difficult genre to define — roughly, it combines disparate forms such as prose and verse, theatre and film (think Lavonia and Semper Fidelis making love in heroic couplets or Kitten Natividad as the Greek Chorus in Up!), all of the time maintaining a healthy disregard for all forms of authority: religious/moral, legal, political and, last but not least, the authority of the established aesthetic tradition.[9]
Meyer was also known for his quick wit. While participating with Ebert in a panel discussion at Yale University, he was confronted by an angry woman who accused him of being "nothing but a breast man." His immediate reply: "That's only the half of it."[10]
Big breast fixation, or the Meyer physical archetypeRuss Meyer's lifelong unabashed fixation on large breasts featured prominently in all his films and is his best known character trait both as an artist and as a person. His discoveries include Kitten Natividad, Erica Gavin, Lorna Maitland, Tura Satana, and Uschi Digard among many others. The majority of them were naturally large breasted and he occasionally cast women in their first trimesters of pregnancy as it enhanced their breast size even further.[11]
Rarely were there cosmetically enhanced breasts in any of his films until Up! (1976) and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979). However, by the early 1980s, when surgical advancements had made the gargantuan breasts of Meyer's fantasies a reality, many felt he had started viewing the female body as simply a "tit transportation device"[12] and that his aesthetic vision was no longer attractive or vibrant. Darlene Gray, a natural 36H-22-33 from Great Britain, who appeared in Mondo Topless (1966) is said to be Russ Meyer's most busty discovery.[13]
The Russ Meyer female physical archetype is fairly complex to decipher. Firstly, it's not to be confused with today's surgically enhanced Hollywood porn starlets or even slim, naturally endowed actresses. Russ Meyer was almost as much about a shapely 1950s hip-to-waist ratio or "wasp waist" as he was about very large breasts. The six-pack abdominal muscles and built-up squarish appearance of modern Hollywood figures do not mesh with his pin-up aesthetic.[10][11][12] Secondly, he required that even his most busty actresses looked good braless; "gravity-defying" and "cantilevered" became two of his favorite expressions.[11]
In his films such as Vixen! and Cherry, Harry & Raquel! some of the actresses do not have large (by Russ Meyer standards) breasts yet their chests are always accentuated with very clever camera angles and well constructed bras. Reportedly, Gavin was cast as the lead in Vixen! because her "smaller" bust would make the character "more relatable to women."[14]
He went on record numerous times to say that Anita Ekberg was the most beautiful woman he ever photographed and that her 39DD breasts were the biggest in A-list Hollywood history, dwarfing both Jayne Mansfield and the British actress Sabrina.[15][16] Dolly Parton was the only modern Hollywood actress Meyer ever expressed interest in working with.[17]
While he often referred to his actresses as "Junoesque" and "Amazonian"[18] this was probably more in their spirit than their actual physiques"[19] as Meyer rarely cast very tall or symmetrically built actresses with strong legs and large posteriors. So while the general public could easily perceive Jane Russell or Sophia Loren as "Russ Meyer material", their balanced bodies did not mesh with Meyer's precise aesthetic preferences."[20] And indeed Meyer said many times that it was Gina Lollobrigida's smaller breasted figure that he preferred visually over her larger breasted, taller and bigger hipped rival, Sophia Loren.[10] Thus Meyer's complete oeuvre shows the viewer that while his actresses could easily be described as voluptuous, buxom and curvaceous, it's debatable to some if they were strapping, stately or even statuesque as Meyer readily proclaimed."[10][21]
The tallest actress Meyer ever cast in a lead was the 5'9", slim hipped, huge breasted Lorna Maitland[22] (working with whom he admitted he found intimidating).[23][24] Nearly all the other women he featured were no taller than 5'7".[25] Tura Satana's performance as Varla in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! was Meyer's only true portrayal of the large, strong and aggressive Amazonian archetype in the classic visual sense.[25][26]
Female empowerment
Film historian Jimmy McDonough posits that Russ Meyer's usage of physically and sexually overwhelming female characters places him in his own separate genre.[12] He argues that despite portraying women as sex objects, Meyer nonetheless depicts them as more powerful than men and is therefore an inadvertent feminist filmmaker.
In many of Meyer's films women eventually defeat men, winning sexual fulfillment as their reward, e.g., Super Vixen (Supervixens), Margo Winchester (Up!) and Lavonia Shed (Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens).[10] And even in the 1950s and '60s his films were sometimes centered entirely around a woman's need and struggle for sexual satisfaction (Lorna, Good Morning and... Goodbye! and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens).[10] Additionally, Russ Meyer's female characters were often allowed to express anger and violence towards men (Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Supervixens).[12]
Yet in his research, McDonough also notes that Meyer's female characters were limited in how powerful they could appear;[27] often the female lead is raped (Up! and Lorna) or brutally murdered (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Supervixens, Lorna and Blacksnake). While Russ Meyer may have championed powerful woman characters, he also forced them into violent and terrifying situations, making them prove their physical and mental strength against tremendous odds.[27] He also ensured that women's breasts were at least semi-exposed during these ordeals for comic or erotic effect.[28] Furthermore, according to frequent collaborator and longtime lover Kitten Natividad, Meyer's love of dominant women extended to his personal life, and he was almost always in a tumultuous relationship.[29][30]
Personal and family life
It was in World War II that, according to Meyer, he found himself at a French brothel with Ernest Hemingway who, upon finding out that Meyer was a virgin, offered him the prostitute of his choice. Meyer picked the one with the largest breasts.[31]
Despite his reputation as a Rabelaisian man, Russ Meyer never employed the casting couch and rarely slept with any of his actresses.[31] He had no children though there were rumored unsuccessful pregnancies with his second wife Edy Williams and last serious girlfriend Melissa Mounds who was also found guilty of assaulting him in 1999. There is a long standing rumor among his closest friends and at least one biographer that he had a son in 1964 with a secret lover who he would refer to only as "Miss Mattress" or "Janet Buxton".[32]
Meyer was very up front throughout his life about being too selfish to be a father or even a caring partner, or husband. Yet he is also said to have been very generous with all his friends and acquaintances, and never isolated friends from one another. Biographers have attributed most of his brutish and eccentric nature to the fact that he was abandoned by his father, an Oakland police officer and overly coddled by his mother, Lydia, who was married six times. Meyer had a half sister, Lucinda, who was diagnosed in her twenties with paranoid schizophrenia and was committed to California State mental institutions until her death in 1999. Mental illness ran in his family and it was something he secretly feared. During his entire life Russ Meyer spoke with only the highest reverence for his mother and sister.[11]
Meyer was married to:
Betty Valdovinos (born 1922, divorced)
Edy Williams (born July 9, 1942, divorced)
Eve Meyer (December 13, 1928 - March 27, 1977, divorced)
Contrary to some accounts, Meyer was never married to Kitten Natividad, the star of his final two films.
Final years
Meyer owned the rights to nearly all of his films and spent the majority of the 1980s and 1990s making millions reselling his films on the home video and DVD market. He worked out of the very same Los Angeles, California home he lived in and usually answered the phone to take orders himself. A major retrospective of his work was given at The British Film Institute (1983), the Chicago Film Festival honored him in 1985, and many revival movie houses booked his films for midnight movie marathons.
