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Influenced:
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Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, H. Best known for his tales of the macabre, Poe was one of the early American
practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction.
Life
He was born Edgar Poe to a Scots-Irish family in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the son of actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr. The second of three
children, his elder brother was William Henry Leonard Poe, and younger sister, Rosalie Poe. Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful tobacco merchant in Richmond,
Virginia.
Poe moved back with the Allans to Richmond in 1820. After serving an apprenticeship in Pawtucket, Poe registered at the University of Virginia in 1826, but only stayed there for one year.
Reduced to destitution, Poe enlisted in the United States Army as a private, using the name Edgar A.
Poe moved to Baltimore, Maryland to stay with his widowed aunt, Maria Clemm, her daughter, Poe's first cousin, Virginia Eliza Clemm, and his brother Henry. In 1829, Poe's foster mother,
Frances Allan, died. Meanwhile, Poe published his second book, Al Aaraaf Tamerlane and Minor Poems in Baltimore in 1829.
Poe traveled to West Point, and took his oath on July 1, 1830. The marriage, and bitter quarrels with Poe over the children born to Allan out of affairs, led to the foster father finally
disowning Poe. Poe turned his attention to prose, and placed a few stories with a Philadelphia publication. He helped Poe place some of his stories, and also introduced him to Thomas W.
Reinstated by White after promising good behaviour, Poe went back to Richmond with Virginia and her mother, and remained at the paper until January 1837. Though not a financial success,
it was a milestone in the history of American literature, collecting such classic Poe tales as "The Fall of the House of Usher", "MS. Increasingly unstable after his wife's death, Poe
attempted to court the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, who lived in Providence, Rhode Island.
Death
On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore delirious and "in great distress, and... Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before
his death, though no one has ever been able to identify the person to whom he referred.
The precise cause of Poe's death is disputed. He was, however, a supporter of the temperance movement who found Poe a useful example in his work. Later scholars have shown that his
account of Poe's death distorts facts to support his theory.
Dr. John Moran, the physician who attended Poe, stated in his own 1885 account that "Edgar Allan Poe did not die under the effect of any intoxicant, nor was the smell of liquor upon his
breath or person." This was, however, only one of several, sometimes contradictory, accounts of Poe's last days which he published over the years, so his testimony cannot be considered
entirely reliable.
Numerous other theories have been proposed over the years, including several forms of rare brain disease, diabetes, various types of enzyme deficiency, syphilis, the idea that Poe was
shanghaied, drugged, and used as a pawn in a ballot-box-stuffing scam during the election that was held on the day he was found, and, more recently, rabies. even Poe's death certificate,
if one was ever made out, has been lost), it is likely that the cause of Poe's death will never be known.
Poe is buried on the grounds of Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, now part of the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore.
Even after death Poe has created controversy and mystery. Therefore, as it was described in a seemingly fitting turn of events:
In digging on what they erroneously thought to be the right of the General Poe the committee naturally first struck old Mrs. Poe who had been buried thirty-six years before Edgar's
mother-in-law;
Poe's grave site has become a popular tourist attraction. Beginning in 1949, the grave has been visited every year in the early hours of Poe's birthday, January 19th, by a mystery man
known endearingly as the Poe Toaster.
The epitaph inscribed on Poe's tombstone reads:
Fly
Quoth the Raven,
"Nevermore."
Griswold's "Memoir"
The day Edgar Allan Poe was buried, a long obituary appeared in the New York Tribune signed "Ludwig". The piece began, "Edgar Allan Poe is dead.
"Ludwig" was soon identified as Rufus Griswold, a minor editor and anthologist who had borne a grudge against Poe since 1842, when Poe wrote a review of one of Griswold's anthologies, a
review that Griswold deemed to be full of false praise.
Rufus Griswold wrote a biographical "Memoir" of Poe, which he included in an additional volume of the collected works. Griswold's account became a popularly accepted one, however, in part
because it was the only full biography available and was widely reprinted, and in part because it seemed to accord with the narrative voice Poe used in much of his fiction.
Literary and artistic theory
In his essay "The Poetic Principle", Poe would argue that there is no such thing as a long poem, since the ultimate purpose of art is aesthetic, that is, its purpose is the effect it has
on its audience, and this effect can only be maintained for a brief period of time (the time it takes to read a lyric poem, or watch a drama performed, or view a painting, etc.).
