Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
by Dori Anne Abbott
(15 February 2001)

Called by many "the dark genius of the short story," Edgar Allan Poe is a pivotal figure in American literature. Born in Boston, Poe grew up in Richmond, Virginia. His parents were both actors. At the time of Poe's birth, acting as a profession was regarded by many as silly at best, and evil at worst. Thus when Poe was orphaned at the age of two, prospective adoptive parents were reluctant to take this child of actors in.

The Allan family did finally step in to support the young child, but Mr. Allan refused to give Poe his name. This refusal would later cause much bitterness in Poe--a bitterness that showed itself in fits of temper and rebellious behavior. When Edgar was six, the Allan family moved to England where they lived for five years.

Back in Richmond, Poe was matriculated at the University of Virginia where drunkenness, gambling, and other hellish behaviors were commonplace. Poe floundered morally in this environment. Not only did he have propensity towards drinking, Poe also gambled recklessly, running up enormous debts which he could not repay. Mr. Allan removed young Poe out of the university, forcing him into a menial job with one of Allan's counting houses to pay off the money he owed. As revenge, Poe ran off and joined the army under a false name. Not having the fortitude to stay in the army, Poe begged help from his foster father. Mr. Allan paid for Poe's release. During this tumultuous time period, Poe had two collections of poems published: Tamerlane and Other Poems and Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems.

For some strange reason Poe decided to reenter the army. Poe was accepted at West Point where he eventually got himself expelled for deliberately cutting classes and drills. Mr. Allan would now have nothing to do with Poe because of his constant trouble. Indeed Poe once described himself as a person whom "unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster." Having now no permanent home, Poe moved to Baltimore and lived with his aunt, Maria (Poe) Clemm.

In 1833, Poe won a fifty-dollar prize for his short story, "M.S. Found in a Bottle." Befriended by one of the contest judges, Poe sold an article to the Southern Literary Messenger Magazine; then he joined the editorial staff there, eventually becoming its chief editor. Poe moved the Clemms to Richmond, and married his young cousin, Virginia Clemm.

Trouble followed Poe again as he was dismissed from the Messenger for drinking. A move to New York proved profitable for the Poe family. During his stay in New York, Poe published "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym," which was so accurate in detail that many thought it was a true sea voyage. The next move was to Philadelphia where Poe became the editor for Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. Poe wrote a monthly feature for the magazine--usually some tale of horror or the supernatural. Later he would publish a collection of these featured stories as Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.

When Burton's was sold, Poe stayed on as the editor of its successor, Graham's Magazine. Many believe that Graham's was the most important American magazine of its time. In this magazine, Poe wrote the first detective story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" that introduced the world to Dupin the detective of logical deductions. After a move back to New York in 1843, Poe reached the height of his fame when "The Raven" was published. Still desperately poor, Poe moved from one editorial job to another. Though he was a gifted critic and talented editor, his struggles with alcoholism and emotional instability caused him to lose jobs at a phenomenal rate, because he offended those who could most help him in his career.

Poe was admired by many readers, despite his rancorous demeanor, and his wife and her mother adored him at home. Poe in turn tenderly loved Virginia, who was dying of tuberculosis. After Virginia's death, Poe gave in to all his eccentricities (some say he went mad), wandering from city to city until eventually he died in a gutter in Baltimore, the city where he had found his beloved wife. His last days were unfitting for such a great talent.

The importance of Edgar Allan Poe to American Literature should not be under-estimated. Poe alone transformed the short story into a recognized literary genre, creating the detective story, and perfecting the psychological thriller. Jules Verne, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes) were greatly influenced by Poe. In modern times, everything from Agatha Christie to "Murder She Wrote" finds its roots in Poe's detective stories. Poe's literary criticism influenced the entire literary world.

Poe's criticism of the New York literati was especially harsh, because he felt that the Northern "talent" was overrated, while genius like that of Augustus Baldwin Longstreet and William Gilmore Simms (both Southerners) was deliberately ignored. Restraint and the meticulously crafted musical effects of the English language mark his poetry. As with so many American authors, Poe received the respect he deserved long after his death. West Point now has a gate (the Poe Gate) over which is inscribed a quotation from Francis Bacon: "There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion." Edgar Allan Poe's works are a living testament to the truth of Bacon's words.