Brianna Ruiz-Vannerson
Leonard Miller
ENC1102
Feb. 23 2017
The Compelling Mind of Edgar Allan Poe
Through: “Lenore” and “The Raven”
Throughout the life of esteemed author Edgar Allan Poe, there have been many time that this extraordinary man’s life has been turned upside down with grief. His first encounter with this wretched demon was when he was no older than three years of age. The mother who birthed him dies and his father abandons them before her death (“Edgar Allan Poe”). He then is separated from his brother and sister, William and Rosalie, and place with a family who is not his own (“Edgar Allan Poe”). He had grown quite an attachment to his foster mother only for her to die when he was around age 20. He had tried desperately to
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Poe struggled a good amount of his life and what came from that struggle was his brilliant works. After enduring much research on Edgar Allan Poe, a reader may find that this extraordinary man suffered an extraordinary amount of grief, and most likely abandonment issues, in his life starting with his mother and ending with the love of his life and therefore birthing his amazing gifts for future generations.
Moving onto his timeless piece of work entitled “Lenore” it is found in research that this was written during the time of his beloved wife’s passing. Research that a man by the name of Thomas O. Mabbott underwent came up with this: there was no other work of Poe’s that had given him so much trouble as that of the poem “Lenore.” Poe viewed it to be like the poem “A Paean,” the most ill-fated poem amongst the rest of his poems of 1831 (Mabbott). Poe worked on this poem for many years ranging from 1831 through 1836 and changed the named it “Lenore” when he had finally found it to be perfect. In the poem Poe writes “A dirge for the most lovely dead That ever died so young! (Poe)” some may think that he is referring to his love Virginia after her mournful death. When Poe writes “Yon heir, whose cheeks of pallid hue, With tears are streaming wet, Sees only, through Their crocodile dew” (Poe) he is speaking of those who are mourning her death but are really insincere in their tears. Yon heir is a far away person who is entitled to something owed to them. In this
Introduced by tragedies early in his life, Edgar Allan Poe became one of the most successful writers, poets, and storytellers to ever live. Edgar Allan Poe had the intelligence to do anything he wanted to do, however, the pain of losing his loved ones always seemed to drive him towards a pen and paper. His emotions never failed to show through his writings, which helped the story line touch the readers. Poe became very close to several different women but each would die shortly after he came to love them. This only pushed him to write more emotionally. Poe had a natural talent for putting his real life experiences into a fictional story and making it seem as if it were really happening.
The life of Edgar Allan Poe is not a tale of ease. Poe’s life was full of personal and fiscal disaster. These disasters help to mold some of the most ominous and intellectually challenging poetry ever written. For the short duration of Poe’s life, he was seen as a literary critic rather than an author. To the modern generation his unbeknown status seems bafflingly inconceivable, considering his now acclaimed publications. Edgar Allan Poe’s writing was very much dictated by his life. The mournful tone of Edgar Allan Poe’s life created his literature; death and all his friends narrated Poe’s life. Edgar Allan Poe shows his life’s constant despair through his poetry and short story writings.
One of the many reasons Edgar Allan Poe is so famous and spoken of to this day is because of his poems, short stories, and grim tales of death, chaos, and darkness. One of the many reasons we have to thank for this is his upbringing and early life. At a young age,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore.” In other words, Poe is asking if he will ever again be able to his wife. From a depressed person talking about another depressed person, everything takes on different meaning when someone is depressed. Pictures, places, smells, sounds, voices of loved ones; they all remind us constantly of what was lost and will never be found again. It feels like random occurrences happened just to remind, torture us of the pain. The narrator heard the raven say “nevermore” frequently and interpreted it differently until he settled on the belief that it was referring to Lenore. Perhaps the “raven” symbolizes how Poe must deal with the day to day realities of someone suffering a great loss.
As her death is the main reason behind the poem. The narrator describes her as “rare and radiant maiden” (Line 11). The narrator asked the raven if she was in heaven the bird replied with “Nevermore”. As Poe the narrator, and Lenore is his wife Virginia. The parallels between the story and Poe’s life are very relevant.
Sadness, guilt, and fear are some of the most negative emotions that humanity can experience, however they are also the strongest. Edgar Allan Poe, a nineteenth century author and poet, is known primarily for his use of these emotions, as well as the results that may come from these emotions, such as substance abuse, depression, and death. However, the ability to write such elegant, sophisticated works that delve into the very dark recesses of the human mind reflects greatly upon the author himself. Repetitive themes found both in Poe’s stories and in his life deliver insight on the inspiration for this author’s stories. Poe uses themes of death, illness, and depression in order to reflect his own experiences within his writing.
