American writer, poet and critic Edgar Allan Poe (Edgar Allan Roe) was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston (USA) into a family of actors of a traveling troupe. At the age of two, he became an orphan, after which he was adopted by a merchant from Virginia - John Allan. He was brought up in a closed boarding school in England; in 1826 he entered the aristocratic University of Virginia in Charlottensville. In his student years, he was fond of gambling, participated in revelry, which provoked conflicts with his stepfather. After one of these quarrels, the future writer left the house of his adoptive parents.

In 1828, with the financial support of his adoptive parents, he returned to Boston, where he published collections of "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems" (Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, 1829) and "Poems" (Poems, 1831), but these undertakings were not successful. have had.

In 1830 he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, but soon left his studies, which provoked a final break with John Allan. Left without financial support, Edgar Poe again found himself on the brink of poverty.

In 1833, he first appeared as a prose writer with the short story "A manuscript found in a bottle", for which he received the Baltimore Sunday Visitor magazine prize.

During the 1830s, he continued to write novels, regularly published in the literary magazine Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, where he gained a reputation as an original and witty critic. These publications later compiled the famous two-volume "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque" (1840).

In 1836, Edgar Poe married his cousin Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe.

In 1837, in search of more paid work, he moved to New York, but due to the financial crisis he could not find work there.

In 1838-1843 he lived with his wife and her mother in Philadelphia, worked for Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and Graham’s Magazine, tried to publish his own magazine, The Stylus. He has published about thirty short stories and many literary critical articles.

In October 2009, 160 years after his death, Edgar Allan Poe was honored with a second funeral service. The fancy-dress ceremony took place at the writer's museum in Boston, where a coffin with a dummy of Edgar Poe was exhibited.

The originality of Poe's style did not find followers in America. In the European literary tradition, Poe was influenced by Charles Baudelaire, Stephen Mallarmé, Maurice Maeterlinck, Oscar Wilde, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Russian Symbolists - Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Konstantin Balmont, Valery Bryusov - were also fond of Poe's work.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

The predecessor of decadence and modernism, whose creations were marked with the stamp of boundless melancholy, the writer Edgar Allan Poe is familiar to many as the creator of cult dark stories with mystical overtones. A literary man trying to take readers beyond the framework of trivial thinking, in his short stories, philosophical fiction and rationalizations, he was engaged in artistic research of the activity of human intelligence. The formation of the genres of detective and psychological thriller is a direct merit of the prose writer.

The best minds of the nineteenth century, including the Symbolist writers and, admired the realism of the mental suffering described in the works of the "damned poet" and the professionalism with which Poe balanced between the horror of life and the joy of death. Even during Edgar's lifetime, people who were not devoid of imaginative thought declared that the name of the romantic sufferer shrouded in a halo would go down in the history of world literature.

Childhood and youth

The future spiritual mentor was born on January 19, 1809 in the northeastern United States in the capital of Massachusetts, Boston. The poet's parents, Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins and David Poe, were creatively gifted people. His mother is an English actress who emigrated to America, and his father is a law student from Baltimore, who preferred the path of acting to the well-paid legal profession. It is known from the biography of the genius of the literary arabesque that, in addition to him, two more children were raised in the family: the elder brother William Henry Leonard (1807-1831) and the younger sister Rosalie (1810-1874).

The head of the family left his wife when Edgar was barely a year old. Nothing is known for certain about the further fate of the man. In 1811, the poet's mother died of consumption. All three children have officially found adoptive parents. Edgar ended up in the family of John Allan and his wife Francis, co-owner of a cotton and tobacco trading company. The spouses, being highly respected personalities, had great influence in the elite circles of Richmond, where they lived before leaving for England.

In the house of the Allans, the boy, who does not know either warmth or affection, found the care that he so lacked. Francis doted on Edgar and did not refuse anything to the child, whom she considered family. John did not share his wife's delight. The man did not understand why his beloved chose adoption over the natural process of childbirth. Despite some misunderstandings, the merchant also spoiled his adopted son. As a child, Edgar had at his disposal whatever he wanted. Parents did not set a price limit on whims and needs at that time.

Edgar showed early learning ability, and at the age of 5 he was sent to school. In 1815, the Allan family left for Great Britain to work. There the harsh climate and the no less harsh customs of English educational institutions became Po educators. He returned to America as a strengthened, precocious teenager. The knowledge gained by the future poet in the Old World made it possible to easily enter a local college in 1820. However, the financial difficulties that the family faced upon returning to their homeland, and the occasional conflicts between Francis and John, negatively affected Po.

The once cheerful guy increasingly retired in his room, preferring the company of books to noisy companies of his peers. During the period of voluntary seclusion, Edgar's interest in poetry appeared. Allan did not understand the young man's new passion. In the opinion of a man devoid of creative thinking, the best occupation for Edgar would be hard work in the family store, where in the future Poe would be able to obtain the right to a share in the business. During the quarrels, which were caused by different life priorities, John constantly reminded his adopted son that his life is entirely dependent on the guardian.

