Edgar Allen Poe And His LifeStory Essay, Research Paper

Edgar Allen Poe and His LifeStory

Edgar Allen Poe was a very famous poet and writer,Poe created many poems and

stories such as The Raven, The Tall -Tale Heart, The Fall of The House of Usher

and many more. (tompson 1)Edgar lived from 1809 to 1849. He was born on January

19,1809, in Boston Massachusetts but grew up in Richmond Virgina but through his

many travels he lived in half a dozen eastern cities. He lived a short and

tragic life. His first career was to study in law but soon went against his

family and started a career in acting. His critic reviews were poor. Many

critics thought his technique was bad.Edgars father was an actor by the name of

David Poe and his mother also an actress by the name of Elizabeth.edgar was the

second of three children, about the time that the third child was born Edgar?s

father died. After his father had died Edgars mother and her two yougest

children went to Richmond, his brother William already had been settled with

relatives in Baltimore. Poe?s mother was in the lastest stages of her diesease,

struggling with two kids, she died. Edgar and , an infant, Rosalie, were

orphaned. Poe finally was hit with the reliazation of his parents death.In

1811on a visit of generousity, Mrs. Francis Allen learned of the situation of

the Poe babies. Mrs. Allen had no babies of her own and to that she took home

handsome little Edgar. Mr. John Allen didn?t aprove of a permant adoption but

he began to in time support the child, and became proud of his good looks and

intelligence.When Edgar was six years old Mr. Allens bussiness took them to

Scotland, they lived there for about five years. Edgar persued his education at

the Irvin Grammer School in Irvin, Scotland.After many journeys throughtout his

childhood Edgar and the Allens returned to Richmond, Virgina.There at the age of

11 Mr. Allen enrolled Edgar into the English and Classical School attended by

sons of the more fashionable families of Richmond.There Edgar began to feel the

difference between himself and the others at this school.To this Edgar the sense

of injury made its self evident at home with fits of temper and rebellion for

which there seemed to the family , no justification. Mr. Allen did not put up

with such behavior , Mr.Allen repeatedly reminded Edgar about his

"disreputable" parentage.In Edgar?s college years his growing

antagonism between father and son, Mr.

Allen was willing to send Edgar to the University of Virgina. Edgar had gone

to the university to in fact get away from the Allen house hold. This

indescribable social college campus set Edgar in for a major turn around , Edgar

began to gamble to where he couldn?t pay off debts he incountered, when Edgar

drank is sent him into a wild statof excitement.

Edagr was then pulled out of the University for such behavior. Mr.Allen then

out him in a low, routine job at hjis counting house. This was very humiliating

for Edgar and he just couldn?t bear it anymore , the answer, to leave home.He

left to Boston where he

manage to publish a collection of his poems, desperate for money, he then

joined the army under the name of Edgar A. Perry. Army barracks were no place

for this young noblemen.Poe turned to his foster father for reconciliation,

Mr.Allens then purchased Edgar out of the army, which was possible at that time.

Shortly after he publisheds

another set of his writings. Little more then a year after Poe decided

consider a military career, he gained admission to the United States Military

Academy at West Point , New York.

Edgar was of two minds about the Academy: an army career was suitable for a

Virginia gentleman he longed to be, but the discipline was uncongenial. The

second mind won, and Edgar deliberately provoked expulsion by cutting all drills

and classes. This was it for Mr. Allen. Mrs. Allen death removed Edgars friend

in the house.Edgars love life began with a woman named Sarah Elmira Royster,

they got engaged but never got married because sarahs dad disapproved of the

marriage . Edgar

went to Charlottesville but said he would write to her everyday. Her father

intercepted

every letter he wrote her and everyday since sarah never got the letters of

course she

never wrote back and everyday that Edgar never got a letter from her he got

more and

more depressed. John Allen broke off the engagement . (tompson5)

In the two years after his final rupture with Mr. Allan, Poe lived for a

considerable

time in Baltimore with his aunt, Mrs. Maria (Poe) Clemm. She was a poor

seamstress,

but she welcomed Poe into her home and took care of him. Outwardly, it was a

do-nothing period for him, but inwardly it was significant. He wrote a group

of

unpublished short stories. Even more importantly, he began to dramatize

himself as one

whom "unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster". He

probably had an

inherited emotional instability which fed his feeling of persecution.

Once established in his job, he brought Mrs. Clemm and her daughter,

Virginia, to

live with him. A little later he married his cousin, Virginia, who was some

years younger

than he. From that time on, the three formed a household.Throughout all his

vicissitudes,

the two women, his wife, Virginia, and her mother were unfailingly devoted to

him. Much

of the time, Mrs. Clemm kept boarders to make a home for Poe and Virginia.

Mrs. Clemm

found no fault in him; at his worst, to her he was "poor Eddie".

Her motherliness cradled

all his weaknesses and eccentricities. (He called her "Muddie.") In

her way, Virginia was equally devoted.

She was sweet and gentle, but rather simple-minded. She could not follow the

wild flights

of Poe’s erratic genius, but she gave him an adoring, unquestioned admiration

which

was incense to his spirit. She found a childish pleasure and absorption

clipping and

pasting the long scrolls on which he wrote.

Poe, in turn, showed his best self to them. Here, where there was no will

beside

his own, where two loyal satellites revolved about the central sun of his

ego, he was at

his best and gentlest. He was affectionate toward Mrs. Clemm and increasingly

tender

and loving to Virginia, an invalid who was slowly dying of tuberculosis.

The pathetic little family made its last move to a tiny cottage in Fordham,

then a

village about thirteen miles from New York. Mrs. Clemm set about making the

place

habitable, setting aside the best room of four as "dear Eddie’s"

study. They managed

through the summer, but as autumn came on, there was not even fuel to warm

the house.

Virginia grew steadily worse. Poe sank deeper into melancholia. In the depth

of winter,

Virginia died.

With the loss of his wife, Poe’s last hold on reality vanished. He worked

feverishly at writing a book, Eureka, which he believed would be an

expression of

profound truth. It was more nearly a curious hodge-podge of unproven

scientific

statement and wild imagining, springing from his disturbed state. He wandered

from one

city to another, drifted back to Richmond and on to Baltimore, where he

died.(Internet)

Microsoft Encarta 98 encyclopedia (c) 1993-1997 microsoft

corproation

Encyclopedia volume 18, (c) 1975-Field Enterprises

Educational Corporation

Internet- www.intelinet.org-Havana, Z?rich, New York, San

Francisco, New Orleans, Hot Springs, Oakland,

1973-1998.