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Joel Clark
Professor Hilgers
English 102
16 December 2007
Edgar Allen Poe:
“’The Raven’ has had a great run…but I wrote it for the express purpose of running-just as I did the ‘Gold Bug’…the bird beat the bug, though, all hollow”, Poe wrote in a letter to his close friend, F. W. Thomas, on May 4, 1845. Edgar Allen Poe writing career was of that purpose, “running.” Poe was born in Boston the 19th of January 1809. The Poe pedigree can be traced to north Ireland, were General David Poe, Edgar’s grandfather took leave to settle down in Augusta, Georgia. Poe’s father, David Poe was a traveling actor who married Elizabeth Arnold, who happens to be a talented actor, singer, and dancer. David abandoned Elizabeth, leaving her to fend for the children. David leaves the family never to be seen again. Poe wasn’t yet three years old when his mother suffered from exposure endured during travel. She died in a theatrical rooming house in Richmond, Virginia. The children were then separated into different families; John Allan and his wife had taken in Edgar. They had the wealth to fund Poe’s education.
Poe started his study at the Manor House School at Stoke Newington, then classical education in Scotland, and final destination the University of Virginia. 1827, his academic career ended; he fell into debt gambling and dropped out. He had
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managed to publish a forty-page booklet entitled “Tamerlane and Other Poems by Bostonian” in Boston by the age of eighteen. The same year he enlists to the army as a private under the name Edgar A. Perry. The army records a description of Poe’s appearance. “He gave his occupation of as that of a clerk, his age as twenty-two; the record as existing in army documents describes his height as five feet, eight inches, his eyes grey, his hair brown and his complexion fair.” It has been claimed by phrenologists that a line dividing his face perpendicularly separated very dissimilar halves, as if each expressed a different side of his nature. His army life would later shape charters within his writing. Honorably discharged, his service in the army ended in 1828. Poe later entered into the academy at West Point. This was a means of living for Poe, one that was a poet prison for him. Poe had intentions to leave and then one day the axe just fell. 1831, Poe was court martialed and expelled from the academy only serving a little over one year.
Poe fell on some hard times after he left West Point. Though his reputation for his poems grew, he was financially unstable. He could no longer depend on his foster father’s help. When John Allen died with his large fortune not a cent was to go to Poe. Poe had a weakness for alcohol, at times excessively binge drinking. He was able to have Carey & Lea agree publish a book for him, and also was able to submit tales to various magazines. Poe married his cousin Virginia Clemm who was only fourteen at the time. Poe then did literary work for “The Southern Literary Messenger” at Richmond. He had megar salaries, but managed to support his wife and her mother Poe called Muddy. Poe
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would fall into episodes of great depression were at times would write to his friend Kennedy in search of hope. “I am wretched and know not why. Console me-for you can. But let it be quickly-or it will be late. Write me immediately. Convince me that it is worth one’s while that it is necessary to live, and you will prove yourself indeed my friend. Persuade me to do what is right.” Poe left “The Messenger” in 1836 to find work else were. He went to New York, there he lived in a small home and wrote “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym”. Poe moved again in search of work to Philadelphia, as a editor for an “Gentleman’s Magazine.” He stayed in Philadelphia for six years. There he shared a small brick tenement with Virginia in which she grew out a garden for the home. Poe built up an impressive writing career with several published works and recognition from critics. Poe continued to edit for the “Granham’s magazine” in 1841 when George R. Granham had bought out Burton, Poe’s former boss for the rights to the magazine. He resigned from the magazine in April 1843. Poe had ambitions to start a magazine of is own some day. He aimed on calling the magazine “The Stylus.” In April 1844 his wife had ruptured a blood vessel and became very ill, he took his wife and her mother to New York for the second time. Here he almost persuaded Dr. T. H. Chivers, a fellow poet to help fund the magazine project. Unfortunately, Poe was never able to get the magazine up and running and fell into old temptations.
