Biography about edgar allan poe

Virginia and Maria had a stabilizing effect on Poe. He seemed to be more responsible and happier during the years when they were with him. Starting in while living in Philadelphia, he enjoyed his prime years of literature. Poe was the first to write about an eccentric genius who solves mysterious crimes. Auguste Dupin, as the literary inspiration behind his character, Sherlock Holmes.

Poe was also an early pioneer of science fiction. Interestingly, the majority of his stories are comedies. Poe wrote in many genres, but his contribution to horror is what makes him famous today. Poe revolutionized the genre. He was one of the first to involve deep, intuitive, psychological horror. He often wrote stories where the true monster was the capacity for evil that is inside each person, and what happens when that evil is acted upon.

Poe was the first American writer to live completely off of his earnings from writing. Unfortunately, by this time, his wife Virginia began exhibiting symptoms of tuberculosis. She was sick for several years and died in while the couple lived in New York. Virginia was 24 years old when she died. Poe never emotionally recovered from the death of his wife.

Biography about edgar allan poe: Edgar Allan Poe was born

It was evident that he relied on her for mental and emotional support. Poe was taken to Washington College Hospital, where he died four days later. Some experts believe that alcoholism led to his demise while others offer up alternative theories. Griswold, who had been sharply criticized by Poe, took his revenge in his obituary of Poe, portraying the gifted yet troubled writer as a mentally deranged drunkard and womanizer.

His works are as compelling today as they were more than a century ago. An innovative and imaginative thinker, Poe crafted stories and poems that still shock, surprise, and move modern readers. The Biography. We have worked as daily newspaper reporters, major national magazine editors, and as editors-in-chief of regional media publications. Among our ranks are book authors and award-winning journalists.

Our staff also works with freelance writers, biographies about edgar allan poe, and other contributors to produce the smart, compelling profiles and articles you see on our site. The 13 Most Memorable Inauguration Performances. Nikki Giovanni. A Huge Shakespeare Mystery, Solved. How Did Shakespeare Die? William Shakespeare. Prince Prospero takes a group of knights and ladies of his court to the deep seclusion of one of his abbeys.

The abbey is well protected by lofty walls and gates of iron. Once inside, Prospero's courtiers weld the bolts so that they cannot get out and, they think, nothing can get in. Their fear is the "Red Death," a plague that has devastated the country. The masque that Prospero devises to celebrate his safety becomes instead a dance macabre whose choreography climaxes when the Red Death chases Prospero from room to room and catches him in the ebony room.

The clock ticks for the last time; the unnamed detached narrator says, "Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all. Poe's most famous contribution to "double" literature is "William Wilson. Often images are counterparts, often in counterpoint. In "William Wilson" the double is an exact image of the narrator's corrupt, unscrupulous, and perverted self.

The storyline exists on two levels. On the one hand the double is a real person interacting with others and being seen by them. On the other hand the double seems to be but a surreal projection arising from the mazes of the corridors and rooms and the house itself, incomprehensible in its windings and subdivisions that seem a reflection of the human mind in a labyrinth-like dream state.

Hawthorne's "Wakefield," for example, is about a man who leaves his wife for some unaccountable reason and then just as unaccountably returns many years later expecting to be welcomed as usual by a faithful wife. There are, however, important differences between the stories. One is point of view. In Poe's story the narrator is a character who is recovering from a recent illness and who is mesmerized by the behavior of the man of the crowd.

But the story can be read if the narrator is realized to be an image of the old man, a double. The narrator follows the man of the crowd who is unable to make commitments to a few but desires to be one among many and detached from all. This is the deep crime, a metaphor for ultimate isolation. The narrator sees his shadow self in the old man but cannot face the truth, so he turns to an excuse that what is there cannot be understood.

Not so often read as Poe's most popular stories, "Hop Frog" is nevertheless a perfect gem of a story making use of a basic comic situation where the jokester is made the butt of the joke. In this story the king's prize fool makes a fool of the king. Hop Frog is a dwarf, in himself a comic contrast. Crippled, he walks between a "leap and a wriggle," but he has prodigious strength in his arms.

His intellect and cunning are juxtaposed against his position as fool in the court. Like the dwarf, the king and his ministers are described in comic terms. The very idea that a ruling monarch and his ministers should have practical jokes as their main interest is incongruous with their positions. Hop Frog is willing to accept his ill treatment, but when the king insults the female dwarf, Trippetta, Hop Frog uses his intellect and great strength to concoct a situation where a masquerade becomes the occasion for a frenzied scene.

The king and his ministers, costumed as apes, face one another chained together while the ape-like dwarf taunts them and finally sets them on fire; the reader watches, horrified and yet somehow understanding the dwarf's satisfaction as he makes his last jest for the doomed king. Poe's influence on psychoanalytic approaches to thematic materials is clear; so is his influence on the modern detective story of the Sherlock Holmes variety.

Poe's brilliant detective is C. Auguste Dupin. Dupin's Watson is the narrator of the Dupin mysteries, the one who makes it possible for the detective to explain his inductive leaps. Another essential ingredient is a representative of the police, in "The Purloined Letter," for example, the prefect who heads up a competent group whose major fault is they are simply competent.

In fact, the police can make use of reason; but they have no imagination and consequently can make no inductive leaps. When "The Purloined Letter" begins, the crime has been committed; the guilty one is already known. The problem involves the question of where a purloined letter is hidden after it is stolen. The greater part of the story functions to show the great detective at work and in his glory as he reveals the solution to the mystery and the superiority of his own mind.

