Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (né Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, author, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism and Gothic fiction in the United States, and of American literature.[1] Poe was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story, and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre, as well as a significant contributor to the emerging genre of science fiction.[2] He is the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.[3]
"Poe" and "Edgar Poe" redirect here. For other uses, see Edgar Allan Poe (disambiguation) and Poe (disambiguation).
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Poe
January 19, 1809
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
October 7, 1849 (aged 40)
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, Baltimore
- William Henry Leonard Poe (brother)
- Rosalie Mackenzie Poe (sister)
Poe was born in Boston, the second child of actors David and Elizabeth "Eliza" Poe.[4] His father abandoned the family in 1810, and when his mother died the following year, Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. They never formally adopted him, but he was with them well into young adulthood. He attended the University of Virginia but left after a year due to lack of money. He quarreled with John Allan over the funds for his education, and his gambling debts. In 1827, having enlisted in the United States Army under an assumed name, he published his first collection, Tamerlane and Other Poems, credited only to "a Bostonian". Poe and Allan reached a temporary rapprochement after the death of Allan's wife in 1829. Poe later failed as an officer cadet at West Point, declared a firm wish to be a poet and writer, and parted ways with Allan.
Poe switched his focus to prose, and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move between several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In 1836, when he was 27, he married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. She died of tuberculosis in 1847. In January 1845, he published his poem "The Raven" to instant success. He planned for years to produce his own journal The Penn, later renamed The Stylus. But before it began publishing, Poe died in Baltimore in 1849, aged 40, under mysterious circumstances. The cause of his death remains unknown, and has been variously attributed to many causes including disease, alcoholism, substance abuse, and suicide.[5]
Poe and his works influenced literature around the world, as well as specialized fields such as cosmology and cryptography. He and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums. The Mystery Writers of America present an annual Edgar Award for distinguished work in the mystery genre.
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Literary style and themes
Genres
Poe's best-known fiction works are Gothic horror,[91] adhering to the genre's conventions to appeal to the public taste.[92] His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning.[93] Many of his works are generally considered part of the dark romanticism genre, a literary reaction to transcendentalism[94] which Poe strongly disliked.[95] He referred to followers of the transcendental movement as "Frog-Pondians", after the pond on Boston Common,[96][97] and ridiculed their writings as "metaphor—run mad,"[98] lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "mysticism for mysticism's sake".[95] Poe once wrote in a letter to Thomas Holley Chivers that he did not dislike transcendentalists, "only the pretenders and sophists among them".[99]
Beyond horror, Poe also wrote satires, humor tales, and hoaxes. For comic effect, he used irony and ludicrous extravagance, often in an attempt to liberate the reader from cultural conformity.[92] "Metzengerstein" is the first story that Poe is known to have published[100] and his first foray into horror, but it was originally intended as a burlesque satirizing the popular genre.[101] Poe also reinvented science fiction, responding in his writing to emerging technologies such as hot air balloons in "The Balloon-Hoax".[102]
Poe wrote much of his work using themes aimed specifically at mass-market tastes.[103] To that end, his fiction often included elements of popular pseudosciences, such as phrenology[104] and physiognomy.[105]
Literary theory
Poe's writing reflects his literary theories, which he presented in his criticism and also in essays such as "The Poetic Principle".[106] He disliked didacticism[107] and allegory,[108] though he believed that meaning in literature should be an undercurrent just beneath the surface. Works with obvious meanings, he wrote, cease to be art.[109] He believed that work of quality should be brief and focus on a specific single effect.[106] To that end, he believed that the writer should carefully calculate every sentiment and idea.[110]
Poe describes his method in writing "The Raven" in the essay "The Philosophy of Composition", and he claims to have strictly followed this method. It has been questioned whether he really followed this system, however. T. S. Eliot said: "It is difficult for us to read that essay without reflecting that if Poe plotted out his poem with such calculation, he might have taken a little more pains over it: the result hardly does credit to the method."[111] Biographer Joseph Wood Krutch described the essay as "a rather highly ingenious exercise in the art of rationalization".[112]
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Short stories
Poetry
Other works
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