Edgar Allan Poe delights in setting his figures against a backdrop of violet and green—a landscape where the glint of decay and the scent of the storm manifest, and where nature—so-called "dead"—partakes in the very essence of living beings, quivering just as they do with a piercing, electric tremor. We are frequently startled by magnificent flashes of speech, light, and color within his narratives; suddenly, we catch a glimpse of Oriental cities and architectural forms emerging at the farthest reaches of his horizons—hazy in the distance—where the sun rains down gold, and where the bizarre is an inseparable part of the beautiful.