Darkness Becomes Bright

On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe

By: Emily Ogden

A fascinating and intimate inquiry into the shadowy life and horrifyingly compellingwork of Edgar Allan Poe and why we are drawn to darkness in art

Since Edgar Allan Poe’s mysterious death in 1849, his stories and poems have captivated millions of readers around the world. Two centuries later, why do we continue to descend into the darkness of his imagination—and of the genres, from horror to crime, that he pioneered?

In this spellbinding and singular book, Guggenheim Fellow and Whiting grant recipient Emily Ogden plumbs the darkness within Poe and enters it alongside him. She interweaves stories from his mysterious and tragic life—from his strange disappearances and tortured romances to his nearly fatal use of opium—with those of his most famous readers and translators, including poet Charles Baudelaire, writer Julio Cortázar, and psychoanalyst Marie Bonaparte, a descendant of Napoleon and a patient of Sigmund Freud.

Tracing their passionate attachments to Poe—and Ogden’s own, unexpectedly sparked when she taught an introductory Poe course at the University of Virginia, where Poe himself was once a student—Darkness Becomes Bright makes a different case for literature from the one we most often hear. This exquisite volume shows how Poe’s vision and its echoes across the generations allow us to make peace with our own flawed humanity.

Critic reviews

Advance Praise for Darkness Becomes Bright:

“Emily Ogden writes with the erudition of a scholar and the sensitivity of a spirit medium. In Darkness Becomes Bright, she weaves a gorgeous, spellbinding tale that blends criticism, biography, and carefully chosen moments of memoir to look fearlessly at what is most difficult—most perverse, disturbing, and, occasionally, beautiful—in art as well as life. This portrait of Poe will haunt you to the grave and beyond.” —Christine Smallwood, author of The Life of the
Mind

“Emily Ogden brilliantly exhumes the beating heart of America's darkest poet.” —Orlando Reade, author of What in Me Is Dark