What Is Edgar Allan Poe's Life

Tyler Schaeffer
Carrie Beavers
American Literature
November 30, 2015
The Fascinating Life of Edgar Allan Poe One of the most notorious American Poets that has ever lived, or arguably, the most notorious poet is Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe didn’t have much of a family. He had a very difficult life and had many struggles he had to face on his way to fame. His endeavor seemed pointless until he finally had an incredibly successful poem in that of “The Raven”. Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” was a very symbolic and illustrious poem that has many different views and criticisms.
1. Early Life “Edgar Allan Poe never really knew his real parents. His father left his family when he was very young and his mother died when he was only three years
Literary Career Edgar Allan Poe was most widely known for his enticing short horror stories. Poe is sometimes called the father of the horror story in America because he was one of the first American poets to produce horrific tales published to the public.
Poe’s first publication was in 1827 with his collection Tamerlane and other Poems which did not receive much attention at all (“Edgar”). His second collection that was published two years later, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems also didn’t seem to spark much interest among the readers at the time. Poe eventually took time off from writing to go to West Point but after his dismissal from West Point he moved to New York where he published his third collection called Poems in 1831 and then moved in with his Aunt and cousin in Baltimore (“Edgar”). “Over the next few years Poe’s first short stories appeared in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier and his “MS. Found in a Bottle” won a cash prize for best story in the Baltimore Saturday Visitor” (“Edgar”). Although seeing some success, there still wasn’t enough money coming in for Poe to have financial stability; until, one day, Poe stumbled upon an editing job for The Southern Literary Magazine and was able to accumulate a bit of money to help (“Edgar”). The same year, he published his collection The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, from which “The Raven” came from
He wrote in a symbolic manner and with great intensity and depth, but his idea for “The Raven” originally derived from another writer named Charles Dickens. In 1841, Charles Dickens wrote to a friend about his pet raven, Grip, who had just died; he then also devoted a book to this pet by putting him as a character in it. Poe read and reviewed the book a year later and told Dickens that he should’ve given the raven a “prophetic role” in the story. Sparked by an idea, Poe writes a prophetic raven into his own story in 1845 which received a lot of fame and praise among both the readers and critics (Fitzpatick).

“The Raven”, being one of the greatest poems in American history, shows Poe’s symbolic writing and the deep meaning of his poems. Poe was not thrown into fame. He worked hard his whole life to achieve literary success, and struggled to overcome obstacles all throughout his personal life with family and debts. Poe, however, didn’t let any of these twists and turns keep him from achieving the success he desired, as his works are some of the best in the history of American Literature,