He also worked obsessively for over a decade on a massive three volume autobiography entitled A Clean Breast. Finally printed in 2000, it features numerous excerpts of reviews, clever details of each of his films and countless photos and erotic musings.
Starting in the mid-1990s Meyer had frequent fits and bouts of memory loss. By 2000 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and his health and well-being were thereafter looked after by Janice Cowart, his secretary and estate executor. Most of Russ Meyer's estate was left to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in honor of his mother.
Meyer died at his home in the Hollywood Hills, of complications of pneumonia, on September 18, 2004, according to Janice Cowart.[33] He was 82 years old. Meyer's grave is located at Stockton Rural Cemetery in San Joaquin County,[34] Stockton. His headstone reads:
RUSS MEYER
"King of The Nudies"
"I Was Glad to Do It"
FILM PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR
MARCH 21, 1922
SEPT. 18, 2004
Fox Searchlight Pictures is currently negotiating the rights to create a biopic covering the early years of Meyer's career.[35]
Meyer is known primarily for writing and directing a series of successful low-budget sexploitation films that featured campy humor, sly satire and large breasted women.
Early years
Russ Meyer was born in San Leandro, Oakland, California to William Arthur Meyer, a German-American police officer, and his wife Lydia Lucinda Hauck.[1] His parents divorced shortly after he was born, and Meyer was to have virtually no contact with his father during his life. When he was fourteen years old, his mother pawned her wedding ring in order to buy him an 8mm film camera. He made a number of amateur films at the age of 15, and served during World War II as a U.S. Army combat cameraman for the 166th Signal Photo Company. In the Army Meyer forged his strongest friendships, and he would later ask many of his fellow combat cameramen to work on his films. Much of Meyer's work during World War II can be seen in newsreels and in the film Patton (1971).[2] On his return to civilian life, he was unable to secure cinematography work in Hollywood due to a dearth of industry connections. He made industrial films, freelanced as a still photographer for mainstream films (he did the still photography for Giant), and became a well known glamour photographer whose work included some of the initial shoots for Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine. Meyer would go on to shoot three Playboy centerfolds during the magazine's early years, one of his wife Eve Meyer in 1955. He also shot a pictorial of then-wife Edy Williams in March 1973.[3]
Film career
His first feature, the nudist comedy The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959), cost $24,000 to produce and eventually grossed more than $1,000,000 on the independent/exploitation circuit, ensconcing Meyer as "King of the Nudies." Over the next decade, he made nearly 20 movies with a trademark blend of odd humor, huge-breasted starlets and All-American sleaze, including such notable films as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) and Vixen! (1968). Russ Meyer was a true auteur who wrote, directed, edited, photographed and distributed all his own films. He was able to finance each new film from the proceeds of the earlier ones, and became very wealthy in the process.[4] Unlike many independent directors of his era, he chose to cast actresses like Shari Eubank or Cynthia Myers who were considered extremely beautiful and wholesome.[5]
Meyer's output can be divided into several eras. Earlier works like The Immoral Mr. Teas, Eve and the Handyman, and the Western-themed Wild Gals of the Naked West were stylistically similar to the nudie cutie fare of the era, though separated from the pack by their superior color cinematography. 1964's Lorna saw the ever-economical director revert to black-and-white; with this change came a greater emphasis on storyline, almost theatrical violence, domineeringly psychosexual women, and their insipid male counterparts. The "Gothic" period (as it was termed by Meyer) reached its apex with the commercially underwhelming Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, which would eventually be reclaimed as a cult classic. It has a following all over the world and has inspired countless imitations, music videos and tributes.
After producing the popular mockumentary Mondo Topless (1966) with the remnants of his production company's assets and two mildly successful color melodramas, Meyer made headlines once again in 1968 with the controversial Vixen!. Although its lesbian overtones are tame by today's standards, the film — designed by Meyer and longtime cohort Jim Ryan as a reaction to provocative European art films — grossed millions on a five-figure budget and captured the zeitgeist just as The Immoral Mr. Teas had a decade earlier. He followed it with Cherry, Harry & Raquel! (1970), which utilized long montages of the California landscape (replete with anti-marijuana voiceovers) and Uschi Digard dancing in the desert as the film's "lost soul." These plot devices were necessitated after lead actress Linda Ashton left the shoot early, leaving Meyer missing 20 minutes of footage.
After the unexpected success of Easy Rider and impressed by Meyer's frugality and profitability, 20th Century Fox signed him to produce and direct a long-proposed sequel to Valley of the Dolls in 1969, fulfilling his longstanding ambition to direct for a major Hollywood studio. What eventually appeared was Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), scripted by film critic (and Meyer devotee) Roger Ebert and bearing no relation to the novel or film's continuity (necessitated after Jacqueline Susann sued the studio). Many critics perceive the film as perhaps the greatest expression of his intentionally vapid surrealism — Meyer went so far as to refer to it as his definitive work in several interviews. Others, such as Variety, saw "BVD" "as funny as a burning orphanage and a treat for the emotionally retarded."[7] Contractually stipulated to produce an R-rated film, the brutally violent climax (depicting a decapitation) ensured an X rating (Later reclassified to NC-17). Though disowned by the studio for years to come and amid gripes from the director after he attempted to recut the film to include more titillating scenes after the ratings debacle, it still earned over $6 million domestically in the United States on a budget of less than $1 million.
After making his most subdued film, a commercially unsuccessful adaptation of the popular Irving Wallace novel The Seven Minutes (1971) for Fox, Meyer returned to grindhouse-style independent cinema in 1973 with the Blaxploitation period piece Black Snake, which was dismissed by critics and audiences as incoherent. In 1975, he released Supervixens, a return to the world of big bosoms, square jaws, and the Mojave desert that earned $17 million (American) on a shoestring budget. Meyer's theatrical career ended with the release of the surreal Up! (1976) and 1979's Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, his most sexually graphic films. Film historians and fans have called these last three films "Bustoons" because Russ Meyer's usage of color and mise en scène recalled larger than life pop art settings and cartoonish characters.[8]
In 1977, Malcolm McLaren hired Meyer to direct a film starring The Sex Pistols. Meyer handed the scriptwriting duties over to Ebert, who, in collaboration with McLaren, produced a screenplay entitled Who Killed Bambi? According to Ebert, filming ended after a day and a half when the electricians walked off the set after McLaren proved unable to pay them. (McLaren has claimed that the project actually died at the behest of main financier 20th Century-Fox, under the pretext that "We are in the business of making family entertainment.") The project ultimately evolved into The Great Rock & Roll Swindle.
Despite the fact that hardcore pornographic films would overtake Meyer's softcore market share, he retired in the late 1970s a very wealthy man.[8]
Use of satire
Russ Meyer was also adept at mocking moral stereotypes and flagrantly lampooning conservative American values. Many of his films feature a narrator who attempts to give the audience a "moral roadmap" of what they are watching. Like contemporary Terry Southern, Meyer realized that sex — as one of the few common interests among most humans — was a natural vehicle for satirizing values and conventions held by the Greatest Generation. According to Roger Ebert in a commentary recorded for the DVD release of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Meyer continually reiterated that this irreverence was the true secret to his artistic success.
