From the biographical approach the use of madness in Poe's oeuvre may represent some conscious or unconscious expression of his inner life.6 According to some biographers Poe's, "interest in insanity [] shows the morbid quality of his mind.... Instead of harmony and unison, Romantics sought harmony of contrast, and as far as the motif of madness is concerned, it is sanity and insanity and rationality and irrationality which are contrasted through the whole short fiction of Edgar Allan Poe. ... Auguste Dupin, whose rationality and ability to empathize with others in order to solv...

• Word Count: 1406
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate