Edgar Allan Poe

Godfather.Godfather. Posts: 12,504
edited January 2012 in Poetry, Prose, Music & Art
On this day in 1809, poet, author and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston, Massachusetts.

By the time he was three years old, both of Poe's parents had died, leaving him in the care of his Godfather., John Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant. After attending school in England, Poe entered the University of Virginia (UVA) in 1826. After fighting with Allan over his heavy gambling debts, he was forced to leave UVA after only eight months. Poe then served two years in the U.S. Army and won an appointment to West Point. After another falling-out, Allan cut him off completely and he got himself dismissed from the academy for rules infractions.

Dark, handsome and brooding, Poe had published three works of poetry by that time, none of which had received much attention. In 1836, while working as an editor at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, Virginia, Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. He also completed his first full-length work of fiction, Arthur Gordon Pym, published in 1838. Poe lost his job at the Messenger due to his heavy drinking, and the couple moved to Philadelphia, where Poe worked as an editor at Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine. He became known for his direct and incisive criticism, as well as for dark horror stories like "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Tell-Tale Heart." Also around this time, Poe began writing mystery stories, including "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter"--works that would earn him a reputation as the father of the modern detective story.

In 1844, the Poes moved to New York City. He scored a spectacular success the following year with his poem "The Raven." While Poe was working to launch The Broadway Journal--which soon failed--his wife Virginia fell ill and died of tuberculosis in early 1847. His wife's death drove Poe even deeper into alcoholism and drug abuse. After becoming involved with several women, Poe returned to Richmond in 1849 and got engaged to an old flame. Before the wedding, however, Poe died suddenly. Though circumstances are somewhat unclear, it appeared he began drinking at a party in Baltimore and disappeared, only to be found incoherent in a gutter three days later. Taken to the hospital, he died on October 7, 1849, at age 40.
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  • DinghyDogDinghyDog Posts: 587
    edited October 2012
    -
    Post edited by DinghyDog on
  • PapPap Posts: 28,984
    This story reminded me of a Greek poet:

    Karyotakis was born in Tripoli, Greece, his father's occupation as a county engineer resulted in his early childhood and teenage years being spent in various places, following his family’s successive moves around the Greek cities, including Argostoli, Lefkada, Larisa, Kalamata, Athens and Chania.
    He started publishing poetry in various magazines for children in 1912. It is solely rife speculation that he had felt deeply betrayed that a girl he had cared for in Chania in 1913 had married and sent him into melancholy. After receiving his degree from the Athens School of Law and Political Sciences, in 1917, he did not pursue a career as a lawyer. Karyotakis became a clerk in the Prefecture of Thessaloniki. However, he greatly disliked his work and could not tolerate the bureaucracy of the state, which he wrote about often in his poems. His prose piece Catharsis ('purification') is characteristic of this. For this reason he would often be removed from his posts and transferred to other locations in Greece. During these removals he became familiar with the boredom and misery of the country during World War I.
    In February 1919 he published his first collection of poetry: The Pain of Men and Things, which was largely ignored or badly criticized by the critics. In the same year he published with his friend Agis Levendis a satirical review called The Leg, which despite its success was banned by the police after the sixth issue. In 1921 he published his second collection called Nepenthe and also wrote a musical revue Pell-Mell. In 1922 he began having an affair with the poet Maria Polydouri who was a colleague of his at the Prefecture of Attica. In 1923 he wrote a poem called "Treponema pallidum", which was published under the title "Song of Madness" and gave rise to speculation that he may have been suffering from syphilis, which before 1945 was considered a chronic illness with no proven cure for it. George Skouras, a physician of the poet, wrote: "He was sick, he was syphilitic" and George Savidis (1929–1999), professor of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, who possessed the largest archive about Greek poets, revealed that Karyotakis was syphilitic, and that his brother, Thanasis Karyotakis, thought the disease to be a disgrace to the family. In 1924 he traveled abroad, visiting Italy and Germany. In December 1927 he published his last collection of poetry: Elegy and Satires. In February 1928, Karyotakis was transferred to Patras although soon afterwards he spent a month on leave in Paris and in June 1928 he was sent yet again to Preveza by ship.
    Kostas Karyotakis lived in Preveza only for 33 days, until his suicide on July 21, 1928. His work was in Prefecture of Preveza, in the Palios mansion, 10 Speliadou street, as a lawyer for control for land donations from State to refugees from Asia Minor War of 1922. From Preveza he sent desperate letters to friends and relatives describing the misery he felt in the town. His family offered to support him for an indefinite stay in Paris, but he refused knowing what a monetary sacrifice like this would entail for them. His angst is felt in the poem "Preveza" which he wrote shortly before his suicide. The poem displays an insistent, lilting anaphora on the word Death, which stands at the beginning of several lines and sentences. It is shot through with a pungent awareness of the gallows, in the tiny mediocrity of life as Karyotakis felt it, mortality is measured against insignificant, black, pecking birds, or the town policeman checking a disputed weight, or identified with futile street names (boasting the date of battles), or the brass band on Sunday, a trifling sum of cash in a bank book, the flowers on a balcony, a teacher reading his newspaper, the prefect coming in by ferry: "If only," mutters the last of these six symmetrical quatrains, "one of those men would fall dead out of disgust". On July 19, 1928 Karyotakis went to Monolithi beach and kept trying to drown in the sea for ten hours, but failed in his attempt, because he was an avid swimmer as he himself wrote in his suicide note. In the subsequent morning he returned home and left again to purchase a revolver and went to a little café. After smoking for a few hours, he went to a nearby seashore called Agios Spyridon and there, under a eucalyptus tree, he shot himself through the heart. His suicide letter was found in his pocket.
    Athens 2006 / Milton Keynes 2014 / London 1&2 2022 / Seattle 1&2 2024 / Dublin 2024 / Manchester 2024
  • chadwickchadwick Posts: 21,157
    stevie nicks does annabel lee some great justice. it is edgar poe's poem tweeked to fit song. quite perfectly beautiful. ever fall in love with your cousin?
    http://youtu.be/N_VL7WRyir0

