FREE ESSAY ON SIMILARITIES BETWEEN POE'S LIFE AND HIS WORKS

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN POE'S LIFE AND HIS WORKS

Similarities Between Poe's Life and His Works
In Edgar Allan Poe's lifetime and today, critics think that there are striking
similarities between what Poe lived and what he wrote. His melancholy, often-depressing
stories are thought to reflect his feelings. There is truth to this, although his entire
life was not miserable. In fact, in some of his poems, the good characters are modeled
after him. Edgar Allan Poe's writing was affected by many things in his life, including
his turbulent childhood, his poverty, and his many tragic losses.
In Poe's childhood, he had five parents. His original mother and father Elizabeth Arnold
and David Poe ,Jr.; John Allan and Fanny Allan who took him in after his mother died and
his father left him; and Jane Mackenzie whom he thought of as his mother. Elizabeth
Arnold was a famous actress who everyone loved. Kenneth Silverman thinks that she
initially instilled a love of the arts in Poe.(9) Unfortunately however, she died when he
was only two years old. David Poe Jr. was also an actor, but he did not gain nearly as
much critical acclaim because of his stage fright and a tendency to mumble. He left soon
after Edgar was born and went to Baltimore where he lived for a few years and gained a
reputation as a drunk. It is thought that he died at age twenty-seven in either New York
or Baltimore. 
After his mother's death, Poe was sent to live with John and Frances Allan who gave him a
life radically different from the one he had known. Kenneth Silverman says that in his
new life, Poe found material wealth and love instead of poverty and abandonment .(11) At
age thirteen, Poe went with John Allan to London where he received a strict boarding
school education. He enjoyed the challenges this school brought to him. William
Wagenknecht says that in Poe's later story, William Wilson, about a man who struggles
with the concept of good and evil, the good character was based on Edgar's happy times in
England.(15) With Poe's newfound wealth, he immersed himself in the arts. He would often
quote Cervantes or Shakespeare and add that he was envious of their literary genius. At
the tender age of fifteen, someone offered to publish a book of his works. Allan would
not allow it though, as he was afraid of Poe's ego swelling. Poe strived to excel in
everything he did, swimming, long jump, running, and writing. This will to succeed showed
up in his work later in life when he wrote constantly to keep up with the demand for his
stories. Poe eventually broke away from Allan as a result of an argument between Allan
and his second wife with Poe taking the wife's side. He did briefly reconnect with Allan
to get his recommendation for West Point. Poe eventually purposely failed our of West
Point by missing classes and lost touch with his father all together.(18) These
tumultuous times had great highs and lows which greatly affected Poe's later writings.
Another aspect of Poe's life, which greatly affected his writing, was his poverty.
Silverman agrees saying that, poverty was a consistent thread throughout his entire life
(except his time with the Allans). In his early years, his mother's career as an actress
often left them with little more than donations from people who pitied the family.(10)
Also, later in his life, Poe found himself in debt or poverty. This influenced many of
his decisions; including the decision to work for little or nothing in order to get his
first book published. This book, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, was published with
no royalties going to Poe. His only consolation was that he got to keep the copyrights. 
It was these bittersweet times that allowed him his unique sense of self. He often
equated love with pain, melancholy with beauty, and magnificence with death. Ronald
Gottesman cites that he called death "...that fitful stain of melancholy, which will ever
be found inseparable from the perfection of the beautiful."(1204) Edward Wagenknecht's
view is that, "Beauty brings melancholy because it is impossible to hold, and it can not
be dissociated from death because even while we grasp at it, death snatches it away."
(157) Poe's oxymoronic views frightened many of the day's top writers. Gottesman also
states that Ralph Waldo Emerson nicknamed Poe the "jingle man," Henry James called his
writing primitive, and T.S. Eliot labeled him as immature.(1206) In comparison, today Poe
is regarded highly by critics and readers alike. 
In his twenties, Poe's poverty left him angry at the world. He often transferred anger
from his failed careers and lack of money to his writing and other aspects of his life.
