FREE ESSAY ON EDGAR ALLAN POE

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Edgar Allan Poe 
In every story conceived from the mind of Edgar Allan Poe, a scent of his essence had
been molded into each to leave the reader with a better understanding of Poe's life. Poe
displayed his greatest life's achievements and his worst disappointments in a series of
stories created throughout his whole life. It is the goal of this research paper to
reveal symbolic facts about his life and define these hidden maxims in a way that is easy
to understand and beneficial to the reader. Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19th,
1809 in Boston, Massachusetts ("Poe, Edgar Allan," Encyclopedia Britannica 540). Poe's
parents were David Poe, an actor based in Baltimore and Elizabeth Arnold Poe, an actress
born in England, also based in Baltimore (540). Upon birth, Poe had been cursed. Shortly
after his birth, Poe's father abandoned the family and left Poe and his mother to fend
for themselves. Not long after that, the cruel hands of fate had worked their horrid
magic once again by claiming his mother. In 1811, when Poe was two, his mother passed
away, leaving him with his second depressing loss (540). After his father's cowardly
retreat and mother's sudden death, Poe was left in the capable hand of his godfather,
John Allan. John Allan was a wealthy merchant based in Richmond, Virginia with the means,
knowledge and affluence to provide a good life for Poe ("Poe, Edgar Allan," Encyclopedia
Britannica 540). In 1815, Poe and his new family moved to England to provide Poe a
classical education (which was finished out in Richmond. Upon returning from England in
1826, Poe enrolled at the University of Virginia ("Poe, Edgar Allan," Encyclopedia
Britannica 540). This was a magnificent feat for him, because Poe was only seventeen at
the time while the normal age for attendance was nineteen (Quinn 130). For the first
time, life had hit a high note and provided for him what seemed to be a path paved with
gold. Upon entering college, Poe realized his path of gold was really a mountain of grief
and disappointment. In no more time than it took Poe to unpack his bags, he was already
involved in immoral acts of gambling and drinking. He developed gambling debts from 2,000
to 2,500 dollars, which caused some fraction between his godfather and himself (Quinn
130). After eleven months at the university, Poe dropped out due to his debts, but mostly
for John Allan's refusal to pay for them ("Poe, Edgar Allan," Encyclopedia Britannica
540). No sooner then Poe was home, then he been invited to a party of Sarah Elmira
Royster's, his sweetheart before college. When he arrived at the party, he learned that
it was Elmira's engagement party, striking a dramatic blow to Poe's heart (540). After
John Allan and Poe had their quarrels over Poe's gambling addiction, he joined the army
under the alias of "Edgar Allan Perry" ("Poe, Edgar Allan," Encyclopedia Britannica 540).
In 1829, Poe was honorably discharged, but not before attaining the rank of Sergeant
Major (540). A year later, John Allan scheduled an appointment for Poe with the West
Point U.S. Military Academy (540). Poe had not been in the academy for a year when he was
dismissed from West Point. It was after his military career when Poe starting to become a
successful writer of poetry and short stories. In 1831, Poems included three of his
greatest works: "To Helen," "The City in the Sea," and "Israfel" ("Poe, Edgar Allan,"
World Book Encyclopedia 591). When his poems failed to reach recognition, Poe began to
write short stories such as "MS. Found in a Bottle" in 1833 (591). It was around this
time when he married his fourteen-year old cousin, Virginia Clemm, who was a very
influential character in Poe's later works (591). In 1840, Poe published a collection of
his first twenty-five stories called Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque ("Poe, Edgar
Allan," World Book Encyclopedia 591). Even when this collection failed to sale or gain
recognition, Poe still kept a daily routine of working on literature. In 1843 he sold
300,000 copies of "The Gold Bug" (592). Also in 1843 Poe published one his greatest
works, "The Tell-Tale Heart" ("Poe Edgar Allan," Encarta Encyclopedia n. pag). Then again
in 1845, Poe struck gold with his twelve stories in Tales and 30 poems in The Raven and
Other Poems (592). In 1848, Poe explained his theories on the universe in his well-known
piece, "Eureka" ("Poe, Edgar Allan," World Book Encyclopedia 592). In 1843, Poe wrote the
