Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston
on January 19, 1809. His parents
(Elizabeth and David Poe) were "strolling players", traveling actors
that squeezed out a living by moving from town to town and stage to stage. Poe's mother, Elizabeth Arnold Poe, was a
well trained third generation actress.
Both her parents traveled to America and arrived in Boston on January 3,
1796. Together they worked in theater
companies as they raised their daughter on the stages that they visited. Elizabeth started performing at the young
age of eight. She knew no other life
than that of a traveling thespian, and as she grew her talent became evident.
When David Poe and Elizabeth met in
1802, he was living in Baltimore and studying law. She was working in a dramatic company that stopped in major
northern cities. He married Elizabeth
despite being shunned by his family who refused to accept the marriage of their
son to such an uncultured woman. David
Poe gave up a successful future in his father's manufacturing business to join
his new bride on the road as an actor, for which he seemed to have no
ability.
The couple had three children over
the next four years. Their first child,
William Henry Poe, was born in 1807.
William Poe would later make a living as a writer but not to the high
acclaim that his younger brother Edgar would.
Edgar Poe was born only one year before his sister Rosalie in 1810. During this time, the Poe family lived in
Boston and barely made enough money to feed themselves. How poor these actors were is shown by the
fact that three weeks after Edgar's birth, Elizabeth was back on the stage
dancing and singing for the Boston Theater.
At this time, David Poe's performances started attracting unfavorable
press. He was never a good actor, and
this criticism brought about even harder times for the Poe family. In July 1810, David Poe disappeared from all
of recorded history except a small newspaper clipping that appears to confirm
that he died in Norfolk, Virginia later that same year. When he was last seen, his health was
failing and he had taken to drinking.
Most think that David ran off with another woman, leaving his family
poor and fatherless in Boston.
Mrs. Poe was left with two young
children and pregnant with a third.
Although, it has been speculated that the time between David Poe's
departure from the family and the birth of Rosalie were too far apart for the
child to be Mr. Poe's. After the
tragedy of losing her husband, Elizabeth Poe moved the family to Richmond,
Virginia where this heart-broken actress was forced to perform in slapstick
comedy plays to feed her family. After
a long slow decline in her health, Elizabeth Poe died on December 8,1811 in
Richmond leaving her middle son Edgar Poe to live with Mr. and Mrs. John
Allen. Later, he would take their name
as his own; Edgar Allan Poe.
Poe lived with the modestly rich
Allan family in an area of Richmond known as The Fan near the James River.
James and his wife Frances Keeling Allan were Scotch merchants who had
been married for more than eight years without any children. It is thought that Elizabeth Poe had made
the acquaintance of the Allan's slaves while passing the Allan's home on her
way to the market. The story of the
poor actress and her children made its way from the servants to Frances
Allan. Frances took an open interest in
the Poe family. The Allan's wanted to
have a child and Mrs. Poe knew that her health was failing her. Mrs. Poe needed
to find someone to take care of her two year old son and, the Allan’s were the
perfect match. John and Frances Allan
took to looking after Elizabeth and the three children during her final
months. When Mrs. Poe passed away, it
was understood that the Allan's would adopt the middle child. Although a legal adoption never took place,
the three were from that moment on a family.
In 1815, at the age of seven, Edgar Allan Poe traveled to Europe. John Allan was attempting to start a
business in England. To do this, John
Allan sold most of his furniture, his home and anything that couldn't be taken
by ship to England. After a two month
trek across the Atlantic, young Edgar attended school at the famous Stoke
Newington for the next five years. This
type of education would never have been
possible for Edgar before becoming a member of the Allan family.
After Mr. Allan established his
business, he returned with his family to Richmond, Virginia in 1820, where
Edgar attended private schooling. As
Edgar grew older, the relationship between him and Mr. Allan became
strained. The two found it harder to
live in the same house. Mr. Allan
wanted Edgar to be a businessman or a lawyer.
However, young Edgar didn't have the desire to work in a profession of
such limited imagination. Perhaps his
theatrical background and his undefined position in the Allan household made
him something of an outsider in his own home.
