Lindsay White Poetry Study Advanced English 12

•Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19 th , 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts.

•His father David Poe Jr. died in 1810 and his mother Elizabeth Hopkins Poe in 1811. •Edgar was taken into the home of a Richmond merchant John Allan and was brought up partly in England (1815 20).

•Never legally adopted, Poe took Allan’s name for his middle name. •Poe attended the University of Virginia (1826). •In 1827, Poe joined the U.S. Army as a common soldier. •In 1833, he lived in Baltimore with his father’s sister. •After winning a prize of $50 for the short story “

MS Found in a Bottle

,” he started a career as a staff member of various magazines. During these years he wrote some of his best-known stories. •In 1836, Poe married his 13 year old cousin Virginia Clemm. She died in 1847.

•After the death of his wife, Poe began to lose his struggle with drinking and drugs.

“Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.” -Edgar Allan Poe

• Poe’s first collection,

Tales of the Grotesque

and

Arabesque

, appeared in 1840. It contained one of his most famous works, “

The Fall of the House of Usher

.” • During the early 1840’s Poe’s best-selling work was “

The Conchologist’s First Book

” (1839). • The dark poem of lost love, “

The Raven

,” brought Poe national fame, when it appeared in 1845. •

The Murders in the Rue Morgue The Purloined Letter

(1841) and are among Poe’s most famous detective stories. •Poe was also one of the most literary journalists in American history. •Poe suffered from bouts of depression and madness, and he attempted suicide in 1848.

•He died on October 7 th , 1849.

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” -Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe: A Philosophy of Death

Were the text of his works just pages from the book of Edgar Allan Poe's life?

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: "Talent alone cannot make the writer. There must be a man behind the book." There was a man behind "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Black Cat," and poems like "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven." That man--Edgar Allan Poe--was talented, but he was also eccentric and prone to alcoholism--having experienced more than his share of tragedies. But, what stands out even more prominently than the tragedy of Edgar Allan Poe's life is his philosophy of death.

Orphaned at the age of two, Edgar Allan Poe was taken in by John Allan. Although Poe's foster father educated him and provided for him, Allan eventually disinherited him. Poe was left penniless, earning a meager living by writing reviews, stories, literary criticism, and poetry. All of his writing and his editorial work was not enough to bring him and his family above the level of mere subsistence; and his drinking made it difficult for him to hold a job.

Arising from such a stark background, Poe has become a classical phenomenon--known for the gothic horror he created in "The Fall of the House of Usher" and other works. Who can forget "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado"? Every Halloween those stories come to haunt us. On the darkest night, when we sit around the campfire and tell horrible tales, Poe's stories of horror, grotesque death, and madness are told again.

Why did he write about such horrible events: about the calculated and murderous entombment of Fortunato, as he writes "A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment--I trembled." Was it disillusionment with life that drove him to these grotesque scenes? Or was it some acceptance that death was inevitable and horrible, that it sneaks up like a thief in the night--leaving madness and tragedy in its wake?

Or, is it something more to do with the last lines of "The Premature Burial": "There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad Humanity may assume the semblance of a Hell... Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful... they must sleep, or they will devour us- they must be suffered to slumber, or we perish.“ Perhaps death offered some answer for Poe. Perhaps escape. Perhaps only more questions- about why he still lived, why his life was so hard, why his genius was so little recognized.

He died as he had lived: a tragic, pointless death. Found in the gutter, apparently the victim of an election gang who used alcoholics to vote for their candidate. Taken to a hospital, Poe died four days later and was buried in a Baltimore cemetery next to his wife. If he was not well-loved in his time (or at least not as well-appreciated as he might have been), his tales at least have taken on a life of their own. He's recognized as the founder of the detective story (for works like "The Purloined Letter," the best of his detective stories). He has influenced culture and literature; and his figure is place beside the literary greats in history for his poetry, literary criticism, stories, and other works.

