Edgar Allan Poe

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Recommended: Literary Criticism To Helen by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is one American author whose name is known to almost everyone. Edgar is known for his elegant poems and for being a tough critic of refined tastes, but also for being the first master of the short story form, especially tales of mystery. He has a talent of having an extraordinary hold upon the readers imagination and not letting lose. Many advents of Edgar’s life has probably led to the strange, but successful and renowned pieces of American literature.

On January 19th 1809, Eliza Arnold Poe gave birth to her second child, Edgar Poe, in Boston, Massachusetts. Eliza was a very talented actress who was very devoted to her acting. She had made her debut at the age of nine and was much praised for her talent and maturity, as well as her beauty and charm. David Poe who had begun acting after meeting Eliza was ridiculed by the press for his acting unlike his wife. David, ashamed of his unsuccessfulness and shadowed by his more famous wife, left her and their now three kids. Eliza, unable to support her three children alone, became a charity case. In October of 1811 she gave up acting when she became seriously ill. On December 8th, 1811, at age 24 Eliza Poe died leaving her three children without homes.

Frances Allan, one woman who had been part of the charity helping Eliza, had convinced her husband John Allan to let them take little Edgar in, but they never formally adopted him. John had promised David Poe’s relatives that Edgar would receive a proper and good education. John sent Edgar at the age of five to a teacher named Clotilda Fisher and then after that to William Ewing, the Richmond School master. Mr. Ewing noted that Edgar was quite charming and enjoyed school.

The Allans decided to move their tobacco trading company to London where the tobacco industry had been in a depression. Edgar receive his first formal education in London. He was at first sent to board with Mrs. Doubourg, which was only 3 miles from where the Allans lived. Later he was sent to board with reverend John Bransby, at Stoke Newington where he studied among the obvious, Latin and dance. John who was very preoccupied with his business, neglected Edgar and Mrs Allan, didn’t help his feeling of neglect any better due to her frequently getting ill. The tobacco industry collapsed after only three years of their stay, and the...

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...engagement was broken off. Edgar returned to Richmond in 1989 hoping to find financial support for his own journal, but was unsuccessful. He, however, reunited with Elmira, his first love, who had been widowed, and they re-engaged. Edgar, then, sailed from Richmond to Baltimore in Oct. 1849. A short time later, Edgar Allan Poe was found outside a polling place, in a state of delirium. He was rushed to a nearby hospital and died several days later on October 7th, 1849, at the age of forty.

Edgar Allan Poe led a strange and unusually hard life, but through his experiences he produced many outstanding and wonderful works which have with out a doubt contributed to American Literature in several different areas. His stories are treasured by an immense readership. Although, Poe was quiet popular for his gothic tales, he was also well known for being and accomplished humorist, which is seen in many of his short stories. Poe was credited for singlehandedly inventing the detective story. No other played a more crucial role in shaping and developing the aesthetic theory, in the nineteenth-century, than Edgar Allan Poe. Thus, Poe remains a permanent fixture of our literary culture.

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