Edgar Allan Poe Accomplishments

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, who is also connected with the American Romantic Movement. However, he was best known for his tales of mystery and horror. He was among the earliest American authors to write short stories and is usually considered the creator of what is now called the detective-fiction genre. He is also credited for his contribution in the ever evolving category of science fiction. His works have greatly swayed American literature and also other specialized fields like, cosmology and cryptography. His best known works of fiction were generally Gothic and dealt with themes like the effects of decomposition, the concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning.
Poe’s works are also associated with the part of dark romanticism genre. He became famous for his poems like, “The Raven.”
With his poems and short stories, Poe captured the imagination and attention of readers here in America as well as all around the world. His creative talents led to the start of many different literary genres, earning him the nickname "Father of the Detective Story" among his other merits. His life, however, has become a bit of mystery in itself, and the lines between fact and fiction have been blurred substantially ever since his death.
Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were actor David Poe, Jr. and actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe. He had a brother and sister, William Henry Leonard Poe, was his older brother and Rosalie Poe was his younger sister. Poe’s father left the family in 1810 and the following year his mother died from pulmonary tuberculosis. Poe was raised by John Allan, a successful Scottish businessman and his wife, Frances Allan, in Richmond, Virginia. He and Frances seemed to form a lasting bond, but he never quite had a bond with John. John Allan took young Edgar into his home and became his Godfather. John Allan had businesses of tobacco, cloth, wheat, tombstones, and slaves. Poe was baptized in the Episcopal Church in 1812. In 1815 the family sailed to Britain, where Poe attended the grammar school in Irvine, Scotland. He rejoined the family in London in 1816. Until summer 1817, he studied at a boarding school in Chelsea. He also studied at the Reverend John Bransby’s Manor House School at Stoke Newington. Poe traveled back to Richmond, Virginia in 1820, at the age of ten Edgar and the Allen's returned to Virginia to stay. In 1824 during the celebration of the visit of Marquis de Lafayette in Richmond, he served as the lieutenant of the Richmond youth honor guard. Preferring poetry over profits, Poe reportedly wrote poems on the back of some of John Allan's business papers.
The death of John Allan’s uncle, William Galt, a wealthy merchant, in March of 1825, left John an inheritance of several acres of real estate worth an estimated $750,000. In the meantime, Poe was engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster. In February of 1826, he left for the University of Virginia to study languages, the University had just been established and was based on the principles of Thomas Jefferson. There were very strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco and alcohol but they were commonly ignored. During Edgar’s stay at the University, he became detached from Sarah and also became more and more addicted to gambling. Due to his gambling debts he became alienated from John Allan. Poe even claimed that he was not given enough money to register for classes, purchase texts, and acquire and furnish a dormitory. The additional money that was sent to him for clothes was also spent on gambling, with his debts ever increasing. After a year, Poe dropped out of the University, but he didn’t want to return to Richmond after finding out that Sarah, the love of his life, had married Alexander Shelton, and so instead, he moved to Boston, in April of 1827. In Boston, he did a wide variety of odd jobs such as a clerk and newspaper writer. For a while, he even started using the alias “Henri Le Rennet”, this alias was a name inspired by Henry. Henry Poe was an inspiration to his brother's life and writings and the two shared comparable writing styles. Henry's influence on Edgar's writing include a character in his novel “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” and possibly the name of the title character in the poem "Lenore."
At first, Poe seemed to be embracing the twin objectives.
Poe published his first book, “Tamerlane and Other Poems” in 1827, and he had joined the army around the same time. Poe wanted to go to West Point, the military academy, and won a spot there in 1830. Before going to West Point, he published a second collection “Al Aaraaf,” “Tamerlane,” and “Minor Poems” in 1829. Poe excelled at his studies at West Point, but he was kicked out after a year for his poor handling of his duties. There is a lot of speculation that he deliberately sought to be court-martialed. During his time at West Point, Poe had a major falling out with his foster father, and Allan decided to sever all ties with
him.
After leaving the academy, Poe focused on his writing full time. He moved around in search of opportunities, living in New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Richmond. From 1831 to 1835, he remained in Baltimore with his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter Virginia. His young cousin, Virginia, became a literary inspiration to Poe as well as his love interest, the couple married in 1836, as some sources say, when she was only 13 or 14 years old.
Returning to Richmond in 1835, Poe went to work for a magazine called the Southern Literary Messenger.
There he developed a reputation as a fierce and intense critic, writing vicious reviews of his contemporaries. Poe also published some of his own works in the magazine, including two parts of his only novel, “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.” His tenure there proved short, however, Poe's aggressive-reviewing style and sometimes combative personality, strained his relationship with the publication, and he left the magazine in 1837. His problems with his drinking also played a role in his departure, according to some rumors. Poe moved on to Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and The Broadway Journal for very brief stints at each
paper.