Or, perhaps he had too much of his mother's creativity in him. Edgar spent most of his time daydreaming and
writing. He was the type of child that
spent most of his time alone. "It
was a noticeable fact that he never asked any of his classmates to go home with
him after school. Other boys would
frequently spend the night or take dinner with each other at their homes, but
Poe was seldom known to enter into this social intercourse. After he left the playgrounds that was an
end of his sociability until the next day." (Wagenknecht, 16)
However, don't think that he was a rude young man. He was also considered a
"generous" and an "enthusiastic" boy. Mrs. Allan held the family together during
this rough period. Edgar loved Mrs.
Allan above all else. The bond between
the two was very strong, and without this the family would have broken apart
long ago.
In late 1826, Edgar Allan Poe
attended the University of Virginia.
Edgar was a wonderful student and had no trouble passing his classes and
impressing his professors. He won
honors in both Latin and French.
Unfortunately, Poe developed a gambling problem. He ran up large debts that he could not
cover and Mr. Allan refused to pay for them Poe was forced to leave the
university and return to Richmond in shame less than a year after starting
college. By the time Poe got back from
the university, his relationship with John Allan had deteriorated, and on March
26, 1827 he left Richmond for Boston.
In Boston he lived with some distant
aunts and uncles. He was also reunited
with his brother, and it is thought that the two collaborated on some of
Edgar's first published works; Tamerlane
and Minor Poems. The printing of
the short book of poems was paid for by Poe himself and it found no
audience. Poe worked odd jobs to
support his dream of being a writer. No
one found, at that time, his work to have any value. Today, an original print of Poe's Tamerlane and Minor Poems would be worth its weight in gold. Eventually, he enlisted in the army under
the fake name Edgar A. Perry. The army
was an opportunity for Poe to have a steady income and hot meals. He had no intentions of making a career of
the military.
Without much notice, Frances Allan
died suddenly on February 28, 1829. Poe
had been given the news of his adopted mother's sickness, but he arrived a few
days after her death. Poe was told that
his mother's last wish was that John Allan and Edgar would end their feud. Edgar took this to heart and for a short
time the two reconciled their differences.
Poe even applied for a slot at West Point Military College. He knew that this would please his foster
father. John Allan was happy to use his
money and name to help his son get into West Point. His appointment there was a certainty and Mr. Allan hoped that
West Point would give Poe some much needed discipline. For a while, things were well between the
two men.
While awaiting acceptance, Poe
published his second work; Al Aaraaf,
Tamerlane and Minor Poems. It was a revised version of his first
published work with a few new poems.
Once again, his work was read by few, liked by even less, and earned him
no money. Therefore, when West Point invited
him to attend school in 1830 he did so.
At first, it appeared that Poe would do well at West Point. Poe had performed his duties as an enlisted
man in such an exemplary manner that he was awarded the rank of sergeant-major
within eight months. This was the
highest rank that a non-commissioned man could hold. Shortly, Poe became tired of the work he was doing. He found it to be too easy and mundane. During this same time, Poe and John Allan
again became estranged. Without
challenging school work or the need to please Mr. Allan, Poe intentionally
neglected his duties so he would be dismissed from West Point. He was court-martialed in early 1831, and
never again spoke to his father.
Edgar Allan Poe now went into
writing full-time for the first time in his adult life. For a short time, Poe lived in New York City
where he published a collection of short poems in 1831, that he simply titled Poems.
Next, he moved to Baltimore where he lived for five years. In Baltimore, Poe began writing short stories
like A Ms. Found in a bottle that won
awards and gave Poe his first recognition as a writer. He then moved back to Richmond in 1835 to
become the editor for the Southern
Literary Messenger. Poe enjoyed
success at the Southern Literary
Messenger as a writer of poetry, short stories, and criticism along with
his role as editor. He married his
thirteen year old cousin, Virginia Clemm, in that same year. The marriage, although not thought of as
proper, was not at that time considered deviant or unlawful.
Despite the good fortune that seemed
to be upon Poe, he had started drinking heavily and his health began to fail
him. Poe was fired as editor and in
1837 he moved back to New York. Not
until 1839 did Poe find another job as editor.