Poe associated the aesthetic aspect of art with pure ideality claiming that the mood or sentiment created by a work of art elevates the soul, and is thus a spiritual experience. Since a
poem's purpose is to convey a single aesthetic experience, Poe argues in his literary theory essay "The Philosophy of Composition", the ending should be written first. Poe's inspiration
for this theory was Charles Dickens, who wrote to Poe in a letter dated March 6, 1842,
Apropos of the "construction" of "Caleb Williams," do you know that Godwin wrote it backwards, — the last volume first, — and that when he had produced the hunting down of Caleb, and
the catastrophe, he waited for months, casting about for a means of accounting for what he had done?
Poe refers to the letter in his essay. Dickens's literary influence on Poe can also be seen in Poe's short story "The Man of the Crowd".
Poe often included elements of popular pseudosciences such as phrenology and physiognomy in his fiction.
Poe also focused the theme of each of his short stories on one human characteristic.
Much of Poe's work was allegorical, but his position on allegory was a nuanced one: "In defence of allegory, (however, or for whatever object, employed,) there is scarcely one respectable
word to be said.
Legacy and lore
Poe's works have had a broad influence on American and world literature (sometimes even despite those who tried to resist it), and even on the art world beyond literature. The scope of
Poe's influence on art is evident when one sees the many and diverse artists who were directly and profoundly influenced by him.
American literature
Poe's literary reputation was greater abroad than in the United States, perhaps as a result of America's general revulsion towards the macabre. Lovecraft, William Faulkner, and Herman
Melville were influenced by Poe's works. Nathanael West used the concept and remarkable black humor of Poe's "The Man That Was Used Up" in his third novel, A Cool Million.
Flannery O'Connor, however, who grew up reading Poe's satirical works, claimed the influence of Poe on her works was "something I'd rather not think about" (Poe Encyclopaedia, p.
Eliot, who was often quite hostile to Poe, describing him as having "the intellect of a highly gifted person before puberty," professed that he was impressed, however, by Poe's abilities
as a literary critic, calling him "the directest, the least pedantic, the least pedagogical of the critics writing in his time in either America or England."
Mark Twain was also a sharp critic of Poe.
Influence on French literature
In France, where he is commonly known as "Edgar Poe," Poe's works first arrived when two French papers published separate (and uncredited) translations of Poe's detective story "The
Murders in the Rue Morgue". Poe, American author.") When Le Presse did not acknowledge Forgues' explanation of the events, Forgues responded with a libel lawsuit, during which he
repeatedly proclaimed, "Avez-vous lu Edgar Poe? Lisez Edgar Poe." ("Have you read Edgar Poe? Read Edgar Poe!") The notoriety of this trial spread Poe's name throughout Paris, gaining the
interest of many poets and writers. (Silverman 321)
Among these was Charles Baudelaire, who translated almost all of Poe's stories and several of the poems into French. His excellent translations meant that Poe enjoyed a vogue among
avant-garde writers in France while being ignored in his native land. In a draft preface to his most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal, Baudelaire lists Poe as one of the authors whom
he plagiarized. Poe himself was critical of democracy and capitalism (in his story "Mellonta Tauta," Poe proclaims that "democracy is a very admirable form of government—for dogs" ), and
the tragic poverty and misery of Poe's biography seemed, to Baudelaire, to be the ultimate example of how the bourgeoisie destroys genius and originality. Raymond Foye, editor of the book
The Unknown Poe, put Baudelaire's and Poe's shared political sympathies this way:
Poe's anti-democratic views persuaded Baudelaire to abandon his socialism, and if these two men shared a single political preferrence it was monarchy. (Foye 76)
Poe was much admired, also, by the school of Symbolism. Stéphane Mallarmé dedicated several poems to him and translated some of Poe's works into French, accompanied by illustrations by
Manet (see below). The later authors Paul Valéry and Marcel Proust were great admirers of Poe, the latter saying "Poe sought to arrive at the beautiful through evocation and an
elimination of moral motives in his art."
Other world literature
Britain
From France, Poe's works made their way to Britain, where writers like Algernon Swinburne caught the Poe-bug, and Swinburne's musical verse owes much to Poe's technique. Oscar Wilde
called Poe "this marvellous lord of rhythmic expression" and drew on Poe's works for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and his short stories (Poe Encyclopedia 375). Auden
revitalized interest in Poe's works, especially his criticism.