Meyer's art is an example of the venerable Menippean satire, a difficult genre to define — roughly, it combines disparate forms such as prose and verse, theatre and film (think Lavonia and Semper Fidelis making love in heroic couplets or Kitten Natividad as the Greek Chorus in Up!), all of the time maintaining a healthy disregard for all forms of authority: religious/moral, legal, political and, last but not least, the authority of the established aesthetic tradition.[9]
Meyer was also known for his quick wit. While participating with Ebert in a panel discussion at Yale University, he was confronted by an angry woman who accused him of being "nothing but a breast man." His immediate reply: "That's only the half of it."[10]
Big breast fixation, or the Meyer physical archetypeRuss Meyer's lifelong unabashed fixation on large breasts featured prominently in all his films and is his best known character trait both as an artist and as a person. His discoveries include Kitten Natividad, Erica Gavin, Lorna Maitland, Tura Satana, and Uschi Digard among many others. The majority of them were naturally large breasted and he occasionally cast women in their first trimesters of pregnancy as it enhanced their breast size even further.[11]
Rarely were there cosmetically enhanced breasts in any of his films until Up! (1976) and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979). However, by the early 1980s, when surgical advancements had made the gargantuan breasts of Meyer's fantasies a reality, many felt he had started viewing the female body as simply a "tit transportation device"[12] and that his aesthetic vision was no longer attractive or vibrant. Darlene Gray, a natural 36H-22-33 from Great Britain, who appeared in Mondo Topless (1966) is said to be Russ Meyer's most busty discovery.[13]
The Russ Meyer female physical archetype is fairly complex to decipher. Firstly, it's not to be confused with today's surgically enhanced Hollywood porn starlets or even slim, naturally endowed actresses. Russ Meyer was almost as much about a shapely 1950s hip-to-waist ratio or "wasp waist" as he was about very large breasts. The six-pack abdominal muscles and built-up squarish appearance of modern Hollywood figures do not mesh with his pin-up aesthetic.[10][11][12] Secondly, he required that even his most busty actresses looked good braless; "gravity-defying" and "cantilevered" became two of his favorite expressions.[11]
In his films such as Vixen! and Cherry, Harry & Raquel! some of the actresses do not have large (by Russ Meyer standards) breasts yet their chests are always accentuated with very clever camera angles and well constructed bras. Reportedly, Gavin was cast as the lead in Vixen! because her "smaller" bust would make the character "more relatable to women."[14]
He went on record numerous times to say that Anita Ekberg was the most beautiful woman he ever photographed and that her 39DD breasts were the biggest in A-list Hollywood history, dwarfing both Jayne Mansfield and the British actress Sabrina.[15][16] Dolly Parton was the only modern Hollywood actress Meyer ever expressed interest in working with.[17]
While he often referred to his actresses as "Junoesque" and "Amazonian"[18] this was probably more in their spirit than their actual physiques"[19] as Meyer rarely cast very tall or symmetrically built actresses with strong legs and large posteriors. So while the general public could easily perceive Jane Russell or Sophia Loren as "Russ Meyer material", their balanced bodies did not mesh with Meyer's precise aesthetic preferences."[20] And indeed Meyer said many times that it was Gina Lollobrigida's smaller breasted figure that he preferred visually over her larger breasted, taller and bigger hipped rival, Sophia Loren.[10] Thus Meyer's complete oeuvre shows the viewer that while his actresses could easily be described as voluptuous, buxom and curvaceous, it's debatable to some if they were strapping, stately or even statuesque as Meyer readily proclaimed."[10][21]
The tallest actress Meyer ever cast in a lead was the 5'9", slim hipped, huge breasted Lorna Maitland[22] (working with whom he admitted he found intimidating).[23][24] Nearly all the other women he featured were no taller than 5'7".[25] Tura Satana's performance as Varla in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! was Meyer's only true portrayal of the large, strong and aggressive Amazonian archetype in the classic visual sense.[25][26]
Female empowerment
Film historian Jimmy McDonough posits that Russ Meyer's usage of physically and sexually overwhelming female characters places him in his own separate genre.[12] He argues that despite portraying women as sex objects, Meyer nonetheless depicts them as more powerful than men and is therefore an inadvertent feminist filmmaker.
In many of Meyer's films women eventually defeat men, winning sexual fulfillment as their reward, e.g., Super Vixen (Supervixens), Margo Winchester (Up!) and Lavonia Shed (Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens).[10] And even in the 1950s and '60s his films were sometimes centered entirely around a woman's need and struggle for sexual satisfaction (Lorna, Good Morning and... Goodbye! and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens).[10] Additionally, Russ Meyer's female characters were often allowed to express anger and violence towards men (Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Supervixens).[12]
Yet in his research, McDonough also notes that Meyer's female characters were limited in how powerful they could appear;[27] often the female lead is raped (Up! and Lorna) or brutally murdered (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Supervixens, Lorna and Blacksnake). While Russ Meyer may have championed powerful woman characters, he also forced them into violent and terrifying situations, making them prove their physical and mental strength against tremendous odds.[27] He also ensured that women's breasts were at least semi-exposed during these ordeals for comic or erotic effect.[28] Furthermore, according to frequent collaborator and longtime lover Kitten Natividad, Meyer's love of dominant women extended to his personal life, and he was almost always in a tumultuous relationship.[29][30]
Personal and family life
It was in World War II that, according to Meyer, he found himself at a French brothel with Ernest Hemingway who, upon finding out that Meyer was a virgin, offered him the prostitute of his choice. Meyer picked the one with the largest breasts.[31]
Despite his reputation as a Rabelaisian man, Russ Meyer never employed the casting couch and rarely slept with any of his actresses.[31] He had no children though there were rumored unsuccessful pregnancies with his second wife Edy Williams and last serious girlfriend Melissa Mounds who was also found guilty of assaulting him in 1999. There is a long standing rumor among his closest friends and at least one biographer that he had a son in 1964 with a secret lover who he would refer to only as "Miss Mattress" or "Janet Buxton".[32]
Meyer was very up front throughout his life about being too selfish to be a father or even a caring partner, or husband. Yet he is also said to have been very generous with all his friends and acquaintances, and never isolated friends from one another. Biographers have attributed most of his brutish and eccentric nature to the fact that he was abandoned by his father, an Oakland police officer and overly coddled by his mother, Lydia, who was married six times. Meyer had a half sister, Lucinda, who was diagnosed in her twenties with paranoid schizophrenia and was committed to California State mental institutions until her death in 1999. Mental illness ran in his family and it was something he secretly feared. During his entire life Russ Meyer spoke with only the highest reverence for his mother and sister.[11]
Meyer was married to:
Betty Valdovinos (born 1922, divorced)
Edy Williams (born July 9, 1942, divorced)
Eve Meyer (December 13, 1928 - March 27, 1977, divorced)
Contrary to some accounts, Meyer was never married to Kitten Natividad, the star of his final two films.
