Edgar Allan Poe
Melancholy Of
The Life
Sorrow, dread, and death, these are the types of words you would read in the works of Edgar Allan Poe. His life was definitely not all butterflies and rainbows. His life is filled with death, darkness, alcohol, and failure. It all started on January 19th, 1809.
Boston, Massachusetts a baby was born into a family to two traveling actors. Poe was the second child of the very talented family. Three years later is when the little toddler had his first tragedy, his mother and father had both passed away, leaving the toddler to be taken into foster care. John Allan, a tobacco merchant, took the child in while separating him from his siblings. Allan failed to comprehend Poe’s love of writing, and tried to raise him to be a businessman. Poe had no intention of doing something he did not desire, and by his thirteenth birthday he had put together enough poetry to make a book. His schoolmaster had other thoughts and advised Allan to not publish the poet’s work.
In 1826, Poe left to attend the University of Virginia with only one-third of the money he needed. Poe started gambling to make it through college where he was doing great. But unfortunately he ended up being so poor, he had to burn his furniture to stay warm. He was kicked out of school and sent home to Richmond. Poe’s misfortune didn’t stop there, after returning home he finds his fiancee had left him for another man, it broke his heart.
Finally leaving in a fit of rage from the Allan mansion Poe pursues his dream of being a famous poet. He published his first book Tamerlane at the age of eighteen, then enlisted into the United States Army. Two years later, Poe was making his way back to Richmond because the only mother he had ever known had been struck with tuberculosis, and wanted to see him before her passing. Upon arriving in Richmond he found his mother already buried.
Allan and Poe fixed their problems for a brief while, and Allan helped Poe get into a military academy, soon after Poe received news that Allan had remarried and hadn’t even thought to even tell Poe. He grew angry at this and wrote a letter to Allan threatening to get kicked out of the academy. After a mere eight months, Poe was thrown out of the academy. Poe decided it was time for a change and made his way to Baltimore, the late home of his father, and called upon some relatives. Poe was robbed during the night by his cousin. But then a bright light showed through on Poe’s life, Aunt Maria Clemm had become his new mother figure and made her home his. Clemm’s daughter Virginia and Poe soon became good friends, also starting a dashing love affair, whom he married later at the age of twenty-seven, her barely being fourteen, although the age difference the marriage was a bright spot in his life. While in Baltimore Allan died not leaving Poe in his will.
1842, Virginia had caught tuberculosis and was now on her deathbed. 1847, Poe was driven out of the town with rumours floating around that he was cheating on his dying wife with a married woman, Virginia died that winter in the cabin in the woods at the age of twenty-four. Poe tried many times to remarry after her death. After multiple failed relationships Poe began to court his first fiancee again, she was widowed and alone like him. Poe went to Philadelphia, he was reported missing and stayed in a bar room for five days, where he would spend the last couple days of his life. His Mother-in-law and his fiancee did not find out that he had died until it was printed in the newspaper days later.
There are multiple theories to why Poe died, although it still remains a mystery. Rumours about rabies, tuberculosis, and alcoholism are spread around, but no one knows the true reason. But seeing how Poe’s life went we can see why he rights so dark and dreary, things like death, and disease. It gives reason to why he sounds so crazed. You can gain understanding, from things such as The Raven,The Tale-Tell Heart, and Cask Of Amontillado. He felt alone, he felt betrayed by his foster dad, and he used writing to help him feel relieved, better, and more alive.
Poe
Wrote multiple short stories all including death.
The Raven
Poe wrote several stories including The Raven.
Amontillado
The Cask Of Amontillado was a work of Edgar Allan Poe.