Happy 198th Birthday Edgar Allen Poe

[BOSSHOG]

He did quite a lot in his 40 years on earth. I'm assuming he's dead. What this country needs is another good gothic horror author. Who did not shutter at the Tell Tale Heart or the Pit and the Pendulum? He must have had access to some damn good alcohol back in his day; committing nightmares to paper.

[bdamomma]

1. what a great writer, him and HP Lovecraft.

[wicket]

2. Did the cloaked man with the red rose appear last night?

I've always been fascinated by this.

[Pendrench]

4. Yes - I hope the link I have below works.

http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=598&sid=1037165

[wicket]

12. Excellent, thanks!

n/y

[Pendrench]

14. You're very welcome - I live near Baltimore, so I've visited Poe's grave several times - but never

on his birthday.

Tim

[Dora]

3. Alcohol? Laudanum, baby. Only the best. n/t

[theboss]

5. He does not look a day over 178.....

I've been to his house in Baltimore, his grave in Baltimore, and his mother's grave in Richmond.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. I've visited his grave at the cemetery by the Lexington Market

in Baltimore. The ground for his site is sunken while all the rest are level.

[AnneD]

7. I sit at my desk...

With a bobble head doll of EA Poe looking at me. One of my fav's. Masque of the Red Death and his poetry are what I love to read. And his poems MUST be read aloud, they have to be heard bu the ear.

[PATRICK]

8. About the booze

Cheap, especially with paying friends, and easier than food. he was an alcoholic. Probably a beer for a buzz, though his social was pretty good. Underneath it did NOT help his writing or career. Detailing horrified experiences of where alcohol can lead to is not necessary to the imagination. One anecdote about the DT's is something any person could experience and was never the subject of a story. Alcohol flowed like rivers in Poe's time. He already had social skill problems and emotional background for which the booze was fuel to his own bonfire. As J.B. Shaw commented, Dylan Thomas probably consumed more alcohol on a weekend end bender than Poe did his entire life.

I refer any sane person who wants to understand sane writers who happen to be addicted to read Stephen King "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" which says it all. Other writers got into the myths and delusions about substance abuse and art.

Poe's great contributions might surprise you but there are being taught fairly well nowadays. America's first great and possibly greatest poet, establishing a new symbolism, art for art's sake, and American presence in all of a world literature. Inventor of the detective story genre and many of its basic plots and characteristics. Established a real American literary criticism that brilliantly and unsparingly got beyond hype and the posture of deference or defense regarding Europe. The puzzle page and his success in broadening the features and popular appeal of literary magazines(but little to his own economic gain).His tales, sometimes more tongue in cheek than the reader realizes, are a contribution for the way Poe used or amended the form, the poetry and the great popular success they enjoyed over most of the genre. Unfortunately it is the Tales that overshadow greater accomplishments and create a popular misunderstanding about Poe, who IS unique and hard to put in boxes despite the brevity, consistency and often bare simplicity of his output.

We also celebrate many years of successful slander and misunderstanding which is a huge lesson on the use of character assassination, spin and popular knowledge as it is abused more professionally today. Many of the things one thinks or presumes about Poe come from the seminal lies spread by a personal enemy before his grave had gone cold. Only love of his stories(sales helped by the sense of scandal) and the strength of his poems kept his reputation aline in a warped and insufficient way among the public who bought into the dirt. Not unusually, the slanderer was himself more guilty than Poe of the actual lurid accusations. A success story that probably is referenced in GOP training manuals.

To get the taste of Poe's Muse read the more personal poems like "The Lake" "Alone" "A Dream Within A Dream". Not too oddly most people only know Poe through story poems like "The Raven" "El Dorado" "Annabel Lee" where, like the tales, the imaginary context is never penetrated by many fans.

[mitchum]

9. Happy Birthday American Genius

[skygazer]

10. Did a lot but profited very little from it

Sad story, really, but not unusual. So many artists are tortured geniuses.

Poe's life was one tragedy after another. His father abandoned his mother, his mother died of tuberculosis when he was just a child, he was raised by a well-to-do family who never quite let him forget that he wasn't their own child.

He had lifelong problems with alcohol, had a volatile personality and couldn't seem to keep a job, quarreled with about everyone he ever worked with. He married his cousin when she was 14, she died 10 years later, also of tuberculosis.

He was found drunk and ill in a ditch in Baltimore, and died several days later. At the time, he was broke and though he'd written an amazing amount of stuff that had received critical acclaim, he never made any money off any of it (his most well-received work, "The Raven", earned him all of nine dollars).

RIP, Edgar. :(

[myrna minx]

11. A toast to you, Mr. Poe.

:toast:

[Danger Mouse]

13. The mysterious stranger comes again...

It's funny how unfairly Poe was regarded for so long because of the character assassination conducted by his so-called friend in revenge for an unfavorable review that Poe had written.
He wasn't really depraved anything, just fantastically imaginative. Also very witty.

[mykpart]

15. And it is just now a midnight dreary!

And I am weak and weary!

[VelmaD]

16. I remember a teacher reading us...

The Tell Tale Heart when I was in the 4th grade. Scared the hell out of me and I just HAD to read everything else Poe wrote than I could get my hands on. :)