Edgar Alan Poe Mask of the Red Death

Edgar Allan Poe’s Masque of the Red Death

               Edgar Allan Poe may have drawn upon the works of Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) and

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) for inspiration in writing: The Masque of the Red Death. Specifically,

Poe appears to have imitated the frame-tale in Boccaccio’s masterpiece, The Decameron, and borrowed

elements from at least one Shakespeare play, The Tempest, and possibly another, As You Like It. 

In The Decameron, seven men and three women withdraw to the countryside to escape a plague

outbreak in Florence. To bide their time, they tell stories, sing, and dance. 

               In The Tempest, the main character is Prospero, ruler of a magical island. One of his subjects, a

beast-like man named Caliban, curses Prospero, saying he hopes he dies of “red plague.”  In As You Like

It, the character Jaques, recites a speech describing “the seven ages of man” that is, the stages of life

from infancy to old age. It has been suggested that the seven rooms in Poe’s story represent the seven

stages of life outlined by Shakespeare. The first room would represent infancy, and fittingly Poe locates

it in the easternmost part of the imperial suite. The east is a primordial archetype associated with the

rising sun and birth. The last room, the seventh, would represent old age and death, and Poe locates it

in the westernmost part of the imperial suite. The west is a primordial archetype associated with the

setting sun, old age, and death.

               Poe's story takes place in seven connected but carefully separated rooms. This reminds the

reader of the past significance of the number seven. The history of the world was thought to consist of

seven ages, just as an individual's life had seven stages. The ancient world had seven wonders;

universities divided learning into seven subjects; there were seven deadly sins with seven corresponding

cardinal virtues, and the number seven is important...