Edgar Allen Poe :: essays research papers

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) Written and Contributed by SUGABUGA456 Edgar Allan Poe was one of America’s famous poets, fiction short-story writers, and literary critics. He is known as the first master of short story form especially in tales of horror, and mystery. The work he produced was considered to be some of the most influential literary criticism of his time. His poems made him one of the most famous figures in American literary history. His influence on literature is seen in all literature books in schools everywhere. Some of his famous writings is that of "Annabel Lee"; his detective story, "The Murders in Rue Morgue"; "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" are the best among his horror stories; and The Raven one of his best poems which among all these, made him very famous in 1845. "The Fall of the House of Usher", and "The Masque of the Red Death", made him a forerunner of symbolism, and impres sionism. Poe antagonized many people with a scathing campaign against an American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for supposed plagiarism. Later that year Poe admitted to being drunk, which further separated him from the public. Poe’s later years were full of economic hardship and ill health. Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809. He was orphaned at the early age of two, his father deserted the family and his mother died all before he was three in 1811, then Poe became a ward and was raised as a foster child by John Allan, a wealthy merchant of tobacco, and his wife Frances in Richmond, VA but they never legally adopted him. Taken by the Allan family to England at the age of six, Poe was placed in a private school. In 1826 Poe enrolled at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. where he acquired gambling debts that John Allan refused to pay. Eventually, Poe was forced to withdraw from the university, and Allan prevented his return to the university and broke off Poe’s engagement to Sarah Elmira Royster, his Richmond sweetheart. His relationship with Allan was declined and he moved from his foster father and enlisted in the army. Also in 1827, he went to Boston where he wrote his fist book "Tamerlane and other poems" that he sold for $.12 a copy but it didn’t sell. He served a two year term while waiting for an appointment to the US Military Academy.