Russia
Poe's poetry was translated into Russian by the Symbolist poet Konstantin Balmont and enjoyed great popularity there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, influencing artists such as
Nabokov, who makes several references to Poe's work in his most famous novel, Lolita.
Fyodor Dostoevsky called Poe "an enormously talented writer", favorably reviewing Poe's detective stories and briefly referencing "The Raven" in his novel The Brothers Karamazov.
Argentina
Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges was a great admirer of Poe's works and translated his stories into Spanish. Many of the characters from Borges' stories are borrowed directly from
Poe's stories, and in many of his stories Poe is mentioned by name. Another Argentinian author, Julio Cortázar, translated Poe's complete fiction and essays into Spanish.
Other countries
Poe was also an influence for the Swedish poet and author Viktor Rydberg, who translated a considerable amount of Poe's work into Swedish; a Japanese author who even took a pseudonym,
Edogawa Rampo, from a rendering of Poe's name in that language; and German author Thomas Mann, in whose novel Buddenbrooks, a character reads Poe's short novels and professes to be
influenced by his works. Friedrich Nietzsche refers to Poe in his masterpiece Beyond Good and Evil, and some have found evidence of Poe's influence on the philosopher.
Poe is one of the main topics in Zettel’s Traum, the 1,334-pages novel of Folio format by Arno Schmidt, type-written between 1962 and 1970. (Poe also wrote a satirical detective
story called "Thou Art the Man") There is no doubt that he inspired mystery writers who came after him, particularly Arthur Conan Doyle in his series of stories featuring Sherlock Holmes.
Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?" Though Poe's Dupin was not the first detective in fiction, he became an archetype for all subsequent
detectives, and Doyle acknowledged the primacy of C.
Science fiction, gothic fiction and horror fiction
Poe also profoundly influenced the development of early science fiction author Jules Verne, who discussed Poe in his essay Poe et ses œuvres and also wrote a sequel to Poe's novel
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket called The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Le sphinx des glaces (Poe Encyclopedia 364).
Renowned science fiction author Ray Bradbury has also professed a love for Poe. He often draws upon Poe in his stories and mentions Poe by name in several stories. His anti-censorship
story "Usher II", set in a dystopian future in which the works of Poe (and some other authors) have been censored, features an eccentric who constructs a house based on Poe's tale "The
Fall of the House of Usher".
Along with Mary Shelley, Poe is regarded as the foremost proponent of the Gothic strain in literary Romanticism. Lovecraft claimed to have been profoundly influenced by Poe's works.
Playwrights and filmmakers
On the stage, the great dramatist George Bernard Shaw was greatly influenced by Poe's literary criticism, calling Poe "the greatest journalistic critic of his time" (Poe
Encyclopaedia 315). Alfred Hitchcock declared Poe as a major inspiration, saying, "It's because I liked Edgar Allan Poe's stories so much that I began to make suspense films."
Actor John Astin, who performed as Gomez in the Addams Family television series, is an ardent admirer of Poe, whom he resembles, and in recent years has starred in a one-man play
based on Poe's life and works, Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight. The musical play Nevermore , by Matt Conner and Grace Barnes, was inspired by Poe's poems and essays.
Actor Vincent Price played in many films based on Poe's stories like The Black Cat. Though described as a "prose poem" by Poe, who wished it to be considered as art, this work is a
remarkable scientific and mystical essay unlike any of his other works.
Poe eschewed the scientific method in his Eureka.
Cryptography
Poe had a keen interest in the field of cryptography, as exemplified in his short story The Gold Bug.
Poe's success in cryptography relied not so much on his knowledge of that field (his method was limited to the simple substitution cryptogram), as on his knowledge of the magazine and
newspaper culture.
Music
Poe and his works have provided considerable inspiration to both classical music and popular music. See Edgar Allan Poe and music.
Visual arts
In the world of visual arts, Gustave Doré and Édouard Manet composed several illustrations for Poe's works. The team's three "winged" mascots were named Edgar, Allan, and Poe.
The television show Homicide: Life on the Street, set in Baltimore, made reference to Poe and his works in several episodes. In a disturbing scene near the end of the episode, the
killer reads from the works of Poe as a dramatic effect to increase the tension.
The bar in which Poe was last seen drinking before his death still stands in Fells Point.
But Poe's vast influence over pop culture does not end with Baltimore. Numerous popular movie makers have incorporated Poe or Poe's works into their works (see "Adaptations" below).
Edgar Allan Poe is credited with the inspiration for pro wrestler Scott Levy's stage name, Raven.
