History as a Battle for the Mind: Edgar Poe as a Cultural Warrior

In this New Lyre Podcast, David Gosselin (founder of the Chained Muse) and Matthew Ehret discuss the real story of Edgar Allan Poe as a cultural warrior who stood on the frontlines as defender of the greatest humanist traditions upon which the young republic’s survival was based during the tumultuous 1820s-1840s. While few people either in Poe’s own lifetime or in the 160 years since his mysterious death have truly understood his role in world affairs- due largely to a concerted effort to slander his memory- Poe’s insight into the nature and purpose of mind, natural law and the creator remain beautifully showcased in his many works and especially in his last great prose essay titled ‘Eureka: An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe’. While he is most known as a “master of the macabre” due to the dark and disturbing topics that emerge in many of his works, the fact is that Poe is operating on a higher level of artistic composition than most realize by investigating the outcome of souls that are in dise