EDGAR ALLAN POE

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Introduction

Nothing invokes the concept of the melancholy and disturbing quite like the name Edgar Allan Poe.  From 1827 to 1845 in Boston Massachusetts, Edgar Allan Poe published many short stories and poetry that would go on to influence American culture and inspire the entire genre of gothic mystery and horror literature with a refreshing intrigue not seen since.

Overview of Poe and his life

• Early beginnings:

Edgar Allan Poe was born in January 1809 to David Poe Jr. and Elizabeth Arnold Poe who were both skilled characters. At the age of three, Poe and his elder brother and younger sister were consigned into different families to reside there after their father deserted and the consequent death of their mother. He went to Richmond in Virginia to the family of John and Frances Allan. Since the Allan’s were healthy, they treated him as their son, educated him in private institutions and even took him to England for a few years stay. In his pubescent years, Poe fell out with Allan who did not approve of his aspiration to become a writer because he thought it was unthankful. In 1826, Poe joined the freshly inaugurated University of Virginia, and due to his financial constraints, turned to gamble as a way of making money. Instead, he lost two thousand dollars in eight months.    

• Military:

Poe conscripted for a five-year term in the U.S army, and his Tamerlane and other Poems was written at his own cost, but it did not do so well. He received a promotion to the position of sergeant major in January 1829, and since he did not want to go through with his full term, he made arrangements to be dismissed on terms that he would look for assignment in West Point Academy. In his thoughts, this move was meant to please Allan, but it only led to a falling out, and Poe never received any financial help from his step-father. On the other hand, Al Araaf and Tamerlane and Minor Poems were printed in Maryland, and they earned approving identification from novelist and critic John Neal. Additionally, Poe’s appointment to West Point came along, but since he did not need it, he sought for dismissal on terms of disregard of duty and defiance of orders.

• Final Years:

For some time, he lived with his aunt and her daughter Virginia whom he married. Losing his job brought him so much distress, and his mind from then on was never far from panic. He later moved with his family to New York City where he managed to publish The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pynn, which was his only significant work of fiction. His problems, however, escalated fast as his wife developed signs of tuberculosis. Poe tried to alleviate these problems by drinking, which eventually weakened his well-being. However, in 1844, things started to improve slightly after The Raven was published, and it became a success. His wife’s well-being however deteriorated and he was not making enough to support both his wife and her mother. On 30^th January 1847, Virginia succumbed to her illness, and two years later, under unclear circumstances, Poe was found unconscious and died four days later while in hospital.

Poe’s works and themes

In his literary works, Poe looks into the similarity of love and hate and shows the psychological complicatedness of the emotions accentuating the way that they fit into one another.  His psychological insight anticipates the theory of love and hate being overall feelings that are disconnected from the particular circumstances of space and time. On the other hand, the gothic terror aspect comes as a result of his concurrent love for himself and hatred for his opponent. It reveals that love and hate are indivisible and that they are two modes of the most extreme human emotions. For instance, when he has emotions of self-hatred coming up in him, it is projected to an abstract replica of himself. In the Tell-Tale-Heart there is the confession of love for an older man who then gets destructively murdered and dismembered. Poe acknowledges his madness by trying to distinguish the person of the older man that he loves and the one with an evil eye which in return brings about the hatred.

Poe often awards the memory the capability to keep the dead alive. He shows this theme by allowing the dead back to life literary. In Ligeia, he cannot let go of the memories of his first wife while his second wife starts to ail from an unknown sickness. While his memories are for his mind, Poe allows them to exert force in the exact world. When the first wife Ligeia dies, the husband’s memories make him see her in the bedroom that he shares with the new wife. In this case, gothic terror becomes a romantic story. It breaks down the boundary between love and death to show that the power of love can fight the permanence of death. His failures in life added to the authenticity of his style, which only helped to cement his works as timeless, adding to his ability to influence culture.

Relevance to world literature and culture

Poe’s work of poems and short stories apply a deep impression on the American pop, culture, film education and literature. While he acquired some level of fame and fortune upon the publication of The Raven in 1845, he laboured with his career his entire life. For almost 50 years after his demise, his work was highly overlooked in the United States and Great Britain. However, his recognition was ignited by a French poet Charles Baudelaire who triggered the appreciation of his work in America.

Poe was recognized for looking into the dark side of human character and being the father of the informer novel. He had a straightforward authority on Arthur Conan Doyle, the founder of Sherlock Holmes. Since then, there have been countless thousands of informer novels being written all over the world as well as the horror narratives.

H.P. Lovecraft and Alfred Hitchcock, two very prominent figures of the horror genre in their time, owed much of their success towards Poe, affirming his literature for all future horror writers.  Like Poe, Lovecraft divided readers and critics, imagined and put to dark paper gods from other dimensions and waiting to tamper with humanity and the madness that fell on humans who altered knowledge beyond their capacity. “Horror explores fear, anxiety, suspense and terror. It also looks at the way people may differ under the same circumstances.”

Conclusion

Poe’s status as a world-renowned author and poet came at high personal cost, but the ripples of his tribulations through the expression of his work have utterly pervaded the hearts and minds of millions. Through a life wrought with failures, tragedy, and destitution, Edgar Allan Poe has managed to overcome the palls of his life and death to enter the eternity of his craft as a literary titan. Some people can only attain what they sought after they die, but those that do will be forever remembered for it.

Work Cited

Bittner, William R. Poe: A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1962.

Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1992.

Quinn, Arthur H. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. New York: Appleton-Century, 1941. Reprint, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

Walsh, John Evangelist. Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998.