timeless classic of "The Tell-Tale Heart" (Encarta N. pag). It was the poem, "Raven" that
brought Poe the most recognition and finally provided a spot for him among America's
greatest writers. Writers and critics were bestowing great praises to him during this
time. It was with his stories of mystery and murder featuring C. Auguste Dupin that
inspired one critic to write, "Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the
breath of life into it?" (Quinn 139). "It is not enough—certainly for literary
criticism it is not enough to call his stories, strange, extraordinary, fantastic"
("Edgar Allan Poe, The Dark Genius of the Short Story" n. pag) is a perfect quote to
summarize Poe's works and their effect on critics and people. This period of tranquility
and good tidings would turn out to be Poe's last. In 1847, Virginia Clemm died of
tuberculosis and in doing so added one more name to Poe's list of lost loves ("Poe, Edgar
Allan," World Book Encyclopedia 591). Her death had affected Poe more greatly than any
other of his former loses. Poe was once quoted saying: Each time I felt all the agonies
of her death—and at each accession of the disorder I loved her more dearly and
clung to her life with more desperate pertinacity. But I am constitutionally
sensitive—nervous in a very unusual degree. During these fits of absolute
unconsciously I drank, God only knows how often or how much. (Buranelli 38) Despite the
tremendous agony Poe felt over Virginia Clemm's death, he still passed a sigh of relief
over her passing. In Poe's belief, death should not be feared, but instead it should be
sought (Quinn 137). As Poe had said in "For Annie," "The fever called 'Living' is
conquered at last" (Buranelli 38). For Poe, when Virginia died she escaped the curse of
life. In 1849, Poe met up with his former sweetheart, Sarah Elmira Royster and became
engaged shortly after ("Poe, Edgar Allan," World Book Encyclopedia 591). As fate would
have it, just days before his wedding, Poe stopped in Baltimore and disappeared. On
October 3rd, 1849, Poe was found lying in a side street anesthetized (591). He was taken
to a hospital where he lay unconscious on his bed. After four days of complete
unconsciousness, Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7th, 1849 ("Poe, Edgar Allan,"
Encyclopedia Britannica 540). The cause of his death had remained a mystery since then.
Several theories have been presented before the public, but only one has the evidence to
back up its claim—rabies. All of Poe's works of literature possess a link to his
own life's stories and events. His characters' profiles possess biographical insights
into his loved ones' lives. Poe learned sometime in his life that a good story possesses
real life events and those events are what gives his stories a scent of truth. In one
particular case, Poe wrote a passage in his story of "Marginalia" that could only apply
to a person such as himself: I have sometimes amused myself by endeavoring to fancy what
would be the fate of any individual gifted, or rather accursed, with an intellect very
far superior to that of his race. Of course, he would be conscious of his superiority;
nor could he (if otherwise constituted as man is) help manifesting his consciousness.
This he would make himself enemies at all points. And since his opinions and speculations
would widely differ from those of all mankind—that he would be considered a madman,
is evident. How horribly painful such a condition! Hell could invent no greater torture
than that of being charged with abnormal weakness on account of being abnormally strong."
(Buranelli 23) Poe was a genius in the literary field and that gave him the grounds to
say so. As he explains in this passage, his far superior ability to write pieces of
literature caused a lot of friction between the modern day critics and writers and
himself. This passage was an autobiographical account of his writing style and its effect
on the society of the time. Along with writing about his style of writing, Poe also
included autobiographical elements in his stories. These stories explained to the reader
how Poe lived his life. The somber figure of Edgar Allan Poe stalks forever through the
pages of his stories and poems. He is declared to have only one endlessly repeated male
character—himself. He is pictured as appearing and reappearing under the guises of
his melancholic, neurasthenic, hallucinated, mad and half-mad protagonists: Roderick
Usher, Egaeus, William Wilson, Cornelius Wyatt, Montresor, Hop-Frog, Metzengerstein."