Following his brother, Henry’s death, Poe started putting more energy into his career as a writer. He was most likely the first well known writer in the America to make a living on his writings alone. Although the publications in America were having a booming growth, they were constantly troubled by the lack of International Copyright laws. Writers were paid very poorly by their publishers, which caused some financial problems for Poe. After his earlier attempts as a poet, he started writing prose. Poe placed some of his stories in the Philadelphia publication and even started writing the drama, “Politian.” In October 1833, he was awarded with a prize from the Baltimore Saturday Visiter for his short story, “MS. Found in a Bottle.” This story was liked by John P. Kennedy which introduced Poe to Thomas W. White, the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. In August 1835, Poe became the assistant editor of the publication, but was fired after a few weeks for being intoxicated while at work. He was reinstated to his job after he made a promise to be on his best behavior and stay away from the alcohol. He stayed with the Messenger until 1837. During this period, he published numerous stories, poems, book reviews in the paper.
In late 1830s, Poe published Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, a collection of stories. It contained several of his most spine-chilling tales, including "The Fall of the House of Usher," "Ligeia" and "William Wilson." Poe launched the new category of detective fiction with 1841's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." As writer on the rise, he won a literary prize in 1843 for "The Gold Bug," a suspenseful tale of secret codes and hunting treasure.
Poe became a literary sensation in 1845 with the publication of the poem "The Raven." It is considered a great American literary work and one of the best works of Poe's career. In this work, Poe explored some of his common themes—death and loss. An unknown narrator laments the demise of his great love Lenore. That same year, he found himself under attack for his harsh condemnation of his fellow poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Poe claimed that Longfellow, a very popular literary figure of the time, was a plagiarist, and this written assault on Longfellow created some repercussions for Poe. The conflict had much deeper causes, both poets were New Englanders, but Poe was the rebellious guy constantly attacking the Bostonian cultural establishment, as he was determined to forge for himself an identity of his own, while Longfellow was totally the embodiment of that establishment, even more, its Pontifex Maximus. The lack of any mutual understanding came naturally, to set things straight, the two poets did not behave the same in this dispute. Poe accused Longfellow, who never responded, it was Rufus Wilmot Griswold, a noted anthologist, editor, and literary critic, who accused Poe of plagiarizing Longfellow.
Continuing to work in different forms, Poe examined his own methodology and writing in general in several compositions, including "The Philosophy of Composition," "The Poetic Principle" and "The Rationale of Verse." He also produced another thrilling tale, "The Cask of Amontillado," and poems such as "Ulalume" and "The Bells."
Poe was overcome by grief after the death of his beloved wife Virginia in 1847. While he continued to work, he suffered from poor health and struggled financially. His final days remain somewhat of a mystery. He left Richmond on September 27, 1849, and was supposedly on his way to Philadelphia.
Edgar Allan Poe’s death of on October 7, 1849, has remained mysterious: the circumstances leading up to his death are uncertain and the cause of his death is still disputed. On October 3, Poe was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, "in great distress, and ... in need of immediate medical assistance," according to Joseph W. Walker, the man who found him. He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died at 5 a.m. on Sunday, October 7. Poe was never coherent enough to explain how he came to be in the condition he was found in. His last words were "Lord, help my poor soul."
Much of the surviving information about the last days of Poe's life comes from his physician, Dr. John Joseph Moran, though his credibility has also been called into question. Poe was buried after a small service at the back of Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore, Maryland, but his remains were moved to a new grave with a larger monument in 1875. The newer monument also marks the burial place of Poe's wife, Virginia, and his mother-in-law, Maria. Theories as to what caused the death of Poe's include suicide, murder, cholera, Hypoglycemia, rabies, syphilis, influenza, and that Poe was a victim of cooping which was a form of electoral fraud during Poe’s lifetime, in which unwilling participants were forced to vote, often several times over, for a particular candidate in an election. Evidence of him being under the influence of alcohol is strongly disputed.
After Poe's death, Rufus Wilmot Griswold wrote his obituary under the pseudonym "Ludwig." Griswold, who became the literary executor of Poe's estate, was actually a vicious rival of Poe’s and later published his first full biography, depicting him as a wicked, alcoholic, drug addicted madman. Much of the evidence he used for this image of Poe is believed to have been fabricated by Griswold, and though friends of Poe denounced it, this version had an everlasting impact.
Even though he made a living from his writing he was never a financial success while he was alive, Poe has become one of America's most enduring writers. His works are as gripping today as they were more than a century ago. A bright, creative thinker, Poe has created stories and poems that are still as shocking and surprising today as they were in his time. Readers today are still as captivated by his writings as the readers were in his life time.
As for myself, I had never been a very big fan of Poe’s. However, after my research and our class discussions my thoughts on him have changed drastically for the better as I now understand his writing and his life. It seems that there was some mental illness or depression in his life, maybe stemming from the loss of his mother and the abandonment by his father and the loss of his wife, along with a very unstable childhood. After researching his life and studying his works, it makes him a lot more interesting and understandable to me. His writings were dark, but bring light to subjects that at the time were never talked about or even acknowledged. His writings were way beyond his time and assuredly he is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, writer of all times. His influence on the literary community has reached far beyond his lifetime and brought about so many genres of writing. I have liked writings that were influenced by Poe that until now I had no Idea he had started them. It was a pleasure researching this man and finding out that while maybe he was a little insane, he was a genius with his writing and literary skill.