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It is night.
A man shines a light through the gap in a door.
Inside the room, an old man is sleeping.
One of his eyes is open, but the eye is blind and clouded over.
The younger man steps into the room.
His hands shake with fear.
He thinks that he can hear the old man's heart beating.
The sound begins to grow louder and louder.
The young man raises a knife.
He needs to silence the heart.
He needs to close the strange eye.
So The young man brings the knife down.
He murders the old man.
After the crime, the man tries to cover up what he has done.
He cleans his house.
He hides the body underneath the floor.
The police come to investigate.
But they can find nothing wrong.
They interview him in the old man's room.
The young man is calm at first.
He believes no one will discover his crime.
Then he begins to hear a noise.
From under his floor he hears the beating of a heart.
The noise grows louder and louder.
No one else can hear it.
But the young man is sure they can.
He thinks they must know he is guilty.
So he admits to everything.
As he does so, he continues to hear the heart. beating louder and louder underneath the floor.
This is the plot of a story by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe.
It is called The Tell-Tale Heart.
Poe was well known for his strange and sometimes violent stories.
He was famous during his life, but people of his day often found his work frightening.
Some did not approve of his work and his lifestyle.
But today, most recognize him as one of the most important writers of the English language.
Today's Spotlight is on Edgar Allan Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in 1809 in the city of Boston.
Soon after Poe was born, his father left the family.
Then, a year later, his mother died.
These events affected Po strongly.
Soon after, a wealthy man named John Allen took Po in.
Allen gave Po an education, but Po never forgot his mother or his life's early sadness.
As Po grew up, he began to develop strong emotions.
He fell in love very easily.
He would often become sad or angry.
These emotions sometimes led him to make poor choices.
He and John Allen fought often.
They came to hate each other.
And in 1835, Po married his cousin.
Her name was Virginia.
She was 13 years old.
Po was 26.
But Po also used these emotions in his writing.
When he was just 18, he published his first book.
As he continued to write, more people began to notice his work.
Soon, he began working at a journal called the Southern Literary Messenger.
There, he worked as an editor.
He also published many stories and poems, and in 1845
He published his most famous poem.
It is called The Raven.
The Raven is both a poem and a story.
In it, Po speaks as a man who loses the woman that he loves, named Lenore.
As he mourns, a raven flies into his room.
This large black bird lands on a statue.
It speaks to him.
The man asks the bird questions about death.
He wonders if he will ever see Lenore again.
But the raven only answers with one word, never more.
At the end of the poem Poe writes and the raven, never flitting, still is sitting.
Still is sitting on the pallid bust of palace just above my chamber door and his eyes have all the seeming of a demons that is dreaming and the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor and my soul from out.
That shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted nevermore.
The man speaking in the poem will always be sad about Lenore's death.
In the poem, the Raven becomes sad that he will never see her again.
The Raven made Poe famous.
Some of his stories may have been strange, but people loved his dark imagination.
And they liked that he was different.
Poe's work was also some of the first of its kind.
He wrote what is probably the first mystery story.
It is called The Murders at the Rue Morgue.
Poe loved people knowing who he was.
He loved how they saw him, as dark, mysterious and intelligent.
Poe had a difficult time in his personal life and this made him famous in some ways.
He did not like
He often used alcohol to deal with mental pressure.
Sometimes he would drink at his job, and he had several very public affairs.
Sometimes He could not find work because of these scandals.
People believed he could not be trusted.
Or they did not want to work with someone with his personality.
He was popular but he was also very poor.
Then, in 1847, Poe's wife died.
Her loss was very difficult for him.
He started drinking even more.
He had a hard time finishing his work.
Like the character in The Raven, Poe never really got over Virginia's death.
His health was also getting worse.
Then, in 1849, Poe traveled to Boston a city in Massachusetts.
On October 3rd, a man found Po behind a bar.
Po was not thinking clearly, but it was not from alcohol.
He shouted strange things, and he was not wearing his own clothes.
The man saw that Po was in trouble. he brought him to a hospital.
Po stayed there several days.
He spoke for hours and hours.
But he was not speaking to anyone.
And what he said made very little sense.
Then, on the fourth day, Po died.
Like many of his stories, Po's Death was a mystery.
No one knows why he died.
No one knows why he was not wearing his own clothes.
When he died, he was buried in a simple wood box.
Fewer than ten people came to his funeral.
But, like the heart in his first story, Poe's work lives on.
Over 150 years later, people continue to talk about his writing.
William J. Jacobs is an American historian.
He wrote a book about Poe.
In his book, he wrote that, Others have tried to copy him.
They have tried to capture in poetry and short stories the fear that made him special.
But his imagination was like a lonely castle.
None have ever completely succeeded in climbing its walls.
He was one of a kind.
And it is in Poe's difference that he finds his place in literature.
Have you ever read anything by Edgar Allan Poe?
What did you like?
What did you not like?
You can leave a comment on our website at www.spotlightenglish.com.
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The writer of this program was dan chrisman.
The producer was michio ozaki.
The voices you heard were from the united kingdom and the United States.
All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight.
No AI or artificial intelligence was used in this program.
Spotlight programs are written, voiced and produced by real people for real people, no matter where in the world they live.
This program is called, Edgar Allan Poe, Master of the Strange.
We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program.
Goodbye.
