No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. “The ‘Red Death’ had long devastated the country. The tale opens with the description of a mysterious epidemic. But to our knowledge, a detailed medical analysis of The Masque of Red Death has not been conducted. Review of The Fall of the House of Usher has implicated porphyria ( 3) for the psychopathology of Roderick Usher and his sister Madeline. The author’s life has been the subject of numerous medical and psychiatric analyses, and the effects of alcoholism ( 1) and seizure disorder ( 2) on his creativity have been studied. Poe’s most famous works are macabre tales of terror, madness, decay, and death. Accounts of fictional epidemics, such as Albert Camus’ The Plague or Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of Red Death, are even more fascinating and debatable. These works provide rare insight into the impact of real epidemics. History itself is punctuated and shaped by epidemics, whose accounts are at the center of such literary works as Boccachio’s Decameron, Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Love in the Time of Cholera. Often viewed as divine retribution, these scourges are mentioned in many cultural and religious texts, including the Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud. Plagues and pestilence have evoked fear and awe since time immemorial.
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