Who is Edgar Allan Poe?

Everything You Need to Know

From short stories, to poems, to even a novel, Edgar Allan Poe greatly contributed to American Literature but in the development of American poetry. Engaging multiple genres, Edgar Allan Poe was the first to create detective fiction. He is often associated with Dark Romanticism, a subgenre of Romanticism with the fascination of the demonic and the grotesque, and he often uses the style of macabre--the emphasization of the details and symbols of death ("Dark Romanticism"). Clearly, Edgar Allan Poe depicts gruesome pictures in his works and some of that is due to his childhood and life story.

Born in Boston in 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was abandoned by his father just one year later and his mother died shortly after that. With no family, Edgar Allan Poe was orphaned and moved into a new family in Richmond, Virginia ("Poe's Bibliography"). Technically, the family never adopted him, but they looked after him until he was a young adult (Jeffrey Meyers). This, however, was not without difficulty. John Allan, his not technical adoptive father, never engaged with Poe very well; it has been said that they had a strained relationship, and that it only worsened with age. With Poe now enrolled at the University of Virginia--where he accrued much debt, “The miserly Allan had sent Poe to college with less than a third of the funds he needed” ("Poe's Bibliography"). John Allan was not very happy about this fact; thus weakening the relationship further. It is even said that John Allan left Poe out of his will (Jeffrey Meyers). Nevertheless, Poe could not handle the debts, especially since he had gambling problems, and was then forced out of the university. However, he then decided to visit his fiance, only to learn that she had been engaged to another man ("Poe's Bibliography).

Poe was not in a stable position in his life--financially and mentally, but this state of mind was when his writing flourished. He later decided to publish some work to the "Saturday Visiter" among other magazines where he earned the title of a fearless critic. In addition to this progression, he married a nearly fourteen year old bride. However money was tight so he went to the only place he thought he could make decent money, New York City. There, he published “The Raven,” making a name for himself. Two years after its publication, his young bride died of tuberculous, just like his mother. Poe was again devastated and unable to write; thus, some thought that he himself was dead. Unfortunately, they were not too wrong, for he died just two years later after her death ("Poe's Bibliography").

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Although Poe himself was known for creating mysterious stories, his death is a mystery itself. Many have tried to identify the causation for his death, but are unable to--leading many to hypothesize: cholera, drugs, heart disease, suicide. This man with much heartbreak in his own life translated that into his pages that we know remember and are disturbed by today (Jeffrey Meyers).