Why Edgar A Poe

When I was in 6^th grade, my English teacher gave the class a poetry assignment. Passing out a list of poets, we were to choose one and do a biographical presentation after reciting one of their poems from memory. I took the list home and my dad pointed to Edgar Allan Poe, saying that he was from Richmond and there was a museum all about him in the city. Thus was the impetus for my first trip to the Poe Museum at the prime age to become obsessed with such a figure as Poe. My 12 year old brain drank up the drama of his life, the horror of his short stories, the aching loss of his poetry. This love of Poe is why I am starting this project of going through all of his short stories and poems, as there are dozens I have yet to consume. Each week I will talk about a poem and a short story of Poe’s.

Although to say he was from Richmond is a tad simplistic, but I think still correct. Poe was born in Boston to actor parents on January 19, 1809. By the time he was three his mother died at just 23 years old from tuberculosis in Richmond, Virginia. His father had already abandoned the young family leaving Poe to be fostered by the Allan family of Richmond, his little sister Rosalie taken in by the nearby Mackenzie’s while his older brother was raised by the siblings’ paternal grandparents in Baltimore.

Article advertising fundraising show for Eliza Poe, Richmond Enquirer 11/19/1811

By 1831 Poe had a falling out with his foster father John Allan (Poe never signed Allan, always Edgar A Poe, more in honor of his foster mother, Francis Allan who died in 1829) and so started his transient life of poverty, bouncing around at different times between Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and periodically back to Richmond while finally dying mysteriously in Baltimore on October 7, 1849 (fitting that the inventor of the Detective story has one of history’s great unanswered deaths).

On another note, Poe’s mother is buried at St John’s Church along with 2 of his 3 mother-figures buried in Richmond as well. Baltimore may be his physical final resting place, but Poe’s spirit is absolutely still in the River City

Through his travels Poe always at his core thought of himself as a Virginia Gentleman with a destiny to be a great poet. It’s why I love the portrayal of Poe in the movie/book The Pale Blue Eye. I think it’s one of the closest portrayals to what Poe was actually like. A weird little English major with a deep and well-spoken southern accent, charming and polite with instances of being too clever for his own good. While working in the North, Poe would write of missing Virginia, and kept up with many friends in Richmond.

The goal of this project is to not only familiarize myself with more of Poe’s work (I’ve read mainly the hits and know of others through some academic reading) but to also foster a better public understanding of Poe. He was among the first Americans to make a living as a writer (even if it was barely a living) taking advantage of the boom of the periodical due to the invention of the steam press plummeting the cost of mass publication. His massive contributions to sci-fi added to Mary Shelly’s invention of the genre in 1818 with Frankenstein, he was a contemporary of Charles Dickens (whom Poe met briefly in Philadelphia on one of Dickens’ North American tours. We sadly have no details of what they talked about as neither wrote down details) and was just 10 years older than Walt Whitman and only one generation before Americas next internationally popular writer, Mark Twain (Poe was 26 when Twain was born). Poe also invented the Detective genre, with Sir Author Conan Doyle admitting he lifted Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson straight from Poe’s three C. Auguste Dupin stories that started with The Murders in the Rue Morgue (the one where the killer is an orangutan).

In this context of when Poe was writing, during his lifetime Poe was not thought of first as a writer but a critic. Nicknamed the Tomahawk Man, Poe first and foremost believed that American writers, especially Southern ones, must be honest in their evaluation of each other’s work in order to gain a place of respect in the wider literary world. But because Poe was at his heart a catty bitch who loved to flex on those who he considered his intellectual inferiors, and to drum up drama to sell magazines, Poe was a particularly harsh critic. It was one of the reasons he bounced from city to city and job to job. He kept running his mouth and getting fired. What popular poetry and short stories Poe did get published on top of his reviews and essays were one time payouts due to the poor copyright protections at the time. Like today’s hustle culture, in order to get paid Poe had to keep producing. This all combined with Poe having to be extremely prolific as a writer in order to barely get by. Hence why there is so much of Poe’s work that people don’t know about.

Lookit that thick boy. And how big the Poe collection is.

And yet, his poetry and short stories are still considered among the best any American has ever produced on top of many academics agreeing with the critiques of his contemporaries in Poe’s reviews. His works are still studied for their structure, as examples of the form to be emulated still. His number one rule with short stories was to have a first line that would make the reader not want to put it down (his second rule was it had to be short enough to finish in one sitting. I’m sure many a middle school student is thankful for that when assigned a Poe story).

The Black Cat 1843

“I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me.”

The Tell Tale Heart 1843

“TRUE! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been, and am; but why will you say that I am mad?”

The Cask of Amontillado 1846

“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”

Berenice 1835

“MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon like the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch, as distinct too, yet as intimately blended.”

All of these are absolute, spine tingling bangers that thread the line of artful with mass appeal. Berenice in particular (the first short story I will cover), published in The Southern Literary Messenger in March 1835, was a minor scandal with some of the magazine’s subscribers. Poe stuck by his work, telling his publisher that carefully crafted, tasteful shock is what the masses want no matter what they say. Poe’s continued popularity proves this, still titillating the populace near 180 years after his death.

4/30/1835 letter to TW White

“But whether the articles of which I speak are, or are not in bad taste is little to the purpose. To be appreciated you must be read, and these things are invariably sought after with avidity. They are, if you will take notice, the articles which find their way into other periodicals, and into the papers, and in this manner, taking hold upon the public mind they augment the reputation of the source where they originated.”

And then there is his poetry. This is where Poe's reputation lightens a little. His poetry can be much more straight romantic, although still reaching for romantic loss in his most famous poems like The Raven and Annabel Lee. I will be posting a video of myself reading each poem along with my thoughts on it, mainly due to the story of Maya Angelou learning to love poetry in the midst of learning to speak again at about 13 after being raped at 7 years old. She had torn through the local library and other book sources and particularly loved poems. Angelou stated later “I was persuaded to talk by a woman who knew I loved and memorized poetry. She said ‘Poetry is music written for the human voice. Until you read it aloud you will never love it’” (from an interview with the Charlette Observer, 12/11/1983). This is true, with the only way to appreciate Poe’s flow, rhythm and rhyme being to hear it spoken (if not reading it aloud yourself).

So I hope you will join me, starting with Berenice (1835 short story) this Friday and the poem To The River on Tuesday