Why Should We Care?

The 19th century American poet, Edgar Allan Poe, had been plagued by grief from an early age. He was an amazing poet and author who just happened to have a darker story. Many who have studied this prestigious man feel that his works, though magnificent, were extremely dark. Some believe it was nothing more then a fancy for him to spin such gruesome tales. Others feel his work was manipulated by the misfortune of his past. These people have actually found evidence that agrees with this statement. The works of Edgar Allan Poe were inspired by the history and life style of the author. The evidence is evident, when people look back and examine the author, his life, and his writings closely.

Edgar Allen Poe was married to Virginia Poe when she was only thirteen years old. They were the happiest couple in the Poe family, they were always laughing and singing together. All this rapidly changed when Virginia became sick, she was later diagnosed with tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was a well known disease to Poe, as many of his loved ones died from tuberculosis, so he knew that his love would not live for long. Upon the diagnosis of Virginia's disease, “Poe began to drink more under the stress of Virginia’s illness.”(CSI: Edgar Allen Poe) He would spend hours at taverns attempting to drink his sorrows away, but alas it did not work, it only caused the poet to become an alcoholic. His heavy drinking habits prove that he would very likely died from alcohol as his consumption level was far too high.

Poe lost his loved ones which made him very depressed. Poe lost his mother when he was very young and his father left him when he was 1 year old. His mother died from the horrible disease tuberculosis. Poe then got a new home with the Allen family a caring family sometimes. Poe’s step mother loved him, but his father did not like him so much as he was very mean to Edgar. Poe’s stepmother sadly died just like his biological mother. Edgar Poe finally moved in with family, his cousin Virginia and aunt to be precise. He fell in love with Virginia and married her he loved her so much, but the time he had her wasn't enough. Virginia died of the same exact

Edgar Allan Poe once said, “Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” Edgar Allan Poe is among many authors as one of the most influential writers of all time. Edgar Allan Poe had a unique writing style that no one else did. He impacted many people and still impacts many to this day. He was one to build on the idea of horror and expand the concept of it. Many of Poe’s works are still available today, and his poems are still some of the most famous around. Not only is Poe’s work some of the best anyone has ever seen, and the message he leaves with people is new to others. His tragic early life was the main cause of his affection for horror.

Edgar Allan Poe's career may have been a failure considering what he set out to do, but he did achieve some success and notoriety in his own lifetime. His most successful poem was, of course, "The Raven," a piece he composed to satisfy popular taste. But some of his short fiction was popular as well. As an editor and publisher, however, Poe did not quite achieve the greatness he sought. His legacy grew only after his death, thanks to his literary executor R. W. Griswold, who "won more permanent attention for him after his death by exaggerating his neurotic debility and inherited dipsomania to make him an almost Satanic figure" (Bradbury 206). This paper will examine Poe's poetic and short story successes and failures, and show how he was not quite the "Satanic figure" that the reading public preferred to imagine him to be.

Edgar Allan Poe is the most morbid of all American authors. Poe made his impact in Gothic fiction, especially for the tales of the macabre of which he is so renowned for. “How can so strange & so fine a genius & so sad a life, be exprest [sic] & comprest in on line — would it not be best to say of Poe in a reverential spirit simply Requiescat in Pace [?]” — (Alfred Lord Tennyson’s reply to the Poe Memorial committee, February 18, 1876). Poe’s own life story sheds light on the darkness of his writings.

Edgar Allan Poe’s life was one of many sorrows and difficulties, filled with deaths of close family and many broken loves. Men disappointed him throughout the entirety of his life, and he saw women as angels that had come to redeem him from the depths of his depression and alcoholism. These occurrences, along with many others, especially those of his childhood, led Poe to become one of the greatest authors of his time. He is called “the father of horror and mystery”, as well as the father of science fiction (Wilson Par. 4).