During this time, he still drank heavily but he wrote some of his best
known short stories like The Fall of the
House of Usher, The Gold Bug, and
The Tell-Tale Heart. Poe had his work published in a number of
well known respectable papers. His work
was becoming recognized but his life was falling apart. He could never seem to hold a job for every
long, and he was never able to concentrate his talent to create a single body
of work that could be considered a novel.
However, he continued to write highly acclaimed work. In 1843 he published The Raven, his most well known work. Even his most profound poem only brought $35. Because Poe lacked regular employment, he
and his wife lived
in
hunger for years. Poe lost his wife
during the cold winter of 1848. Shortly
after his wife died he attempted suicide.
At this point, Poe hung on the edge of insanity while still writing
profound stories.
During this time, Poe's life is not
so well documented because of his unemployment and his abnormal mental
condition. What is known about Poe is
that he was traveling through Baltimore when he was found nearly dead on
October 3, 1849 in an alley near a saloon that had been used as a voting
place. Poe may have been robbed, beaten
and left to die in that alley. However,
the fact that Poe was penniless makes this unlikely. Poe might have been used, in his customary drunken state, by a
political gang to repeat votes. Just as
likely, Poe had too much to drink, walked into the alley and collapsed. Whatever happened that night in Baltimore,
the end result was that Poe died four days later in a hospital bed, alone. Rufus Griswold wrote about Poe's death in
the New York Tribune, "Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore on Sunday, October 7th. This announcement will startle many but few
will be grieved by it. His imagination
was from the worlds which no mortal can see but with the vision of genius"
( Moulton 345).
II
"Concerning none of the major
American authors of the nineteenth century has there been anything like the
critical disagreement that still surrounds the name of Edgar Allan Poe" (
History 321). "Critical estimates
of his work has ranged from great enthusiasm to outright dismissal, but in
general he is held to have been one of a handful of true literary artists of
his time" (Webster 831). It is
much harder to find anybody that still denies that Poe was a wonderful
artist. There seems to be more
criticism of his life than his work.
When Poe lived, he never was given credit for being anything more than
melodramatic. "This romantic
attitude has led to the criticism that his poetry is no more than a sustained
tone, entirely dominated by its atmosphere" (Oxford 595). His work was often looked down at as simple
and incomplete. After his death, like
so many artists, his work was finally appreciated for its original style.
Despite some harsh criticism, his
poems were considered brilliant by most.
His
most famous work, The Raven, was soon
taken to the heart of the American literary world. "The Raven, we
regard it as the most effective single example of fugitive poetry ever
published in the country" (Moulton 349).
The Raven is a poem that is so
well constructed that it is hard to read it without singing it. Poe, himself, considered The Raven a "stylistic experiment". He had long thought it possible to satisfy
both the many and the few. "The
Raven, he said, to suit all at once the
popular and the critical taste" (Silverman 239). When Poe passed away, Rev. Rufus Griswold told a story that Poe
hastened his own wife's death so he could return to writing this poem. There was no truth to this story, and most
believe it was created by Grisword because he was Poe's literary executor. However, the sensational story might have
helped sell a few more copies of the dead artist's work. Besides this, Rufus Grisword spoke highly of
Poe. "His poems are constructed
with wonderful ingenuity, and finished with consummate art" (Griswold
340).
Besides The Raven, other poems from Poe have gained notice. "The
Bells is a case of onomatopoeia pushed to a point where it would hardly be
possible or desirable to go again" (History 339). The
Bells moves the reader from joyful feelings to sad images. In this poem, the bells ring at times of
happiness and at times of terror. When life is good the bells tinkle. When life is hard you can hear the tolling
of the bells.
A poem that attracted mixed reviews
was Ulalume published in 1847.
"This poem presents all the paradoxes that have so divided Poe's
critics" (History 339). It is another
poem, like The Raven, that gives the reader a musical tone. It flows off the tongue with a song-like
quality. At the same time, it was
dismissed for being overly musical.
Critics would state that Ulalume
was elementary writing.
Edgar Allen Poe is one of the most
mysterious writers in American literature.
