In a farmhouse sitting on 216 acres adjacent to the Hudson River, Edgar Allen Poe began composing his most famous work. He was inspired by a character in Charles Dickens�s novel Barnaby Rudge: Grip, the Raven. There in his study, where a bust of Pallas stood on a self above the doorway. Poe began to weave together two very distinct images using a tone and poem structure to his new creation. Poe had little opportunity to make corrections to �The Raven� for, due to its incredible initial and subsequent success, other publications began to copy it without going through Poe. It is estimated that �The Rave� seemed to have netted its author less than $20. American society was entranced with the poem. He was constantly called to recite �The Raven� to groups of flocking socialites, and he was in the spotlight throughout 1845. This poem highlights the bold and inventive new rhythm and rhyme structure and it is well thought out and original poetry. No matter the fading of Edgar Allen Poe�s personal popularity, for his masterpiece �The Raven� continues even today to be one of the most popular and influential works by an American. (Lunpkin)
Edgar Allen Poe�s is among the most spectacular of literary deaths. He was discovered lying outside a pub in Baltimore, trembling and raving. He died three days later in a nearby hospital. Because Poe had been an alcoholic his death has usually been attributed to withdrawal from drink. Now a researcher at the University of Maryland Medical Center says it is likely that he was killed my rabies. Poe slipped into a coma soon after he was admitted to the hospital. He snapped out of it two days later and spoke lucidly to visitors. Then he quickly spiraled downward. A patient with rabies suffers from bouts of confusion as well as wild swings in his pulse rate, which Poe�s doctor documented. Hydrophobia is another symptom of rabies, and Poe reportedly could barely swallow the water that was given to him. Poe was a cat lover, and it is possible that one of his pets bit him.(Shea)
Edgar Allen Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it. The poet was known, personally or by reputation, in all this country: he had readers in England, and in several of the states of Continental Europe; but he had few or no friends; and the regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the consideration that in him literacy art lost one of its most brilliant but erratic stars. (Taken from the Evening Edition of the New York Tribune, October 9, 1849.) These are the words of Rufus Wilmont Griswold, a literary rival and secret enemy of Poe.
Here�s a few interesting quotes from Poe:
I have great faith in fools; My friends call it self-confidence.
That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be when it suits him, a coward.
To be thoroughly conversant with a man�s heart is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of despair. (Quotes)
In 1832, Poe lived with his aunt and her 11-year-old daughter Virginia Clemm. She was Poe�s ideal women with pale skin and dark hair. Then in 1836 something sickening happened. He married her, his cousin! But in 1847, Virginia died from a burst blood vessel, and Poe was devastated. Thus the inspiration for writing The Raven. (Encarta)
Poe not only wrote poetry but also short stories. Humor and fear have a special relationship in Poe�s tales. Humor, taken to its limits, leads the reader to fear. Over and over, when humor fails we are left with images of fear: the raven� shadow, the howling cat, the putrescent corpse, or the fallen house. (Psychological) |