Edgar Allan Poe’s influence on American literature was nothing short of great; not only was he the creator of the detective story and the horror thriller, but he also influenced many great writers, among those William Faulkner and Fyodor Dostoevsky. While Poe is best known for his horror thrillers, being the creator of that particular genre, he has also fashioned two other literary genres, like the detective and the science fiction genre. Throughout his life, Poe read, reviewed, and critiqued many books for various magazines and papers. Poe did not hesitate to attack what he deemed inferior. “Is purely too imbecile to merit an extended critique,” he once wrote of a novel. Because of his readiness to attack what he believed to be unworthy,

This essay will discuss the themes in Poe’s writing that mirror his personal life and, in addition, the fear and supernatural motivators for his characters. First, I will discuss Poe’s background and explore how he became best known as a poet for his tales of mystery and macabre.

Although now seen as the father of the modern horror story, Edgar Allan Poe was previously viewed as a drunken failure. Within Poe’s writings much of his own life riddled with guilt, anxiety, alcohol, depression and death shines through resulting in works that appear unrelated yet once dissected prove similar. This is true for Poe’s works “The Raven” and “The Black Cat”. Poe’s examples of gothic fiction share the use of the color black and a rapid digression of the narrator 's sanity while seemingly unveiling Poe’s internal pain. Despite these similarities, Poe’s works also differ immensely. “The Black Cat” focuses around death while “The Raven” is fixed around discovering the reasoning for a bird 's arrival. Moreover, gothic themes seen within “The Raven” do not necessarily remain constant when compared to “The Black Cat”.

Oftentimes when the ones we love feel pain, so do we. This was undoubtedly the case for Poe and his beloved wife, Virginia. In 1842, the year before Poe authored The Tell-Tale Heart, his wife had a near death experience due to a ruptured blood vessel, which in turn reshaped both of their lives more than they would ever knew. Apparently, this is the credited moment in time when “Poe’s personal life took on a darker tone” (Bain and Flora 368). Virginia’s eventual downfall was tuberculosis, but this downfall was a very long and strenuous process that the couple shared and went through side by side. Watching his true love suffer antagonized Poe, and the thought of being without her was haunting. Distance was always the last option because when the two separated the issues they

    Following death in 1849, the reputation of Edgar Allan Poe had been seen as nothing short of atrocious and faulty; regarding excessive use of alcohol and seemingly alarming sexual desire. Today, the works and aforementioned peculiarity are valued enough to be positively referred to over 100 years later, and ultimately earn Poe a place as an eminent literature pioneer. Edgar Poe, American poet and writer, swept the 19th century by provoking thought through writing pieces; many of which were an ultimate reflection of what Poe was dealing with. With multiple manipulating factors such as a scarring upbringing and the loss of lovers, Poe reconstructs all that American literature once was and all that future writings will be. Often perceived as dark and twisted, the pieces of Poe require thought and sensitivity to ensure deep and true meaning. The creator’s greatest impact regarding American composition gyrates around the constitution of  serving as a guide for genres and other authors. Edgar Allan Poe's childhood and influence from other writers allowed him to appreciably impact American literature and history by amplifying the genre of detective fiction, contributing to psychology, and employing writing techniques such as symbolism.

As one of the most attractive and enduring figures in the Gothic literature, the vampires have moved from being a peripheral element with the genre to a place near the center and are capable of generating its own massive tradition now. In the recent literary history, they have already been adapted to play a role of a rebel against the moral, social, religious, and even sexual taboos. Put simply, the vampires are now a metaphor of human beings in the modern society and life.

Edgar Allan Poe had married his fourteen year-old cousin, whom died ten years later at the age of twenty four, from Tuberculosis (Ljungquist N.P.). After Virginia died, Poe became lost, alcoholic, drug addicted, and debauchery (Szumski 20). “Under the adroit cover of the special mechanism he had constructed, Poe could unveil his inner, introverted self

Edgar Allan Poe was a fictional writer that astonished readers with his many mysterious poems and his tales of horror such as “The Raven”, “Annabelle Lee”, and “The Fall of the house of Usher”.