Edgar Allen Poe - Research Paper Example

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809 (Kennedy, 2001, 19). Personal misfortunes were, sadly, a persistent episode during his lifetime. He never met his father who abandoned his mother. His mother died from tuberculosis. After his parents’ death Edgar was adopted by Frances and John Allan, a rich trader in Richmond, Virginia (Kennedy, 2001). From the very beginning of Poe’s authorial vocation, he adored creating verses for the most important persons in his life.

Soon after, when he reached maturity and understood life’s unpleasant realities, his narratives became more disquieting and darker, possibly because of his overindulgence in alcohol and drugs (Magistrale, 2001). His horror tales are still regarded as one of the most chilling and frightening tales ever written, and, due to this, several literary scholars contemplated on the possible sources of these dark themes. Numerous literature activists and historians have assumed that his problematic love life was the root whereas others have pointed to his drug and alcohol addiction (Magistrale, 2001). . Poe implanted this in his famed masterpiece Alone (Hoffman, 1998, 38): “From childhood’s hour, I have not been as others were; I have not seen as others saw; I could not bring my passions from a common spring.

” As mentioned above, several of the most significant persons in his life were a vast source of influence because of their deaths. His reaction to death consistently included more heightened addiction to alcohol and drugs (Kennedy, 2001); hence, it is difficult to make a decisive difference between the influences of Poe’s individual loved ones. Nevertheless, since the deaths happened prior to the drugs and alcohol addiction, it was only death which occupied the utmost position in his life, bringing about series of self-destruction that sooner or later put an end on his own existence (Kennedy, 2001).

In spite of his personal misfortunes, nevertheless, he stays as one of the most treasured and broadly celebrated of all American authors. His disturbing and frightening tales and poems will survive through ages and be read by innumerable people from various societies and different eras, a reality which would have certainly given some spring of calm for this agonized, gifted, and disturbed individual. Almost every well-known author that came after Poe, embodying practically all national literatures, was familiar with him, and writers who were not personally influenced by his idea were compelled somehow to recognize it, if simply in a feat of denial (Kennedy, 2001).

The reputation and significance of Poe as an author were at first freed from the nasty rumors of Rufus Griswold, his literary architect, by the determined attempts of Charles Baudelaire, a French writer (Magistrale, 2001). The influence of Poe on 19th century French literature