Edgar Allan Poe's past was very dark and depressing. These hard times created perfect situations for Poe to write about. Each one getting significantly harder for Poe, people could see the situations getting to him. First, his mother died of tuberculosis and within days Poe's father died
Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, and led a very traumatic life. Both of his parents died of consumption when he was two years old, and then “Mr. John Allan, a very wealthy gentleman of Richmond, Virginia, took a fancy to me, and persuaded my grandfather, General Poe, to suffer him to adopt me” (Symons 3). Though he never legally adopted him, John Allan gave him the name “Edgar Allan Poe.” Poe and his adoptive father never had a healthy
Loss and grief are two feelings that many people have experienced or that authors or musicians have explored to share with an audience. An example of one writer who achieves this is one of America’s most well-known authors and poets, Edgar Allan Poe. Poe explores and informs readers about darker topics like grief and death while captivating and immersing the audience by establishing a detailed tone throughout his poems. Published in 1845, Poe’s most famous poem, “The Raven,” delves into the dark, sullen side of humanity by telling the story of a man whose wife had passed away. Throughout the poem, the narrator hears tapping and knocking, which he suspects is his wife, on his door and window; however, a raven enters the room as a representation of the wisdom it will bring the narrator about life after death. Meanwhile, “Annabel Lee,” another one of Poe’s most famous poems reveals the more hopeful and optimistic perspective of losing a loved one. While Edgar Allan Poe uses different tones and plotlines in “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee,” both stories portray how grief and the obscurity of the afterlife can affect people.
World famous poet, Edgar Allan Poe, once wrote in one of his poems, “From childhood’s hour I have not been. As others were, I have not seen. As others saw, I could not awaken. My heart to joy at the same tone. And all I loved, I loved alone.” In those lines, Poe demonstrates his love for being alone because his childhood was full of isolation, meaning that the writer grew used to the feeling. Since boyhood throughout his adult life, Edgar Allan Poe endured through a series of unfortunate events. From his parents dying, his animosity with his foster father, his consecutive poverty, to facing rejection from the public, the man’s life was as ominous as his fiction. This essay will discuss the reason behind the writing of one of Edgar Allan
Edgar Allen Poe was a very troubled man throughout his life, but all these events affected his writing deeply and uniquely. Poe lost the people near and dear to his heart which of course made him very depressed. Poe was battling alcoholism during the middle years of his life, a hard battle for him to fight in his situation of poverty.
Some believe that Poe was a strange, dark and depressing writer. In some ways he was. But there is a reason behind it; Poe had a very unfortunate upbringing. The main problems were that his biological father left the family, his mother died when he was young, and he was not close to his adoptive family. Poe’s lack of familial relationships with his father’s greatly affected his writing.
In his writing, the reader can taste the depression, emptiness, and sorrow Poe has felt in his lifetime. In Poe’s story “Alone” he believes that his childhood was “the mystery which” has bound him to the good and the bad (line 12). In Poe’s early age his father left and his mother died from tuberculosis. Soon after Poe’s mother’s sorrowful death, he was adopted by John and Frances Valentine Allan which meant he had to be separated from his brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, and his sister, Rosalie Mackenzie Poe at a young age (Biography.com Editors). Before Elizabeth Poe’s death, Poe and his mother had a genuine relationship. Elizabeth Poe was an actress and Poe went to his mother’s plays where she would play Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet.” During this play, Poe would witness his mother croak and then revive, which gave Poe an odd aspect of life and death. Between Poe’s birth father leaving and his foster father’s neglect, Poe never had a strong male figure to look up to. Poe has experienced heaps of death of his loved ones throughout his life, losing both his, birth mother and his foster mother to the Grim Reaper by illness. The vicissitude in Poe’s life has influenced Poe to write his deep and meaningful poem,
Poe’s works have received criticism as well as much praise, over the years. Numerous professionals who researched Poe’s life and his writings, knew that his writings were reflections of his real life situations. However,
Edgar Allan Poe is considered to be one of the greatest American writers of all time. His writing is dark and sinister. He wrote of death, murder, psychosis, and obsession. One could only imagine what would bring a person to write such morbid stories. Perhaps, it may be attributed to Poe’s childhood, a past that was sad and far from average. Both of his parents died when he was only three years of age (Shelley). The death of his parents caused a separation from his siblings and he moved to live with his relatives (Shelley). In later years, Poe endured poverty and the loss of his wife-to-be to another man (Clark). Possibly, without those troubling experiences, Poe couldn’t have imagined such eerie and enthralling tales. Some of his most