Final years
Meyer owned the rights to nearly all of his films and spent the majority of the 1980s and 1990s making millions reselling his films on the home video and DVD market. He worked out of the very same Los Angeles, California home he lived in and usually answered the phone to take orders himself. A major retrospective of his work was given at The British Film Institute (1983), the Chicago Film Festival honored him in 1985, and many revival movie houses booked his films for midnight movie marathons.
He also worked obsessively for over a decade on a massive three volume autobiography entitled A Clean Breast. Finally printed in 2000, it features numerous excerpts of reviews, clever details of each of his films and countless photos and erotic musings.
Starting in the mid-1990s Meyer had frequent fits and bouts of memory loss. By 2000 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and his health and well-being were thereafter looked after by Janice Cowart, his secretary and estate executor. Most of Russ Meyer's estate was left to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in honor of his mother.
Meyer died at his home in the Hollywood Hills, of complications of pneumonia, on September 18, 2004, according to Janice Cowart.[33] He was 82 years old. Meyer's grave is located at Stockton Rural Cemetery in San Joaquin County,[34] Stockton. His headstone reads:
RUSS MEYER
"King of The Nudies"
"I Was Glad to Do It"
FILM PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR
MARCH 21, 1922
SEPT. 18, 2004
Fox Searchlight Pictures is currently negotiating the rights to create a biopic covering the early years of Meyer's career.[35]
lagrima no escuro da magica do absurdo
Tão perto do fim. Leio com medo de partir. Sem ser entendido sem entender. ouvindo menos os outros minha consciencia. Respeitando erros. Somente quando meus. Domo o desespero no silencio. Infeliz no prazer que forjo das horas vagas das noites vazias.
+ 1. bang!
taquicardia. dane-se! melodias me guiam no inferno de gelo. waaaaaaaaaaaaves of mutilation waaaaaaaaaaaaaves like a trampolim
maos transpiram se acontecer de novo posso nao resistir suicide solution? eu devia saber nao ha outro jeito isso é certo, mas nao consigo te esquecer ainda
+ 1?
And you open the door and you step inside
Where inside our hearts
Now imagine your pain as a white ball of healing light
That's right, your pain
The pain itself is a white ball of healing light
I don't think so
This is your life, good to the last drop
Doesn't get any better than this
This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time
This isn't a seminar, this isn't a weekend retreat
Where you are now you can't even imagine what the bottom will be like
Only after disaster can we be resurrected
It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything
Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake
You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else
We are all part of the same compost heap
We are the all singing, all dancing, crap of the world
You have to give up, you have to give up
You have to realize that someday you will die
Until you know that, you are useless
+ 1. bang!
taquicardia. dane-se! melodias me guiam no inferno de gelo. waaaaaaaaaaaaves of mutilation waaaaaaaaaaaaaves like a trampolim
maos transpiram se acontecer de novo posso nao resistir suicide solution? eu devia saber nao ha outro jeito isso é certo, mas nao consigo te esquecer ainda
+ 1?
And you open the door and you step inside
Where inside our hearts
Now imagine your pain as a white ball of healing light
That's right, your pain
The pain itself is a white ball of healing light
I don't think so
This is your life, good to the last drop
Doesn't get any better than this
This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time
This isn't a seminar, this isn't a weekend retreat
Where you are now you can't even imagine what the bottom will be like
Only after disaster can we be resurrected
It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything
Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake
You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else
We are all part of the same compost heap
We are the all singing, all dancing, crap of the world
You have to give up, you have to give up
You have to realize that someday you will die
Until you know that, you are useless
Epilepsia é uma alteração na atividade elétrica do cérebro, temporária e reversível, que produz manifestações motoras, sensitivas, sensoriais, psíquicas ou neurovegetativas (disritmia cerebral paroxística). Para ser considerada epilepsia, deve ser excluída a convulsão causada por febre, drogas ou distúrbios metabólicos, já que são classificadas diferentemente. A palavra epilepsia vem do grego epilepsia, 'doença que provoca repentina convulsão ou perda de consciência', pelo latim epilepsia.
Tratamento
O diagnóstico de epilepsia deve ser estabelecido de forma definitiva antes do início do tratamento. A decisão de se iniciar o tratamento deve considerar o paciente como um todo: a severidade do quadro clínico e seu prognóstico. Deve-se ter bem claro o propósito deste tratamento e a expectativa do paciente.
Tendo-se decidido que o paciente requer tratamento medicamentoso, depara-se a necessidade de escolher a medicação adequada. Muito importante é ter em conta que a medicação, após instituída, deverá ser mantida durante muitos anos, por vezes até o final da vida. A escolha da medicação antiepiléptica a ser utilizada é feita com base no tipo de crise apresentada pelo paciente. A consequência imediata da escolha adequada da medicação, associada à eficácia contra as crises, melhora a adaptablidade social do paciente epiléptico, que poderá atender melhor e mais facilmente às exigências de seu meio, dentro de uma vida de qualidade.
A maneira como o indivíduo interage com o ambiente social (família, trabalho, amigos) é bastante afetada pelo fato dele ser um portador de epilepsia. O tratamento deve, portanto, não apenas visar o controle de suas crises, mas a melhora da qualidade de vida do paciente, garantindo uma melhor integração social.
Prognóstico
A maioria das pessoas com epilepsia aparenta levar uma vida normal. Ainda que a epilepsia atualmente não tenha cura definitiva, em algumas pessoas ela eventualmente desaparece. A maioria dos ataques epiléticos não causa lesão cerebral. Não é incomum que pessoas com epilepsia, especialmente crianças, desenvolvam problemas emocionais e de comportamento. Para muitas pessoas com epilepsia o risco de ataques epiléticos restringe sua independência. A maioria das mulheres com epilepsia pode ficar grávida, mas deve discutir com o médico sobre sua doença e medicamentos tomados. Mulheres com epilepsia tem uma chance maior de 90% de ter um bebê saudável.
Crise epiléptica
É a manifestação clínica causada por uma descarga transitória, excessiva e anormal de células nervosas. Pode ser comparada a uma tempestade elétrica, ocorrendo num grupo de neurônios. As descargas podem variar de local, extensão e severidade, o que leva a uma ampla diversidade de formas clínicas. Os sinais e sintomas de uma crise epiléptica (distúrbios da consciência, dos movimentos ou da sensibilidade) refletem, portanto, a ativação da parte do cérebro afetada por esta atividade excessiva. Pode ser afetada apenas uma parte do cérebro (crise parcial ou focal) ou toda extensão dos dois hemisférios cerebrais (crise generalizada).
É importante lembrar que o termo disritmia, aplicado nesta área, não tem fundamento científico.
Ocorrência
Existe uma variação percentual da prevalência da epilepsia de acordo com regiões. Nos países desenvolvidos sua incidência é estimada em 40-50/100.000 habitantes/ano,[1] enquanto que nos em desenvolvimento é de 122-190/100.000 habitantes/ano.[2] Estima-se que 50 milhões de pessoas no mundo já tiveram ao menos uma crise de epilepsia.[3] Estima-se também que os países em desenvolvimento concentrem 85% dos casos onde 90% dos quais não recebem diagnóstico ou tratamento[carece de fontes?]. Pode iniciar-se em qualquer idade, mas é mais comum até aos 25 e depois dos 65 anos. Também se observa uma leve diferença entre os sexos: há mais homens que mulheres com epilepsia.
