Biography
Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19th, 1809, in Boston. His mother was Elizabeth Arnold Poe and his father David Poe Jr. (Thomas Ollive Mabbot) According to Mark Minor, the two were professional actors, and because of this, his home life was full of verse from infancy up until the age of three. His mother, Elizabeth Arnold Poe, died in 1811, and his father “abandoned him soon after.” (Minor) He was adopted by John Allan, a merchant whom Mabbot speculates was Poe’s godfather, and Allan’s wife.
Under their care, he was given an elite education, but after 11 years accumulated such a high level of gambling debt that he was forced to drop out of school to pay off. (Minor) He joined the military after finding no other job options. After his adoptive mother died, Mabbot says, his adoptive father paid for Poe’s release from active duty service, and sent him to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. This, however, did not last long, as Poe “successfully sought expulsion from the academy, where he was absent from all drills and classes for a week.” (Mabbot)
After his expulsion, Poe went to Baltimore and lived with his aunt. (Mabbot) There, he found inspiration in the form of his aunt’s daughter, Virginia Clemm. (Biography.com) The young girl quickly became his muse, and when she turned 13, 27 year-old Poe married her. Unfortunately, his extreme alcoholism made financial stability an impossibility. (Minor) He struggled to find decent jobs, and would move from one job to the next in the span of a few weeks. However, it was during this time period in which Poe published many of his most famous poems and short stories—namely, The Raven. But money remained tight, and his wife’s health began to slowly deteriorate. She eventually died in 1847 of tuberculosis.
It was only then that Poe begun to get recognition and praise for his works. (Minor) The money he received for his poetry was enough for him to sustain himself, but just barely due to his heavy reliance on alcohol. His health slowly began to deteriorate, but this didn’t stop him from pursuing other women he took a liking to. According to Mabbot, he soon became engaged to Elmira Royster, and found happiness with her for a short while. This happiness came to an end when Poe died in Baltimore on October 7th, 1849. (Minor) The cause of his death still remains a mystery, but is widely thought to have been from either drinking or heart failure. According to Biography.com, his last words were, “Lord, help my poor soul.”
BIG PICTURE
Edgar Allan Poe’s style was dark, evocative, and complex. His writing creates emotion through ideas implied by the surroundings. He focuses on making the reader see a certain image or feel a certain thing without seeing the exact word that describes it. Throughout his writing, he mainly focuses on the theme of lost beauty. This theme was inspired by the many women in his life that passed away, such as his mother, his adoptive mother, and his wife. Poe often laments on this in his poetry, referencing the loss of a beautiful woman in his poetry. The most famous example can be found in Poe’s The Raven.
“From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.”
During his early career in literary criticism, Poe developed a standard guideline for poetry analysis that others would soon follow. Poe’s philosophy on writing as a whole was that when writing, an author must focus solely on their audience and the effect and emotion that their prose will create. Because he was a strong advocate for allowing the public access to poetry, Poe thought that an author should regard the general public as their audience. In creating a piece, he believed, an author should express the feelings one associates with objects instead of naming them or describing them. Good poetry, to him, was poetry that consistently worked to bring the reader into a certain mental state.
The people of France had an almost unanimous adoration for Poe. It was there that his works spurred on a developing symbolist movement. However, Poe’s reception in America varied greatly from person to person and author to author. Mark Twain stated that Poe’s works were “unreadable,” while Arthur Conan Doyle called them “A model for all time.” Henry James once said, "An enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection.” On the exact opposite side of the spectrum, W. B. Yates claimed that Poe was “the greatest of American Poets.” But regardless of his mixed reception at the time, Edgar Allan Poe is considered one of the founders of the short story format, as well as a primary founder of the detective and gothic horror genres alike.