Preserved home
Edgar Allan Poe, his wife Virginia, and his mother-in-law Maria rented several homes in Philadelphia, but only the last house has survived. The Spring Garden home, where the author lived
in 1843-44, is today preserved by the National Park Service as the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site. It is open to the public and is also the home of the Edgar Allan Poe Society.
Imitators
Like any famous artist, Poe's works have spawned legions of imitators and plagiarists. One interesting trend among imitators of Poe, however, has been claims by clairvoyants or psychics
to be "channelling" poems from Poe's spirit beyond the grave. The compositions were re-workings of famous Poe poems such as "The Bells", but which reflected a new, positive outlook.
Mabbott notes that, at least compared to many other Poe imitators, Doten was not entirely without poetic talent, whether that talent was her own or "channelled" from Poe. —Lizzie Doten,
"Streets of Baltimore", from Poems from the Inner Life, imitating "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe.
Examples in popular culture
Edogawa Rampo, a pioneer author of Japanese detective stories in the early 20th century, acknowledged Poe as one of his major influences.
Story adaptations
Several of Poe's works were made into movies, notably a series of movies directed by Roger Corman and starring Vincent Price. The 1993 film The Mummy Lives, starring Tony
Curtis, screenplay by Nelson Gidding, was suggested by Poe's Some Words with a Mummy (1845). Vincent Price collaborated with actor Basil Rathbone on a collection of their readings of
Poe's stories and poems. Author Ray Bradbury is a great admirer of Poe, and has either featured Poe as a character or alluded to Poe's stories in many of his works. McCammon wrote Ushers
Passing, a sequel to Fall of the House of Usher, published in 1984 In 1967 Poe was metioned in The Beatles song, "I am the Walrus" In 1995 several of Poe's stories were combined
to make an interactive novel stylised as a video game called The Dark Eye. The Ravens' have 3 mascots named Edgar, Allen, and Poe. A double-CD organized by Hal Willner, "Closed On
Account of Rabies" with poems and tales of Poe performed by artists as diverse as Christopher Walken, Marianne Faithfull, Iggy Pop and Jeff Buckley was issued in 1997. "The Black Cat" was
translated to giallo film as Eye of the Black Cat (also known as Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key) The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror"
contains a segment in which James Earl Jones reads Poe's poem "The Raven", with Homer playing the narrator, Marge making a brief appearance as Lenore, and Bart as the raven. In the 2004
remake of The Ladykillers, the chief protagonist is a great admirer of Poe and frequently quotes from his poetry. In 2005, Lurker Films released an Edgar Allan Poe film collection on
DVD, including short film adaptations of "Annabel Lee" by director George Higham, "The Raven" by director Peter Bradley and "The Tell-Tale Heart" by director Alfonso S. Linda Fairstein's
2005 novel Entombed features a modern day serial killer obsessed with Poe - The story taking place amongst Poe's old haunts in New York. In the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode
"Up in Smoke" the case is referred to as a Poe story, combining both "The Telltale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado". The comic/graphic novel "Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl" features
a dead little girl inspired by Poe's poem "Lenore." The psychobilly band Tiger Army, has a song "Annabelle Lee" based on the poem of Poe's work. It is on their 2nd album "Tiger Army II: The
Power of Moonlight" Japanese artist Utada Hikaru makes a reference to Poe's "The Raven" in her song "Kremlin Dusk" It is on her English debut album "Exodus"
Selected Poe-related films
Edgar Allan Poe (1909) The Gold Bug (1910) - France The Pit and the Pendulum (1910) - Italy The Bells (1912) The Avenging Conscience (1914) The
Raven (1915) - This film is more of a Poe biography, however a brief segment of the film is indeed an abbreviated performance the namesake poem. The Tell Tale Heart (1928) The
Fall of the House of Usher (1928) The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe (1942) Tell-Tale Heart (1953) The Phantom of the
RueMorgue (1953) House of Usher (1960) The Tell-Tale Heart (1960) The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) The Premature Burial (1962) Tales of Terror (1962)
The Raven (1963) The Masque of the Red Death (1964) Danza macabra (1964) The Tomb of Ligeia (1965) Spirits of the Dead (Histoires extraordinaires), 3
segments: [[Metzengerstein by Roger Vadim, [[William Wilson by Louis Malle and Toby Dammit by Federico Fellini, (1968) - France / Italy The Murders in the Rue
Morgue (1971) The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe (1974) Vincent (film) (1982), a short film by Tim Burton, about a boy named Vincent Malloy, who is obsessed with Poe and
