Edgar Allan Poe's Impact On American Culture

IMPACT OF EDGAR ALLAN POE 1 The Impact of Edgar Allan Poe on American Culture “Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality” (Poe). Edgar Allan Poe’s lifetime took place during a time of change, involving the creation of continuous documents, movements, and conflicts. Society has influenced Poe’s eerie and dark style of writing. Throughout his lifetime, Poe witnessed 9 presidents come and go, starting with James Madison and ending with Zachary Taylor. He also experienced the War of 1812 when he was young, the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, and the Mexican War towards the end of his life in 1845. America continued to change when documents such as the Monroe Doctrine were formed and movements

Though this was a time of change and expansion for the United States, Poe continued to write about darkness, contrasting the positive factors happening in America and focusing on a more cynical point of view. As America’s society influenced Poe’s writing, Poe’s writing has influenced America’s culture as well. One of the most influential writers from the nineteenth century, Edgar Allan Poe, has a large impact on American culture today. Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. Before he was three years old, he became an orphan after his mother died from consumption and his father left him abandoned. In the article “Overview of Edgar Allan Poe,” it states that he was taken in by John Allan, but Poe was never legally adopted. His life with his new family was better since they had a stable income and he went to expensive schools and gained a better education. The article “Edgar Allan Poe” claims that he lived in Richmond, Virginia with John and his wife Frances. The same article explains that as Poe grew older, his relationship with John Allan suffered. Even though they were wealthy, John saw

The man is mourning his lost love and is visited by the raven. While the man starts asking the raven questions it replies with “Nevermore.” As time goes by the questions continue to get more and more personal and by the end the man loses his sanity listening to the raven only reply with “nevermore” (Overview of Edgar Allan Poe, 2003). The tone is desperate and depressing as it shows the loss of one’s mind. Poe expresses how emotionally tormented humans can be after a heartbreak and how one can lose his or her mind over the simplest of things. The article “The Philosophy of Composition, 2006) explains how the use of “nevermore” was used to create the “utmost conceivable amount of sorrow and despair.” Poe’s gloomy expression about heartbreak reflects his struggle with his then dying wife. Poe claims “the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world” (The Philosophy of Composition, 2006). “The Raven” has caused lots of controversial views about its heavily emotional and exaggerated storyline but has become one of the most talked about and well studied pieces of Poe’s works. While Poe creates “The Raven” to represent a dim and depressing mood, he uses more morbid language and terror in the poem “The Tell-Tale