Profs & Pints DC: The Macabre Poe

Profs and Pints DC presents: “The Macabre Poe,” a look at Edgar Allan Poe’s most gruesome and horrifying works and what inspired them, with Amy Branam Armiento, professor of English at Frostburg State University, immediate past president of the Poe Studies Association, and editor of two books on the acclaimed American author.

Stephen King has said that he and other horror writers are all “the children of Poe,” a reference to how they’re unable to escape his shadow.  Although Edgar Allan Poe penned works in a long list of genres, including fantasy, detective fiction, and poetry, his most prominent legacy is as the master of the macabre. Over the nearly two centuries since Poe lived, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Masque of the Red Death” have haunted millions of readers.

Who, exactly, was Poe?…