His view of death may have been filled with darkness, foreboding, and disillusionment. But, his works have lasted beyond the horror to become classics.

“Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.” -Edgar Allan Poe

I liked the introductory quote “talent alone cannot make the writer. There must be a man behind the book.” It suggests that good writers draw from their life experiences in their writing. This sounds like it could be the case with Edgar Allan Poe. He experienced so many misfortunes throughout his life that he maybe wrote in some cases about himself through his characters. When one experiences pain, disappointments, and abuse they have a different perspective on life. This perceptive would affect the way he writes. He maybe wrote about such horrible events because he was unhappy and bitter with his life.

I feel his philosophy of death probably came more from his creativity and imagination then his acceptance that death was inevitable and horrible. No one knows what death is like, we can only hope that it brings a better state of mind. He may have experienced hell on earth through his unfortunate upbringing. Hopefully he would find peace in his afterlife, if there is one. He probably turned to alcoholism for an escape from reality. His talent, life experiences, personality, and his environment influenced his work and his place in history. “Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.”

-Edgar Allan Poe

-Ambiguity of the ending adds intrigue-they end abruptly and without much explanation.

-Partially introduces ideas without completely revealing them. -Use of descriptive detail a sense of “vibrant” choice.

-The story is morally disturbing, use of characters conscience.

-Foreshadowing is used to help create the mood of horror.

-Plot is unpredictable twists and turns you didn’t see coming.

Told from a character’s perspective, (inner monologue, first person).

Choice of vocabulary presents a “dark” mood; gloomy.

-Awareness in the characters of other characters perceptions.

-He concludes in the beginning-the story is told after the events have happened, allowing for a reflective story teller.

ALONE

By Edgar Allan Poe (1830)

From childhood's hour I have not been As others were; I have not seen As others saw; I could not bring My passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken My sorrow; I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I loved, I loved alone. Then- in my childhood, in the dawn Of a most stormy life- was drawn From every depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still: From the torrent, or the fountain, From the red cliff of the mountain, From the sun that round me rolled In its autumn tint of gold, From the lightning in the sky As it passed me flying by, From the thunder and the storm, And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view.

Being without anyone or anything else

I have not experienced being young I have not observed the way other people are I could not bring what other people see What I like most from a regular brook From an identical place I have not stole I could not wake up my sadness My feelings of happiness at the same sound Everything I loved, I loved by myself Then when I was a child in the morning A bad existence was brought up From all parts of good and bad The questionable circumstance which holds me now From the torrent, or the springs From the dark pink rocks of the large hill From the ball of fire that circled me It is fall tint of yellow From the electricity bolt above us

As it went over me zooming by From the loud noise and the bad weather That was arranged together When the rest of paradise was blue Of the devil in my line of sight To imitate the poem “Alone”, I took words from the poem, changed them to different words, making sure they had the same meaning as the words in the poem.

1. Gmoser, S. Edgar Allan Poe. Retrieved December 1 st , 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/poe/poe/html 2. The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. (1997). General Topics About Poe. Retrieved December 1 st , 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://www.eapoe.org/geninfo/poegen.htm

3. Wilson, J.S. Poe’s Life. Retrieved December 1 st , 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://www.poemuseum.org/poes_life/index.html

4. Edgar Allan Poe. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved December 1 st , 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe 5. Edgar Allan Poe. The Literature Network. Retrieved December 1 st , 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://www.online-literature.com/poe/ 6. (2005). Edgar Allan Poe Quotes. Brainy Quotes. Retrieved December 1 st , 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/edgar_allan_poe.html

7. Lombardi, E. (2005). Edgar Allan Poe: A Philosophy of Death. About, Inc. Retrieved December 1 st , 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://classiclit.about.com/od/poeedgarallan/a/aa_eap_philos.htm

“I have great faith in fools; my friends call it self-confidence.” -Edgar Allan Poe

“With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.”

-Edgar Allan Poe