Alguns estudos realizados no Brasil também apontam prevalências diferenciadas por região, variando de 1/1000 a 18,6/1000 habitantes.[4]
Causas
Existem várias causas para a epilepsia, pois muitos fatores podem lesar os neurônios (células nervosas) ou o modo como estes comunicam entre si. Os mais frequentes são: traumatismos cranianos, provocando cicatrizes cerebrais; traumatismos de parto; certas drogas ou tóxicos; interrupção do fluxo sanguíneo cerebral causado por acidente vascular cerebral ou problemas cardiovasculares; doenças infecciosas ou tumores.
Podem ser encontradas lesões no cérebro através de exames de imagem, como a tomografia computadorizada, mas normalmente tais lesões não são encontradas. O eletroencefalograma pode ajudar, mas idealmente deve ser feito durante a crise. Existe uma discussão sobre a "personalidade epiléptica" no sistema legal, mas de um modo geral o epiléptico não deve ser considerado inimputável.
Quando se identifica uma causa que provoque a epilepsia, esta é designada por "sintomática", quer dizer, a epilepsia é apenas o sintoma pelo qual a doença subjacente se manifestou; em 65% dos casos não se consegue detectar nenhuma causa - é a chamada epilepsia "idiopática".
Emprega-se o termo epilepsia "criptogénica" quando se suspeita da existência de uma causa mas não se consegue detectar a mesma.
Conquanto possa ser provocada por uma doença infecciosa, a epilepsia, ao invés de algumas crenças habituais, não é contagiosa, ninguém a pode contrair em contato com um epiléptico. Na maioria dos casos a epilepsia deve-se a uma lesão cerebral causada por traumatismo provocado por acidente físico, num tumor, numa infecção, no parasita cisticerco, num parto com complicações, meningite, embora em menor frequência pode ser genético,[5][6] significando que, em poucos casos, a epilepsia pode ser transmitida aos filhos. Outro fator que pode explicar a incidência da epilepsia entre parentes próximos é que algumas causas como a infecção e a meningite, possíveis causas das lesões cerebrais, são contagiosas, expondo parentes próximos a uma incidência maior. Do mesmo modo, a cisticercose que é causada pela ingestão de cistos provenientes da Taenia solium (transmitida através da ingestao de ovos da tênia que se aloja no intestino humano), adquirindo em alimentos contaminados que costumeiramente fazem parte da alimentação de parentes próximos. A despeito da crença popular que a epilepsia é incurável, existem tratamentos medicamentosos e cirurgias capazes de controlar e até curar a epilepsia.
Alguns fatores podem desencadear crises epilépticas:
Mudanças súbitas da intensidade luminosa ou luzes a piscar (algumas pessoas têm ataques quando veem televisão, jogam no computador ou frequentam discotecas)
Privação de sono
Ingestão alcoólica
Febre
Ansiedade
Cansaço
Algumas drogas e medicamentos
Verminoses (como a neurocisticercose)
Nervosismo
Gregg Michael Gillis[1][2] (born October 26, 1981), better known by his stage name Girl Talk,[3] is an American musician specializing in mashups and digital sampling. Gillis has released five LPs on the record label Illegal Art and EPs on 333 and 12 Apostles.
CareerGillis began making music while a student at Chartiers Valley High School in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bridgeville. After a few collaborative efforts he started the solo "Girl Talk" project and continued making music under the Girl Talk alias while studying biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. In school, Gillis focused on tissue engineering. He later worked as an engineer, but quit in May 2007 to focus solely on music.[4]
He produces mashup-style remixes, in which he uses often a dozen or more unauthorized samples from different songs to create a new song. The New York Times Magazine has called his music "a lawsuit waiting to happen,"[5] a criticism that Gillis has attributed to mainstream media that wants "to create controversy where it doesn't really exist," citing fair use as a legal backbone for his sampling practices.[6]
He has given different explanations for the origin of his stage name, once saying that it alluded to a Jim Morrison poem[7] and once saying that it alluded to an early Merzbow side project.[8] Most recently, he attributed the name to a grunge band called TAD, based in Seattle.[9]
In a 2009 interview with FMLY, Gillis stated:
The name Girl Talk is a reference to many things, products, magazines, books. It’s a pop culture phrase. The whole point of choosing the name early on was basically to just stir things up a little within the small scene I was operating from. I came from a more experimental background and there were some very overly serious, borderline academic type electronic musicians. I wanted to pick a name that they would be embarrassed to play with. You know Girl Talk sounded exactly the opposite of a man playing a laptop, so that’s what I chose.[10]
Gillis is featured heavily in the 2008 open source documentary RiP!: A Remix Manifesto.
For possible future projects, Gillis is considering creating individual songs rather than full-length albums with the songs tied together.[11] Girl Talk released his fifth LP All Day on November the 15th, 2010 - free through the Illegal Art website.[12]
Album pricingAfter the success of his album Feed the Animals, for which listeners were asked to pay a price of their choosing, Gillis made all of his other albums similarly available via the Illegal Art website.
AwardsIn 2007, Gillis was the recipient of a Wired magazine Rave Award.[13]
Feed the Animals was number four on Time's Top 10 Albums of 2008.[14] Rolling Stone gave the album four stars and ranked the album #24 on their Top 50 albums of 2008. Blender magazine rated it the second-best recording/album of 2008,[citation needed] and NPR listeners rated it the 16th best album of the year.[15]
Gillis' hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania named December 7, 2010 "Gregg Gillis Day".[16]
Film appearancesIn 2007, Girl Talk appeared in Good Copy Bad Copy, a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture.
In 2008, he appeared as a test case for fair use in Brett Gaylor's RiP!: A Remix Manifesto, a call to overhaul copyright laws.
Discography[edit] AlbumsSecret Diary CD (2002, Illegal Art)
Unstoppable CD (2004, Illegal Art)
Night Ripper CD (2006, Illegal Art)
Feed the Animals CD (2008, Illegal Art)
All Day (2010, Illegal Art)
CareerGillis began making music while a student at Chartiers Valley High School in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bridgeville. After a few collaborative efforts he started the solo "Girl Talk" project and continued making music under the Girl Talk alias while studying biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. In school, Gillis focused on tissue engineering. He later worked as an engineer, but quit in May 2007 to focus solely on music.[4]
He produces mashup-style remixes, in which he uses often a dozen or more unauthorized samples from different songs to create a new song. The New York Times Magazine has called his music "a lawsuit waiting to happen,"[5] a criticism that Gillis has attributed to mainstream media that wants "to create controversy where it doesn't really exist," citing fair use as a legal backbone for his sampling practices.[6]
He has given different explanations for the origin of his stage name, once saying that it alluded to a Jim Morrison poem[7] and once saying that it alluded to an early Merzbow side project.[8] Most recently, he attributed the name to a grunge band called TAD, based in Seattle.[9]
In a 2009 interview with FMLY, Gillis stated:
The name Girl Talk is a reference to many things, products, magazines, books. It’s a pop culture phrase. The whole point of choosing the name early on was basically to just stir things up a little within the small scene I was operating from. I came from a more experimental background and there were some very overly serious, borderline academic type electronic musicians. I wanted to pick a name that they would be embarrassed to play with. You know Girl Talk sounded exactly the opposite of a man playing a laptop, so that’s what I chose.[10]
Gillis is featured heavily in the 2008 open source documentary RiP!: A Remix Manifesto.
