Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809. Frances and John Allan raised Poe since he was three years old because of his mother and father’s death. Frances and John Allan were both very wealthy tobacco merchants. Poe’s brothers and sister though, were sent to live with other families. According to the Poe Museum biography it was seen that Poe started poetry at a very young age, writing poem verses on the back of his ledger sheets. At age sixteen, Poe got secretly engaged to a lady named Sarah Elmira Royster. When Poe was seventeen, he went to the University of Virginia where he excelled greatly. Because the of the incoming debt that college was giving Poe, he resorted to gambling to try and pay off the debt. Poe continued to grow poorer and was forced to drop out of school and come back to Richmond. When he came home he found out that Elmira his fiancée got engaged to another guy. Because of this heartbreak, Poe left his home and started to follow his dream of becoming a poet. At eighteen years old he published his first book called Tamerlane and then joined the United States Army. Poe continued to write and publish his poetry but was later thrown out of West Point. He then went to live with other relatives in Baltimore with his Aunt and his cousin Virginia. He started to fancy Virginia and started to make money by winning short story contests.
He then started working as a magazine writer writing amazing short stories and wrote book reviews. At twenty-seven, Poe married Virginia (her cousin) when she was only thirteen years old. Even though Poe was a well-known writer, they still did not have a lot of money to support them. His first very well-known writing was “The Raven” that earned him a lot of fame. They were living in New York City at the time of his fame but were later forced to move out of town into a small cottage because of Virginia’s bad health and speculations that he had a relationship with a married woman. At only the age of twenty-four, Virginia died of Tuberculosis causing Poe to stop writing for many months. The next two years, Poe spent his time traveling and writing. In 1849, Poe returned to Richmond and became engaged to his first fiancée (Elmira) that he had who was now a widow. They were planning on getting married after Poe’s trip from New York, but he stopped and disappeared in Baltimore for five days. He was found going crazy and then four days later was found dead. Elmira had no idea what had happened to him until she found out later through a newspaper that he had died. No one know exactly the reason for Poe’s cause of death. A lot of people at that time did not like Edgar Allan Poe because of how rude he was when he would write his reviews on books and writings. They thought of him as someone who used women and was always drunk.
I believe Edgar Allan Poe’s personal life really reflected on his writings. He had a very unique style of writing that was somewhat dark. His style of writing was centered towards drama and emotion and his most popular writings were known as gothic. It seems that all of his stories involved death or love, sometimes both. In one of his writings called “For Annie” he wrote “Thank Heaven! The crisis- The danger is past, and the lingering illness, is over at last- and the fever called “living,” is conquered at last.” In this he talks about death being the end and being good while living was hard going through illnesses. In his life he experienced a lot of loved and death. His parents died at such a young age and experienced the death of his wife. He was in love with multiple women and it reflected in his writings. He wrote mainly poems and shorts stories. Edgar Allan Poe was very inspired by a lady named Elizabeth Barrett. His favorite one of her writings was “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” and dedicated his well-known writing “The Raven” to her. They enjoyed each other’s writing very much and established a deep connection between the two. He also fell in love with Elizabeth, like many of the other women he came around.
Many people believe because of his dark writing that Edgar Allan Poe was an atheist. However, there are no proven facts that he was one. His family was very religious and both Francis Allan and John Allan had Christian views, so Edgar was baptized when he was almost three years old. It is said though, that those who knew him considered that Edgar Allan Poe did not have conform to any religion.
Many historical events happened during Edgar Allan Poe’s life. Abraham Lincoln and Edgar were born on the same year and in that year, James Madison became president. It seemed that every time Poe published a new writing, it was the same year of a historical event. When he published his first modern detective story “Murders in the Rue Morgue”, William Henry Harrison and John Tyler were elected for president. In 1943 Poe published three stories all in the same year the first telegraph line was made. The same year the Mexican War started, and Texas and Florida became states was when he published “The Raven”. I am not sure if he had meant to write those stories relating to those events or it is just a coincidence that they were on the same year. At this time of American history a America was expanding rapidly, so there were more event going on.
I found Edgar Allan Poe one of the most interesting writers that we have learned about this semester. I found him so interesting because of his style of writing being so different from the others. I liked his dark way of writing and found his stories entertaining. It was intriguing learning about his personal life and the reasoning for his dark and twisted personality. It makes me wonder if in today’s society he would have made more money because of people being more accepting and interested in how poems and stories.