    this cd gifted to me for my 39th birthday. excellent
    for poetry through the ceiling. ISBN: 1 4241 8840 7

    "Hear me, my chiefs!
    I am tired; my heart is
    sick and sad. From where
    the sun stands I will fight
    no more forever."

    Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
  • chadwick wrote:
    stevie nicks does annabel lee some great justice. it is edgar poe's poem tweeked to fit song. quite perfectly beautiful. ever fall in love with your cousin?
    http://youtu.be/N_VL7WRyir0

    this cd gifted to me for my 39th birthday. excellent

    yes She does ! ... She does it badassss justice
  • rollingsrollings Posts: 7,124
    chadwick wrote:
    stevie nicks does annabel lee some great justice. it is edgar poe's poem tweeked to fit song. quite perfectly beautiful. ever fall in love with your cousin?
    http://youtu.be/N_VL7WRyir0

    this cd gifted to me for my 39th birthday. excellent

    yes She does ! ... She does it badassss justice

    Mr. Ssssssshittt, get back here, where have you been?
  • Godfather.Godfather. Posts: 12,504
    Rollings wrote:
    chadwick wrote:
    stevie nicks does annabel lee some great justice. it is edgar poe's poem tweeked to fit song. quite perfectly beautiful. ever fall in love with your cousin?
    http://youtu.be/N_VL7WRyir0

    this cd gifted to me for my 39th birthday. excellent

    yes She does ! ... She does it badassss justice

    Mr. Ssssssshittt, get back here, where have you been?

    figures Stevie Nicks name would bring him back. :lol:
    good to hear from you my friend.

    Godfather.
  • Godfather. wrote:
    Rollings wrote:
    Mr. Ssssssshittt, get back here, where have you been?

    figures Stevie Nicks name would bring him back. :lol:
    good to hear from you my friend.

    Godfather.

    you know it ! ha ha!

    and i don't mean to cramp Edgar Allan's style but check out this Fuck Me performance

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PB1rsaKNlk
  • chadwickchadwick Posts: 21,157
    http://youtu.be/ZzyYzK94UU4
    fucking greatness
    for poetry through the ceiling. ISBN: 1 4241 8840 7

    "Hear me, my chiefs!
    I am tired; my heart is
    sick and sad. From where
    the sun stands I will fight
    no more forever."

    Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
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