For possible future projects, Gillis is considering creating individual songs rather than full-length albums with the songs tied together.[11] Girl Talk released his fifth LP All Day on November the 15th, 2010 - free through the Illegal Art website.[12]
Album pricingAfter the success of his album Feed the Animals, for which listeners were asked to pay a price of their choosing, Gillis made all of his other albums similarly available via the Illegal Art website.
AwardsIn 2007, Gillis was the recipient of a Wired magazine Rave Award.[13]
Feed the Animals was number four on Time's Top 10 Albums of 2008.[14] Rolling Stone gave the album four stars and ranked the album #24 on their Top 50 albums of 2008. Blender magazine rated it the second-best recording/album of 2008,[citation needed] and NPR listeners rated it the 16th best album of the year.[15]
Gillis' hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania named December 7, 2010 "Gregg Gillis Day".[16]
Film appearancesIn 2007, Girl Talk appeared in Good Copy Bad Copy, a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture.
In 2008, he appeared as a test case for fair use in Brett Gaylor's RiP!: A Remix Manifesto, a call to overhaul copyright laws.
Discography[edit] AlbumsSecret Diary CD (2002, Illegal Art)
Unstoppable CD (2004, Illegal Art)
Night Ripper CD (2006, Illegal Art)
Feed the Animals CD (2008, Illegal Art)
All Day (2010, Illegal Art)
Era filho de Benjamim Peirce, na época um dos mais importantes matemáticos de Harvard. Charles Sanders Peirce licenciou-se em ciências e doutorou-se em Química em Harvard. Ensinou filosofia nesta universidade e na Universidade Johns Hopkins. Foi o fundador do Pragmatismo e da ciência dos signos, a semiótica. Antecipou muitas das problemáticas do Círculo de Viena. Além dos títulos descritos, Peirce também era matemático, físico e astrônomo. Dentro das ciências culturais estudou particularmente Linguística, Filologia e História, com contribuições também na área da Psicologia Experimental. Estudou praticamente todos os tipos de ciência em sua época, sendo também conhecedor de mais de dez idiomas. As áreas pelas quais é mais conhecido, e às quais dedicou grande parte de sua vida e estudos, são a Lógica e Filosofia. Propôs aplicar nesta última os métodos de observação, hipóteses e experimentação a fim de aproximá-la mais das características de ciência. Peirce concebia a Lógica dentro do campo do que ele chamava de teoria geral dos signos, ou Semiótica. Os últimos 30 anos de sua vida foram dedicados a estudos acerca da Semiótica, para Peirce um sistema de lógica. Produziu cerca de 80.000 manuscritos durante a vida, sendo que 12.000 páginas foram publicadas. A Semiótica Peirciana pode ser considerada uma Filosofia Científica da Linguagem. A Fenomenologia é a ciência que permeia a semiótica de Peirce, e deve ser entendida nesse contexto. Para Peirce, a Fenomenologia é a descrição e análise das experiências do homem, em todos os momentos da vida. Nesse sentido, o fenômeno é tudo aquilo que é percebido pelo homem, seja real ou não. Seus estudos levaram ao que ele chamou de Categorias do Pensamento e da Natureza, ou Categorias Universais do Signo. São elas a Primeiridade, que corresponde ao acaso, ou o fenômeno no seu estado puro que se apresenta à consciência, a Secundidade, corresponde à ação e reação, é o conflito da consciência com o fenômeno, buscando entendê-lo. Por último a Terceiridade, ou o processo, a mediação. É a interpretação e generalização dos fenômenos. A Dança dos Estudos da Linguagem pela Semiose de PeirceUm signo, seu objeto e sua interpretação: os três sujeitos da semiose de Pierce. Os estudos da linguagem talvez possam se encaixar nessa ação triádica, haja vista o mecanismo natural de se abrir novas possibilidades teóricas a partir de pontos já corroborados, no todo, ou até mesmo refutados, neste caso, aproveitando-se parte de estudos desenvolvidos para ganchos de novos conceitos. A linguagem seria o signo, a escrita e a fala seriam os objetos, e as várias teorias sobre a linguagem seriam a interpretação. A partir destes ajustes se constroem as infindas roupagens da língua e as oposições conceituais sobre este signo. Um exemplo seria o "atomismo lógico" proposto por Bertrand Russell, no início do século passado, cuja intenção "era considerar que as frases têm existência própria, independente do sujeito e da experiência". Essa tese foi apoiada pelo filósofo Ludwig Wittgenstein que afirmava ser a linguagem uma "representação projetiva da realidade". Contudo, após a evolução dos estudos ditos da corrente positivista lógica e com sua junção com as linhas pragmáticas da América do Norte, a posição de Ludwig em relação a Russell passou a ser contrária, com várias críticas sobre o modelo tradicional de interpretação aceito inicialmente. Ao observar este exemplo percebe-se que Ludwig se encaixou nas categorias da semiose pierciana. Em princípio, pegou a tese de Russell já fechada em sua terceiridade e a abriu, iniciou então seus próprios estudos sobre o signo linguagem (primeiridade), no decorrer de suas análises sobre os objetos "escrita" e "fala" desenvolveu a segundidade do signo e, deste modo, finalizou o processo novamente em outra terceiridade quando diz que "o jogo de linguagem não é nada tão elementar (…) a linguagem tem jogos incontáveis: novos tipos de linguagens, novos jogos lingüísticos surgem continuamente, enquanto outros envelhecem ou são esquecidos". Valorizando a língua falada, considerando que antes de serem escritas as linguagens eram faladas, Saussure faz paralelo entre a linguagem e o jogo de xadrez, em um sentido de valores relativos para os signos lingüísticos (entenda-se por isso um significante - imagem acústica: um substantivo qualquer - e um significado - conceito: o substantivo real), ou seja, "o valor respectivo das peças depende de sua posição sobre o tabuleiro, da mesma forma que na língua cada termo tem seu valor pela oposição com todos os outros". Também nas colocações de Saussure percebe-se a influência da semiose, pois, analogicamente, ao se começar um jogo de xadrez se têm a primeiridade no posicionamento das peças no tabuleiro, em um segundo momento (no desenrolar das jogadas, no pensamento das conseqüências de cada movimento das peças, não que se possa prever com exatidão qual será a articulação feita pelo opositor) se vê o secundismo, por fim, é chegada a hora do fechamento do ciclo com um xeque-mate ou mesmo com um empate entre os jogadores. Então, não é assim nos diálogos travados entre falantes? Primeiro se propõe um determinado assunto (primeirismo), o mesmo sendo aceito, vai-se então para o desenvolvimento dos argumentos (secundismo) - em um verdadeiro jogo de palavras, frases, orações e conceitos - as melhores explanações fecham a semiose em um ato de persuasão da parte contrária (terceirismo). Contudo, pela lógica da semiose de Peirce, na lingüística estrutural de Saussure, quando há a proposição de um novo debate, sobre o mesmo assunto, abre-se a possibilidade de um novo fechamento, da parte antes vencida ser a vencedora, basta que saiba ter habilidade no momento do secundismo. Como em uma semiose aplicada ao macro da linguagem, a lingüística estrutural de Saussure, como todas as outras correntes teóricas, sofreu embates, pois, segundo Émile Benveniste (antes propagador das idéias do pesquisador suíço, no Círculo Lingüístico de Praga) e Merleau-Ponty, a analogia de Saussure colocou a língua em um contexto mecânico. Para Benveniste, o signo seria uma partícula arbitrária. Já Ponty, leva em consideração a existência de um contexto inexpresso, ou seja, uma conexão que une, por exemplo, um sujeito a um verbo, um conceito que daria à sentença um caráter vivo (orgânico) e não simplesmente mecanicista. Estes tipos de oposição podem ser tomados como algo agregador à evolução da linguagem e não apenas como uma pura e simples realização das correntes que a estudam no decorrer da história, em outros termos: o movimento dialético também pode ser o instrumento que propulsiona o desenvolvimento dos signos e, segundo Clément, para Hegel, tal movimentação não significa um método, mas a própria vida do espírito que se mantém através do negativo. Ou, citando Goethe, "eu sou aquilo que tudo nega, pois o que existe, é para ser destruído". 
