Obama, FDR, and Edgar Allan Poe

A slightly controversial article from the Washington Examiner connects Edgar Allan Poe's political fable embedded in "The Masque of the Red Death" to the politics of today and yesteryear. Though the economic woes plaguing America and the world today are difficult to relate to a virulent pestilence, writer Neil Hrab may have a point in identifying a chilly, disconnected sense in Washington. And nothing spells out decadent indifference toward the public better than Poe's depiction of Prince Prospero.

Ultimately, any weird fiction reader knows that Prospero and his aristocratic cohorts meet their fate in the mysterious and highly contagious party crasher who arrives with an unmistakable vengeance from outside. Only time will tell whether or not the recessionary cancer creeps into the lives of Obama's administrators, patrons, economic wizards, and both political parties. Unlike today, where justice escapes most high ranking offenders in power, Prospero's downfall might be viewed as a populist political fantasy come true. The ruling caste's fortress fails to protect them, and they are forced to share the doom visited on the grave sunken society outside the castle walls.

Edgar Allan Poe, like H.P. Lovecraft, has joined the ranks of weird writers who find their works and wisdom re-applied to another heated political season in the United States. Compared to Lovecraft, Poe's words hold possibly more relevance and much less poison for today's cultural attitudes. Look for the his re-emergence in the coming election cycles as an observer not just of broken psychology and terror, but real political merit.

-Grim Blogger