He often unnecessarily gave scathing reviews to average books or short stories and even
accused Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism. This reflected a cause he was deeply
involved in, trying to get international copyrights. He was passionate in this pursuit
for equality of authors. He saw that American writers were able to simply copy British
writers with little or no consequence. All of these factors contributed to a more
frequent appearance of madmen during this era of his life. Including Roderick Usher in
The Fall of the House of Usher; Montressor in The Cask of Amontillado; and the narrator
in "The Raven." His poverty brought him both joy and pain, but most critics are unsure of
the total magnitude of the effect it had on his poetry and short stories.
Personal loss also had a considerable effect on Poe's writing. Silverman articulates that
when he was only two years old he had to be given to the Allans because of the tragic and
sudden death of his mother. A respected actress, she took ill on a tour and never
recovered despite many benefit performances by her acting troupe to raise money for
her.(2-8) By all accounts, she would have been a great mother to Poe, despite her
constant poverty. 
During Poe's time with the Allans, he met Jane Standard. William Jay Jacobs stated that
he "asked to call her 'Helen' rather than Jane-for the Greek Helen of Troy."(25) Through
Jane he was able to have a relationship that he never had with his mother. A result of
their relationship is Poe's poem "To Helen". In 1824 Jane died suddenly of a brain tumor.
He and Jane's son, his friend, Rob sometimes went to her grave at night. 
This unfortunately was not Poe's last or greatest loss. In 1829, his foster mother also
fell ill. Her dying wish was that Poe could see her face one last time before she was
buried, but he was too late. The buried her in the very same graveyard as Jane Standard,
so once again he was there to weep. Jacobs says she "was the third woman to whom he had
looked for affection only to have her taken from him by death: first his mother, then
Mrs. Standard, and now the woman who had reared and protected him-Frances Allan."(43) It
was at this time that he also reworked some of his older works including "Tamerlane", and
published them in a book called Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. He had rewritten
the poems to reflect more of his personal life including his losses.(47) 
The loss that affected Poe's life the most was still yet to come however. He continued
life as a cadet at West Point with limited or no contact with John Allan. After he left
to pursue other goals he never spoke to Allan again. He was editor of several magazines,
but either quit or was fired from all of them. Then he met the love of his life, his
fourteen-year-old cousin Virginia. They lived happily for only a short time before
Virginia's health began failing. As Virginia became more and more ill, so did Edgar. It
was as if his heart was breaking to see her die. After her death, he often left his house
at night, unable to sleep. He would go to her grave and sleep beside her. This period
influenced him to write one of his most famous poems, "Annabel Lee". In this poem Poe
writes:
But our love it was stronger by far than the love 
Of those who were older than we-- 
Of many far wiser than we-- 
And neither the angels in heaven above, 
Nor the demons down under the sea, 
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. 
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams 
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes 
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 
Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride, 
In the sepulchre there by the sea, 
Her death had started his rapid down fall, which included long periods of drinking and
eventually ended his life. Jacobs states that on October 7, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe died in
a hospital after being found lying in a gutter outside a voting poll where he had
reportedly been trying to vote more than once.(124) Poe, although widely respected in his
younger years had become thought of as crazy as he got older. The many losses that he
suffered greatly contributed to his permanent sadness and gloom.
Poe's tragic life brought him great fortune, sadly, he was never around to see it. Like
most great artists he was misunderstood in his time, and only in death was he able to
achieve true fame. From his unstable early years to the death of his wife, Poe let
everything around him enter his writing. The fact that people could relate to his
characters made him a truly great writer. No matter how strange or crazy the characters
were, there was always an undeniable human truth hidden inside. Those who were able to
find that truth praised him for his depth. As for those who were not, they passed him off
as just another magazine writer, drowning in his own mediocrity. The wide variety of
critical evaluation he received is what made him a truly great writer.
Bibliography
Works Cited
Gottesman, Donald (ed.). 1979. The Norton Anthology of American Literature (vol.1). New
York: W.W. Norton and Company. p1204-1206.
Jacobs, William Jay. Edgar Allan Poe. McGraw-Hill Books. New York: 1975.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Unabridged Edgar Allan Poe. Courage Books. New York: 1997.
Porges, Irwin. Edgar Allan Poe. Chilton Books. Boston: 1963.
Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: A Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance. Harper Collins
Publishing. San Francisco: 1991.
Wagenknecht, Edward. Edgar Allan Poe the Man Behind the Legend. University Press. New
York: 1963.