The Maltese Falcon is a 1930 detective novel by Dashiell Hammett, originally serialized in the magazine Black Mask. The story has been adapted several times for the cinema. The main character, Sam Spade, appears only in this novel and in three lesser known short stories, yet is widely cited as the crystallizing figure in the development of the hard-boiled private detective genre – Raymond Chandler's character Philip Marlowe, for instance, was strongly influenced by Hammett's Spade. Spade was a departure from Hammett's nameless and less than glamorous detective, The Continental Op. Sam Spade combined several features of previous detectives, most notably his cold detachment, keen eye for detail, and unflinching determination to achieve his own justice. He is the man who has seen the wretched, the corrupt, the tawdry side of life but still retains his "tarnished idealism". In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Maltese Falcon 56th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Private eye Sam Spade and his partner Miles Archer are hired into service by a woman who calls herself Miss Wonderly to follow a man, Floyd Thursby, who has allegedly run off with her underage younger sister. Spade and Archer take the assignment because the money is good. Spade also implies that the woman looks like trouble, though she projects wholesome innocence. That night, Spade is awakened by police detective Tom Polhaus, who informs Spade that Archer has been shot, killed and left at the bottom of a dead-end street. Spade knows that Archer was supposed to be tailing Thursby and tells Polhaus this when questioned about Archer's activities but refuses to reveal the identity of their client. Much later that night, Polhaus and his partner Lieutenant Dundy visit Spade at his apartment and inquire about Spade's whereabouts in the last few hours. The officers say that Thursby was also killed and that Spade is a suspect, since Thursby likely killed Archer. They have no evidence against Spade at the moment, but tell him that they will be conducting an investigation into the matter. The next day, Spade gets a visit from Archer's wife Iva, with whom he has been having an affair. She asks Spade if he killed Miles so that they could be together. Spade dismisses her and tells her to leave, and coldly orders his secretary Effie Perine to remove all of Archer's belongings from the office. He then goes to a new address left in a note from his client, whose real name he learns is Brigid O'Shaughnessy. He also finds out that O'Shaughnessy never had a sister, and Thursby was her acquaintance who had betrayed her. Later, Spade is visited by another man, Joel Cairo, who offers Spade $5,000 if the private eye can retrieve a figurine of a black bird that has recently arrived in San Francisco. While Spade has no idea what the man is talking about, he plays along. Suddenly, Cairo pulls a gun on Spade, and declares his intention to search Spade's office. But when he approaches Spade to search his person, Spade disarms him and knocks him unconscious. After cataloguing Cairo's belongings and questioning him in return, Spade returns Cairo's firearm and allows the man to search his office. Following this, Spade is again contacted by Brigid O'Shaughnessy. She offers her sympathies for the death of his partner. Spade senses a connection between O'Shaughnessy and Cairo, and casually mentions that Cairo has contacted him. O'Shaughnessy becomes extremely nervous when she hears this, telling Spade that she must see Cairo and asking Spade to arrange a meeting. Spade agrees. When Cairo and O'Shaughnessy meet at Spade's apartment, they make references that the reader and Spade don't initially comprehend. Cairo says he is ready to pay for the black figurine. O'Shaughnessy, however, says she does not have it at the moment. They also refer to a mysterious figure, "G", whom they seem to be scared of. The two then continue to talk about some events that happened overseas. Eventually, O'Shaughnessy insinuates that Cairo is a homosexual, and Cairo insinuates that O'Shaughnessy simply uses her body to get what she wants. Soon after the two begin to fight, the police show up at the apartment, coincidentally, to talk to Spade. Spade greets them at the door but refuses to let them in. The officers say they know Spade was having an affair with Archer's wife; just as they are about to leave, they hear Cairo screaming for help. They force their way into Spade's apartment, but Spade invents a story about how Cairo and O'Shaughnessy were merely play-acting. The officers seem to accept, if not believe, Spade's story, but they take Cairo with them down to the station for some "grilling." Spade then tries to get more information from O'Shaughnessy, but she sleeps with him rather than tell him anything. The next morning, Spade makes his way to the hotel where Cairo is staying. Cairo shows up disheveled, saying that he was held in police custody through the night. Meanwhile, Spade notices that he's being tailed by a kid named Wilmer Cook. He eventually confronts him and tells him that both he and his boss, "G," will have to deal with him at some point. He later receives a call from Casper Gutman, who wishes to meet with him. Gutman, a grossly obese man, says he will pay handsomely for the black bird. Spade bluffs, implying that he can get the item, but wants to know what it is first. Gutman tells him that the figurine was a gift from the island of Malta to the King of Spain a few hundred years ago, but was lost on ship in transit. It was covered with fine jewels, but acquired a layer of black enamel at some time to conceal its value (estimated to be in the millions). Gutman learned of its whereabouts seventeen years ago, and has been looking for it ever since. He traced it to the home of the Russian general Kemidov, then sent three of his "agents" (Cairo, Thursby and O'Shaughnessy) to retrieve it. The latter pair supposedly did steal the figurine, but learned of its value and decided to keep it for themselves. Spade starts to get dizzy at this point (Gutman has drugged him), and when he goes to leave, Wilmer trips him and knocks him out by kicking his temple. When Spade awakens, he returns to his office and tells the story of the Maltese Falcon to Effie. Soon afterwards, an injured man, identified as Captain Jacobi of "La Paloma," shows up at the office; he drops a package on the floor and then dies from his gunshot wounds. Spade opens the package, and finds the figurine falcon. Spade is called away from the office. To prevent losing the item, Spade stores the package at a bus station lost luggage counter and mails himself the collection tag. He first goes to the dock where "La Paloma" was anchored, but learns that a fire had been started on board. He then proceeds to the place Brigid O'Shaughnessy said she was when she phoned earlier. There he finds a drugged-up, seventeen-year old girl (Rhea Gutman), her stomach all scratched up by a pin in her attempt to keep herself awake. She just manages to give him some information about the whereabouts of Brigid, which turns out to be a false lead. When he arrives back at his apartment, he finds O'Shaughnessy in a shadowy doorway. Inside, Wilmer, Cairo, and Gutman are there waiting. Gutman hands Spade $10,000 in cash in exchange for the bird. Spade takes the money, but in addition says that they need a "fall guy" to take the blame for