Vincent Price. The Raven...Nevermore (1999) Mystery Of The Necronomicon (1999) The Raven (short film - 2003) The Death of Poe (2005) Poe (2006)
Poe as a character
When It Was Moonlight, a short story by Manly Wade Wellman appeared in the February 1940 issue of Unknown The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe (1942); Poe is played by
John Shepherd (later known as Shepperd Strudwick). The Man with a Cloak (1951), a film in which a hard drinking Poe (Joseph Cotten) masquerades incognito in 1848 New York - and helps
a young French girl secure her inheritance. Child of Night (1975) by Anne Edwards Evermore (1978), a novel by Barbara Steward Poe Must Die (1978), a novel by Marc Olden
In the Sunken Museum (1981),a short story by Gregory Frost, appeared in The Twilight Zone Magazine The Man Who Was Poe (1989), a juvenile novel by Avi The Hollow Earth
(1990), a novel by Rudy Rucker in which Poe explores the inhabited center of the world The Black Throne (1990), a novel by Roger Zelazny and Fred Saberhagen Writer Stephen Marlowe
adapted the strange details of Poe's death into his 1995 novel The Lighthouse at the End of the World. Route 666 (1993), a satirical cyberpunk novel in the Dark Future series
by Kim Newman (writing as Jack Yeovil), features a ramshackle Eddy Poe chanelling Cthulhu. Nevermore (1999), The Hum Bug (2001), The Mask of Red Death (2004), and
The Tell-Tale Corpse (2006) novels by Harold Schechter The Phantom comic strip (2000), written by Tony De Paul and drawn by César Spadari Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a
Midnight, starring John Astin as Poe. The Lemony Snicket book series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, have Mr. Poe, with his children Edgar and Albert, as a guardian of the
Baudelaire children. In "Poe Pourri", an episode of the cartoon Beetlejuice, the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe mourns for his lost Lenore (who turns out to have been staying with her
mother). In Poe's mourning the netherworld begins to resemble several of his stories, with Beetlejuice being bitten by the gold bug and finding a beating heart under his floor. The Poe
Shadow (2006) by Matthew Pearl, a novel which revisits the strange events surrounding Poe's death. Edgar Allen Poe is a semi-frequent character in the webcomic Thinkin' Lincoln The
Adult Swim cartoon The Venture Bros. includes Poe in a small role in the episode "Escape to the House of Mummies Part II." In the children's book The Man Who Was Poe, by
Edward Irving Wortis Poe is depicted as a character who thinks he is writing the story of a boy's life, and that whatever he writes will happen. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical
Biography, Arthur Hobson Quinn, New York, 1941, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc, ISBN 0-8018-5730-9 The Unknown Poe, edited by Raymond Foye.
About Poe
Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia Edgar Allan Poe's Signature Poe Cottage Bronx Poe's True Prediction about Cannibalism Poe Society in Baltimore
Maryland Public Television's Knowing Poe: The Literature, Life, and Times of Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore and Beyond In a Sequestered Providence Churchyard Where Once Poe Walked - H.
Lovecraft poem referencing Poe's visits to Whitman 1992 audio interview with Ken Silverman, author of Edgar A Poe : Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance by Don Swaim
Works
Poems by Edgar Allan Poe at PoetryFoundation.org Works by Edgar Allan Poe at Project Gutenberg Selected Works of Poe at Inspired Poetry PoeStories.com - A well organized site with
summaries, quotes, and full text of Poe's short stories, a Poe timeline, and image gallery. The Edgar Allan Poe Virtual Library Audio recordings at Literal Systems The Edgar Allan Poe
Society of Baltimore - Poe's complete works and a wealth of biographical and critical material, including a review of the known facts about Poe's death Public domain recording of "The
Raven" Edgar A.Poe cryptographic challenge solved Poe Short Story Audiobooks - free download
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Persondata
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NAME
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Poe, Edgar Allan
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ALTERNATIVE NAMES
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SHORT DESCRIPTION
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American poet, short story writer and literary critic
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DATE OF BIRTH
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January 19, 1809
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PLACE OF BIRTH
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Boston, Massachusetts
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DATE OF DEATH
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October 7, 1849
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PLACE OF DEATH
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Baltimore, Maryland
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