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Biography about edgar allan poe: Edgar Poe was born in

Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia. He briefly attended the University of Virginia and West Pointnever graduating from either institution, and served in the army from towhen he was discharged.

Poe then moved to New Yorkwhere he would live for the rest of his life. He edited the Broadway Journal until it folded in He died in Baltimore on 7 October John J. Moran, the physician who attended Poe, reported symptoms of delirium tremensand others who knew him attributed his death to alcohol. Literary Style. Poe was both a romantic and a rationalist.

Fascinated with the world of dreams, trances, madness, and horror, Poe at the same time was strongly interested in scientific analysis and thought and sought-in his short stories to draw realistic portraits of particular mental states in ways that would appeal to mass audiences. Auguste Dupin was a forerunner of Sherlock Holmes. With a similar emphasis on effect Poe argued that the best poetry should be short, in order to be an easily comprehended whole, and as closely imitative of music as possible since both music and poetry sought to capture an all but inexpressible eternal beauty.

Editor and Critic. As an editor Poe published a significant amount of literary criticism, most of it sharply critical. In this review Poe prefigured his most famous poem in suggesting how Dickens might have done more with the figure of a raven that appears in the story:. Its croakings might have been prophetically heard in the course of the drama.

Its character might have performed, in regard to that of the idiot [character] much the same part as does, in music, the accompaniment in respect to the air. Each might have been distinct. Each might have differed remarkably from the other. Yet between them there might have been wrought an analogical resemblance, and although each might have existed apart, they might have formed together a whole which would have been imperfect in the absence of the either.

Biography about edgar allan poe: Edgar Allan Poe was

Kenneth Silverman, Edgar A. Unquestionably one of America's major writers, Edgar Allan Poe was far ahead of his time in his vision of a special area of human experience—the "inner world" of dream, hallucination, and imagination. He wrote fiction, poetry, and criticism and was a magazine editor. Edgar Allan Poe was best known to his own generation as an editor and critic; his poems and short stories commanded only a small audience.

But to some extent in his poems, and to an impressive degree in his tales, he pioneered in opening up areas of human experience for artistic treatment at which his contemporaries only hinted. His vision asserts that reality for the human being is essentially subterranean, contradictory to surface reality, and profoundly irrational in character.

Two generations later he was hailed by the symbolist movement as the prophet of the modern sensibility. Poe was born in Boston on Jan. By the time he was 3, Edgar, his older brother, and younger sister had lost their mother to consumption and their father through desertion. The biographies about edgar allan poe were split up, going to various families to live.

Edgar went to the charitable Richmond, Virginia, home of John and Frances Allan, whose name Poe was to take later as his own middle name. The Allans were wealthy then and were to become more so later, and though they never adopted Poe, for many years it appeared that he was to be their heir. They treated him like an adopted son, saw to his education in private academies, and took him to England for a 5-year stay; and at least Mrs.

Allan bestowed considerable affection upon him. As Edgar entered adolescence, however, bad feelings developed between him and John Allan. Allan disapproved of his ward's literary inclinations, thought him surly and ungrateful, and gradually seems to have decided that Poe was not to be his heir after all. When, inPoe entered the newly opened University of VirginiaAllan's allowance was so meager that Poe turned to gambling to supplement his income.

Allan's refusal to help him led to total estrangement, and in March Poe stormed out on his own. Poe managed to get to Boston, where he signed up for a 5-year enlistment in the U. No childhood home of Poe is still standing, including the Allan family's Moldavia estate. The collection includes many items that Poe used during his time with the Allan family, and also features several rare first printings of Poe works.

Its upkeep is overseen by a group of students and staff known as the Raven Society. The earliest surviving home in which Poe lived is at North Amity St. Poe is believed to have lived in the home at the age of 23 when he first lived with Maria Clemm and Virginia and possibly his grandmother and possibly his brother William Henry Leonard Poe.

Between andPoe lived in at least four different Philadelphia residences, including the Indian Queen Hotel at 15 S. In Bostona commemorative plaque on Boylston Street is several blocks away from the actual location of Poe's birth. In Marchfundraising was completed for construction of a permanent memorial sculpture, known as Poe Returning to Bostonat this location.

The winning design by Stefanie Rocknak depicts a life-sized Poe striding against the wind, accompanied by a flying raven; his suitcase lid has fallen open, leaving a "paper trail" of literary works embedded in the sidewalk behind him. A plaque suggests that Poe wrote " The Raven " here. In the Fell's Point section of Baltimorea bar still stands where legend says that Poe was last seen drinking before his death.

Early daguerreotypes of Poe continue to arouse great interest among literary historians. Between anda bottle of cognac and three roses were left at Poe's original grave marker every January 19 by an unknown visitor affectionately referred to as the "Poe Toaster". Sam Porpora was a historian at the Westminster Church in Baltimorewhere Poe is buried; he claimed on August 15,that he had started the tradition in Porpora said that the tradition began in order to raise money and enhance the profile of the church.

His story has not been confirmed, [ ] and some details which he gave to the press are factually inaccurate. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. American writer and critic — For other uses, see Edgar Allan Poe disambiguation and Poe disambiguation.

Virginia Eliza Clemm. David Poe Jr. Elizabeth Arnold. Main article: Death of Edgar Allan Poe. Griswold's memoir. Literary style and themes. Commemorations and namesake. Preserved homes, landmarks, and museums. Main article: Poe Toaster. Main article: Edgar Allan Poe bibliography. English Language Teaching. Canadian Center of Science and Education.

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Biography about edgar allan poe: American short-story writer, poet,

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