The Red Scare Essays (1992 words) - Poetry By Edgar Allan Poe

The Red Scare Many people label Edgar Allen Poe a horror writer, plain and simple others refer to Poe as the father of the detective story, but over all he?s one Americas greatest writers. His ability of expressing the world in gothic ways, really captures the reader?s attention. Even though he lead a tough life and was known as a sadistic drug addict and alcoholic, he still managed to produce great pieces of literature. Three of his greatest works were The Tell Tale heart, The Fall of the House Usher, and The Raven. All of these are very known troughout the world and are considered three of Poe?s greatest pieces. He was born in Boston on January 19, 1809, his parents, regular members of Federal street theater, named him Edgar Poe. Shortly before his mother's death in Richmond, Virginia on December 8, 1811, his father abandoned the family. John Allen, a wealthy tobacco merchant in Richmond, brought Poe into the family (at his wife's request), and gave him the middle name Allen as a baptismal name, though he never formally adopted him. Even though Allen?s treatment toward Poe is not exactly known, we know that Allen never treated Poe with sensitivity. In 1815, the Allen family moved to England on business. There, Poe entered the Manor-House School in Stoke-Newington, a London suburb. This school taught him the gothic architecture and historical landscape of the region made a deep imprint on his youthful imagination, which would effect his adult writings (Levin, 14). The Allens left England in June 1820, and arrived in Richmond on August 2. Here, Poe entered the English and Classical School of J oseph H. Clarke, a graduate of Trinity College in Dublin. On February 14, 1826, Poe entered the University of Virginia. Though he spent more time gambling and drinking than studying, he won top honors in French and Latin. On May 26, 1827, Poe enlisted in the US Army under the name Edgar A. Perry. He joined Battery H of the 1st Artillery, then stationed at Fort Independence. While Poe served there, Calvin F.S. Thomas printed Poe's first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, a slim volume, which failed to earn any fame or money. Poe then visited Baltimore, and arranged for the printing of another slim volume, entitled Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. Then, Allen obtained an appointment for him as a cadet, so on July 1, 1830 he entered West Point Military Academy, making his residence at No. 28 in the South Barracks. Poe's military career, however, flopped. After his dismissal, he published a third volume of poetry, this one dedicated to the US Corps of Cadets, for he had taken a subscription from them to raise funds. He then settled in Baltimore with his impoverished aunt, Maria Clemm, her daughter, Virgina Clemm, and his older brother, William Henry Leonard. He tried looking for work as a teacher in B altimore, but another person got the job and Thomas Willis White hired him as an editor at The Southern Literary Messenger, in which he published short stories, poems, and ascorbic literary reviews. In October, the Clemms joined him, and in May he married his cousin Virginia. The rest of his life, Poe suffered from severe mental depression and declining physical health. In 1838, he published his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. In December, 1839, he lost his job because of the intense rumors of his excessive drinking habits. By late 1846, financial woes and Poe's own continuing decline ended the magazine (Levin, 18). In January 1847, his wife died in their cottage at Fordham. This made his poverty and instability worst. He continued to write, and engaged in unsuccessful publishing schemes and romances, until, on October 3, 1849, Joseph W. Walker found him unconscious, (thought to be intoxicated) in the street. Poe remained hospitalized, oscillating between a somatic state and violent delirium, until his death at 5 am on the 7th of 1849. Poe's literature hardly relates to the harsh realities of 19th century life. The dark, chaotic, romantic worlds he created represent an escape from the real, unromantic miseries of life to a place where miseries become grand, beautiful things. The story The Tell Tale