Poe’s was engaged in criticisms amongst other poets. He took himself as a serious critic, often giving severe remarks in his criticism. He published “The Raven” in 1845 and it was an immediate success. Even so, he had made enemies with his strong opinions and resentful nature towards society. “So verbal and so purely selfish that he
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can no longer have any sympathy with him”, proclaimed Charles F. Briggs in reaction to Poe’s published criticisms. Critics took shots at him by pointing out his faults with drinking. In 1846, Poe was receiving vicious insults from critics when “The Cask of Amontillado” was published, and had no doubt been a way of venting frustration. Poe made vows to give up alcohol for good, as a promise to his close friends. He remained focused on his writing including revising earlier poems for final adjustments to the end of his career.
January 13th, 1847 Poe’s beloved wife Virginia dies. Poe begins to slow down. He has great sorrow in his heart for the loss of his wife. He begins to move around between different places and reunites some old friendships. He finds romantic interest in some new women. Nothing that amounts to the role the Virginia had filled in his life. Poe makes his way to Baltimore; there he is found by Joseph walker to be described strangely dressed and semiconscious. The cause for Poe’s ailment is argued from intoxication to a form of rabies. Poe was then driven to the hospital of Washington medical college; there he died on October 7th, 1849. His dieing words were “Lord help my poor soul.”
The means for Poe to write was something that he was compelled to do. He found times of depression in his life that all have felt at one point or another, but not to the length Poe knew. His poems often reflected his sense of discontentment towards society. His writings were an means of expression that he kept up since his first published works at the age of eight-teen to his death at forty. His works became
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increasingly refined as he held his writing to a very high standard. “The Raven” was Poe’s great success translated into every major language and was renown as a great piece
of literature. The poem appeals to a large group of readers who share empathy for Poe’s artistic expression. The subject of mortality is often addressed in Poe’s writings. “The Raven” tells of a man stricken by grief over a lost love named Lenore. Poe’s writing has an intensity that seems come from the soul. The declining health of Virginia must have affected Poe as he wrote “The Raven.” The poems sense of sorrow must have been came from fears that he would lose his beloved wife Victoria. This bad dream came true two years later. The demon bird that speaks nevermore was to be a raven, as the theme of mortality and the existence of a soul.
“…And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted evermore.”
Poe’ friend Henry B Hirst happened to own a tamed raven which Poe would studied a good extent. He told Hirts “That bird [a raven], that imp bird pursues me, mentally, perpetually; I cannot rid myself of its presence;…I hear its croak as I used to hear it at Stoke Newington, the flap of its wings in my ear.” Driven into the depths of despair the narrator interrogates the raven in alternative manor then peace and tranquility. His questions resonating from his inner soul. A sense of torment can be interpreted in the poem as tapping at the chamber door. There are many ways of criticisms that can be formulated, but on what grounds? The piece of literature should be held up to the principles of art. The expressive as well as compositional forms of expression. Poe has
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been called “the greatest artist of death” as his story telling for horror was renown. His writing can be criticized on merit of soul, art, composition, and his fancy of imagination
that was uniquely Poe’s style. The frightening story of a raven’s presence on the grief stricken narrator.
“…Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore”. “The Raven” embodies Poe life as the express purpose of running. Locking a part of his self in his writing Poe managed to be one of the most influential poets of the 1900’s and has continued to be read as a sincere writer with a heavy heart.
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Work Cited
Dole, Nathan Hakell. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. 1 vols. (biography) New York: Werner Company, 1908.
Dole, Nathan Hakell. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. 7 vols. (criticisms) New York: Werner Company, 1908.
Dole, Nathan Hakell. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. 8 vols. (criticisms) New York: Werner Company, 1908.
Dole, Nathan Hakell. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. 9 vols. (criticisms) New York: Werner Company, 1908.
Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, ed. Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe. 1 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Printing Office, 1969.
Benitez, R. Michael, Dr. “Poe’s Death Is Rewritten as Case of Rabies, Not Telltale Alchohol.” The New York Times 15 Sept. 1996.
< http://www.online-literature.com/poe/>. 2007.
