Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allen Poe became one of my favorite authors growing up. When I discovered him in high school after reading the "Raven" in an 8th grade literature class. I thought why can't most of this early literature interest me. Reading Poe was part of me becoming Gothic. Even though the literature book in 8th grade only gave you a small sampling of it, I went to the library and found a very old Poe book and read the rest of the Raven and the Tell Tale Heart, another awesome story by Poe, but what became my all time favorite was the Pit and Pendulum. I remember talking about the Spanish Inquisition in history and all the torture that went on in that time period. For those of you that do not know what the Spanish Inquisition was:

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (Spanish: Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición), commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition (Inquisición española), was established in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition, which was under Papal control. It became the most substantive of the three different manifestations of the wider Christian Inquisition along with the Roman Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition.

The Inquisition was originally intended in large part to ensure the orthodoxy of those who converted from Judaism and Islam. This regulation of the faith of the newly converted was intensified after the royal decrees issued in 1492 and 1501 ordering Jews and Muslims to convert or leave.

Various motives have been proposed for the monarchs' decision to found the Inquisition such as increasing political authority, weakening opposition, suppressing conversos, profiting from confiscation of the property of convicted heretics, reducing social tensions, and protecting the kingdom from the danger of a fifth column.

The body was under the direct control of the Spanish monarchy. It was not definitively abolished until 1834, during the reign of Isabella II, after a period of declining influence in the previous century.

Story of the Pit and the Pendulum was about a man imprisoned during the height of the Inquisition. Poe writes in detail the torture he went through but the main part was when he was on a table chained down and in the dark and all he heard was the blade on the pendulum cutting through the air. Can you imagine being in that kind of torture in the dark and all you hear is your death slowly lowering minute by minute. You laying there hearing the swishing of the blade. Luckily the character gets freed because the Inquisition ends.

I have read other stories by Poe but these I have mentioned are my top 3 favorites.

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