(Buranelli 19-20) Among these protagonists, the one Poe seems to represent more is the
half-mad, Roderick Usher. In the story "The Fall of the House of Usher," Poe presents
himself through the morbidly uncanny Roderick Usher. "All in all, he is an unbalanced man
trying to maintain an equilibrium in his life" (Partridge N. pag). Usher was also a man
who realizes his insanity but struggles to grasp his lost sanity. In this passage Poe
writes about the narrator's description of Roderick Usher, but in doing so describes
himself to his readers: A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and
luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly
beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual
in similar formations; a finely molded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a
want of moral energy; hair of a more than weblike softness and tenuity—these
features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up
altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten." (Poe 198) Poe also manages to
describe his more unpopular personality traits when he refers to himself as "a lost
drunkard or the irreclaimable eater of opium" (198). Poe also used his memory of past
events and places to set the backdrop for his pieces of literature. In "The Fall of the
House of Usher," Poe uses his Gothic home as the backdrop and his family as its
characters. "Poe often drew upon his memory for his settings, as in 'The Fall of the
House of Usher,' which concerns the fate of a decayed aristocratic family and it
moldering Gothic mansion" (Buranelli 28). Poe knew the feelings that came to a person
when confronted with a relic from their unpleasant past and with that knowledge he could
write a story appealing to readers. Poe also used "The Fall of the House of Usher" to
portray loved ones, such as his mother, to the reader. He could never bear to take about
his mom frequently, because of the pain it put on his heart. To compensate for this he
portrayed her through the guise of Lady Madeline (Buranelli 35). Lady Madeline was
Usher's mysterious sister who in the end died without warning or reason. Poe also wrote a
sonnet called "To My Mother" that appeared to be for his mother, but was indeed for his
mother-in-law. Along with putting his mother in his tales, Poe also portrayed his life's
greatest love, Virginia Clemm. Virginia inspired such pieces as "Eleanora" and Annabel
Lee" (Buranelli 38). I was a child and she was a child, in this kingdom by the sea; but
we loved with a love that was more than love—I and my Annabel Lee; with a love that
the winged seraphs of heaven coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago,
in this kingdom by the sea, a wind blew out of a cloud, chilling my beautiful Annabel
Lee; so that her highborn kinsman came and bore her away from me, to shut her up in a
sepulchre in this kingdom by the sea…for the moon never beams without bringing me
dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee; and the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
of the beautiful Annabel Lee; and so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side of my
darling- my darling- my life and my bride, in the sepulchre there by the sea, in her tomb
by the sounding sea." (Bloom 145) In this excerpt, Poe portrays to the reader his love
for his wife. "Annabelle Lee" was written in 1849, just two years after Virginia Clemm's
death ("Poe, Edgar Allan," World Book Encyclopedia 591). Poe was trying to explain her
death and its importance to him. He never neglected to portray an aspect of his life
before the readers, even when he was facing a loss. Poe is a man writhing in the mystery
of his own undoing. He is a great dead soil progressing terribly down the long process of
post-mortem activity in disintegration…yet Poe is hardly an artist. He is rather a
supreme scientist." ("Edgar Allan Poe, The Dark Genius of the short story n. pag) In
every story conceived from the mind of Edgar Allan Poe, a scent of his essence had been
molded into each to leave the reader with a better understanding of Poe's life. Poe has
used his greatest achievements, such as marriage and his worst times, such as his wife's
death to help the reader better understand what his life has been like. Poe is a genius
in the fact that he can captivate a reader with his true-to-life stories and then
explains himself through allusions and hidden maxims. When a person reads works of Edgar
Allan Poe, he is actually reading his autobiography.