"There seems to be no end of interest in Poe's legend. Poe is the one American poet -- Whitman,
perhaps being a second -- whose work has produced a cult" (Moulton
347). He single handedly invented an
entire style of writing by abandoning all the rules of literature
composition. Most known for his poems
and short stories, never being able to compile a single work (novel) that could
stand on its own. As Thomas English
wrote, "He really does not possess one title of greatness which he seems
to regard as an uncomfortable burden" (Moulton 346). However, he also worked as a literary
critic, speechmaker, and editor. His
most famous work The Raven earned him
only about $35. The Raven is more of a
sonnet than a simple poem. Other
prolific poems like; To Helen, A Dream
Within A Dream and Annabell Lee
brought Poe little financial reward but it did put him in the admiration of
critics.
The short stories that Poe produced
were like no other of its time. Horror,
suspense
and mystery had never before been used in such a terrifying manner. The stories were so disturbing that it led
some to think of Edgar Allen Poe as a mad man or some sort of demented soul. His stories had the ability to find that
dark area deep inside his reader that they hoped no one knew about. His own life was also a mystery. He was a man that lived and died under a
shadow of strange and often sad events.
Poe's life was a twisted journey that without doubt contributed to his
writings and his death.
Poe's poetry, with the exception of The Raven, is not overly
impressive. Most of his poems are short
and appear to lack anything more than Poe's own personal feelings at the moment
he wrote them. Poems like To Helen and AnnabellLee were written about women that Poe had affairs
with. Not that this type of poem is any
less important, but I do believe that Poe never put deep thought into his
poems. Poe wrote of his own poetry by
saying, "With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the
passions should be held in reverence; they must not-- they cannot at will be
excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry
commendations of mankind" (Black 1).
I believe that Poe wrote poetry as a form of therapy. It was his only way to release the pain in
his tormented heart. He never meant for
his poems to be dissected as if to find some hidden meaning.
The short stories that Poe created
are in my estimation the most important
legacy
that he left behind. Without his
stories, Poe's body of work would have died with him in Baltimore. Today, his stories are required reading for
almost every high school student. His
stories are some of the most innovative in American literature history. Poe's The
Murders in the Rue Morgue is widely credited with being the first ever
detective story. The tale of the Black Cat is one of my personal
favorites. It is one of many stories
that Poe wrote in a style that was new to the world. It was horror, suspense and mystery all concentrated in a few
pages. The Black Cat is about a man and how his love for animals and life
slowly died. When the man exploded with
rage and killed his wife, he buried her behind a brick wall along with their
black cat. When the police came to
investigate the sudden disappearance of the woman, the man was so confident in
his
plan of deception that he took the officers to the brick tomb and bragged about
the quality of the masonry. This
arrogance was almost overlooked by the officers, and the man would have never
been caught if not for the distant sound of a cat's cry from within the
wall. In Poe's tales it is not the
horrific crime or act of violence that puts the reader on edge, but the horrifying
manner that his strange characters display that brings the reader to think of
the story as disturbing. The manner
that Poe tells a story is what makes him so wonderful. He quickly informs the reader of the important
fact in a dark romantic style. Then he
introduces a moment of intense and heart pounding theatrics- often in the form
of murder. But, it is only after this
that the reader becomes truly involved in the story. Poe didn't just write about death and murder, he writes about the
sick minds of ordinary men and women.
This makes the average person think about their own dark side.
Edgar Allan Poe had a strange magic
for creating tales of darkness. No
doubt, his own life's tragedies feed this ability. He has become a giant among American writers despite never
writing a novel or ever making a reasonable living from his work. Sadly, he died poor at the age of forty
without knowing how important his work was.
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Library of Literary Criticism of English and American
Authors. 1902.
"Doren, Charles." Webster's
American Biographies. 1984.
Edgar Allan Poe. The Works
of Edgar Allan Poe in One Volume: Complete Tales
and Poems. New York : Walter J. Black Inc. 1927.
"Hart, James." The
Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1983.
Literary History of the
United States: History. New York: The
Macmillan
Company. 1966.
Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar
A. Poe: Mournful And Never-Ending Remembrance.
New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991.
Wagenknecht, Edward. Edgar
Allan Poe: The Man Behind the Legend. United
States of America: New York Oxford University Press,
1963.