the murders of at least Thursby and Jacobi, if not Archer as well. Reluctantly, both Cairo and Gutman agree to make Wilmer the fall guy. Gutman proceeds to tell Spade the missing pieces of the story. The night that Thursby was killed, he was first approached by Wilmer and Gutman. The latter attempted to reason with him, but Thursby remained loyal to O'Shaughnessy and refused to cooperate. Later things escalated, then Wilmer shot Thursby. Also, O'Shaughnessy had seduced Captain Jacobi and hid the Falcon with him. Later, O'Shaughnessy instructed Jacobi to deliver the package to Spade. Once Gutman learned of this fact, he attempted to remove Spade from the situation with the spiked drink. Wilmer managed to shoot the captain, but Jacobi still got to Spade's office to deliver the figurine. After finishing his story, Gutman warns Spade to be very careful with O'Shaughnessy as she is not to be trusted. Spade places a call to his secretary Effie and asks her to pick up the figurine. Effie brings it to Spade's apartment, and Spade hands the package to Gutman, who is overwhelmed with excitement. He checks the figurine, but quickly learns that it is a fake. He realizes with dismay that the Russian must have discovered the true value of the falcon and made a copy. During this time, Wilmer manages to escape from Spade's apartment. Gutman quickly regains composure, and decides to go back to Europe to continue the search. Before he leaves, Gutman asks Spade for the $10,000. Spade returns $9,000, saying he's keeping the remainder for his time and expenses. Then Cairo and Gutman leave Spade's apartment. Immediately after Cairo and Gutman leave, Spade phones the police department and tells them the entire story. Wilmer killed Jacobi and Thursby. He also tells them what hotel Gutman is staying at and urges them to hurry, since Gutman and Cairo are leaving town soon. Afterwards, Spade angrily asks O'Shaughnessy why she killed Archer. At first, O'Shaughnessy acts horrified at this accusation, but seeing that she cannot lie anymore, she drops the act. She wanted to get Thursby out of the picture so that she could have the falcon for herself, so she hired Archer to scare him off. When Thursby didn't leave, she killed Archer and attempted to pin the crime on Thursby. When Thursby himself was later killed, she knew that Gutman was in town and that she needed another protector, so she came back to Spade. However, she says that she's also in love with Spade and would have come back to him anyhow. Spade coldly replies that the penalty for murder is most likely twenty years, and he'll wait for her until she gets out. If they hang her, Spade says that he'll always remember her. He goes on to say that while he despised Archer, the man was his partner, and that he's going to turn her in to the police for his murder as that was a line he could not cross in the industry of detective work. O'Shaughnessy begs him not to, but he replies that he has no choice. When the police get Gutman, Gutman will finger Spade and O'Shaughnessy as accomplices. Thus the only way Spade can avoid getting charged is to say he played both sides against each other. He tells O'Shaughnessy that he has some feelings for her, but that he simply can't trust her. Just before the police arrive, O'Shaughnessy asks Spade if the falcon had been real, and he'd gotten the entire $10,000, would it have made a difference. Spade replies that, while she shouldn't be so sure that he's crooked, more money would have been one more item on "her side." When the police finally show up at Spade's apartment, Spade immediately turns over O'Shaughnessy as Archer's killer. They tell Spade that Wilmer was waiting for Gutman at the hotel and shot him when he arrived. Spade also hands over the $1,000 bill and the falcon to the police as evidence. Later, when Spade arrives back at the office, he tells Effie the entire story. She asks Sam if he sent O'Shaughnessy to jail. He replies, "Your Sam's a detective." She is disgusted by his actions, and asks him not to touch her. The novel ends when Archer's widow Iva again shows up at the office. Analysis In this novel, Hammett redefines many of the conventions of the "hard-boiled" detective genre. Spade is a bitter, sardonic character who lets the police and the criminals think he is in with the criminals while he works singlemindedly to catch the crooks. Brigid O'Shaughnessy is the classic femme fatale. The other crooks are manipulative and self-centered (or merely self-centered) with no concern for anyone's well-being except their own. However, unlike some other hard-boiled detectives who have a strong sense of idealism underneath the cynical shell, Hammett never provides a clear statement of Spade's notion of morality. Spade attempts to explain himself to Brigid O'Shaughnessy with the Flitcraft parable, in which Hammett makes an oblique reference to the philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, but O'Shaughnessy has no idea what he is getting at. At the time of Miles Archer's death, Spade is having an affair with Archer's wife, and while he does the "right thing" in the end, catching and turning in Archer's murderer, his reasons for doing so are somewhat ambiguous. Although he expresses a strong professional ethic ("When a man's partner is killed he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it") it also has an element of self-interest about it ("[W]hen one of your organization gets killed it's bad business to let the killer get away with it. It's bad all around - bad for that one organization, bad for every detective everywhere"). It is left unclear whether Spade might have chosen not to turn Brigid in if there was a bigger monetary gain for him ("...a lot more money would have been one more item on your side"), but certain that his emotional attachment to her (however strong that is) is not sufficient to overcome the risks involved with letting her go. Spade's blatant calculus of risk, reward and duty with which Hammett ends the novel contains remarkably little trace of morality. The writing style is unusual in that the reader is told what each character does and says, but no-one's inner thoughts are ever revealed. Prequel Fellow San Francisco crime writer and former private eye Joe Gores recently wrote Spade & Archer (2009), a prequel to The Maltese Falcon. The novel investigates in richer detail the back stories of Sam Spade, his partner Miles Archer and other memorable characters from the original story. Gores was able to secure permission from Jo Marshall, Hammett's daughter, and Julie Rivett, Marshall's daughter and Hammett's granddaughter, to write the book. Although Marshall first refused, the Hammett family later changed their mind because they felt that Gores was the right person to tell the story, primarily because he was a crime writer and a former San Francisco private investigator, just like Hammett. According to Rivett, "[Gores] walked the walk as well as he talked the talk. He knows as well as anyone where those characters came from.".[1] The Los Angeles times, in a February 9, 2009 review of the book stated that "Gores is far and away the best candidate to pull off such a risky endeavor" and the novel "comes with admirable distance of a ... prequel that, paraphrasing one of the novel's villains, gets to take Sam Spade apart and see what makes him tick".[2]
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