As a college student, Poe fell madly in love with his friend's mother, Jane Stenard. Communication of a respectable age of a lady and an ardent youth was reduced to backstage meetings and conversations all night long. Subsequently, Edgar dedicated the poem "Elena" to his beloved (as the prose writer called the chosen one). For the first time in his life, Poe was happy. True, the prose writer did not enjoy the delights of mutual love for long.

In 1824, Jane contracted meningitis, lost her mind, and died. Heartbroken Edgar began to torment nightmares. Most of all, the young man was frightened when, in the pitch darkness of the night, it seemed to him that an icy hand was falling on his face. A well-functioning imagination repeatedly drew a terrible face of a hitherto unknown creature approaching him from the pre-dawn twilight.

Young Edgar Poe and Jane Stenard

According to biographers, it was at this time that the first symptoms of the writer's mental disorder began to appear, which subsequently transformed into a frequently occurring apathetic state, persecution mania and thoughts of suicide. In the spring of 1825, the writer’s stepfather received an inheritance of $ 750 thousand from his deceased uncle and became one of the richest people in Richmond. Poe decided to take the opportunity and persuaded Allan to pay for tuition at the University of Virginia. True, John, who became greedy for money in his old age, decided to save money. Instead of the $ 350 required to pay, he gave the young man only $ 110.

Upon arrival at the educational institution founded, Edgar found himself in a bourgeois environment alien to him. In the society of wealthy young men and women, Poe tried in vain to match them, but the handouts sent by the guardian were only enough to pay for housing. Edgar decided to make money playing cards, exacerbating an already precarious state of affairs. In December 1826, John Allan received numerous invoices from Edgar's creditors. In terrible anger, the merchant arrived in Charlottesville and informed his adopted son that this was the end of his university epic, which had not really begun.

Portrait of Edgar Poe, 1843

Despite Poe's obvious academic successes and successfully passed the exams, the young man could no longer stay at the university and after the end of the academic year on December 21, 1826, he left it. The beginning poet was acutely worried about his shame. His stepfather added fuel to the fire and every day accused the former student of irresponsibility, and after another quarrel he kicked Poe out of the house. Edgar settled in the "Court-House" tavern, from where he wrote letters to Allan, continuing to sort things out in epistolary form. After staying in the room of a noble establishment for a couple of days, Poe went to Norfolk, and then to Boston.

Literature

In his hometown, the writer by chance met a young typographer Calvin Thomas, and he agreed to publish his first collection of poems "Tamerlane". The work was published in 1827. In the preface, Poe apologized to the readers for the dampness of the works published in the book and explained that he wrote these masterpieces at the age of 12-14.

In 1829, the second poetry collection "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and other poems" was published, in April 1831, the poet's third book, "Poems", was published, which included previously unpublished works ("Israfel", "Pean", "The Condemned City "," To Elena "," Sleeping "). The success of The Crow in early 1845 made it possible for Edgar to collect his new poems in a separate edition of Stories, which hit the shelves in the same year.

It should be noted that the novelistic genre has always occupied the main place in Allan's work. Poe's short stories can be conditionally divided into several thematic groups: psychological ("Black Cat", "Ligeia", "Keg of Amontillado", "Oval Portrait"), logical ("The Golden Beetle", "Murder on the Rue Morgue", "The Secret of Marie Roger "," The Stolen Letter "), humorous (" Glasses "," Without Breathing "," The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade ") and sci-fi (" The Unusual Adventure of a Hans Pfaal "," Sphinx "," Story with a Balloon ") ...

The era of detective literature began with four logical works of the writer, in which the detective Auguste Dupin became the main character. The detective, born of Edgar's fantasy, became the prototype of the famous bloodhounds: Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Although it was the stories that made Po popular, it was only in poetry that the writer showed himself to the world. With the help of poems, Edgar established closer contact with readers.

Personal life

The writer met his first and only wife in the year when his stepfather kicked him out of the house. After learning that her nephew had nowhere to live, Aunt Clemm happily welcomed Poe to her estate in Baltimore. It was then that love broke out between the melancholic Edgar and the good-natured Virginia. The wedding took place on September 12, 1835. The wedding was secret. Edgar was 26 years old at the time of his marriage, and his chosen one was only 13 years old. Mrs. Clemm's relatives opposed this marriage.

In their opinion, it was extremely unreasonable to deprive Virginia of childhood by marrying her to a bum (at that time poetry was not considered an occupation for a worthy man). The elderly woman thought differently: from the very beginning she saw a genius in Edgar and knew that she could not find a better party for her daughter.

Virginia became a guiding star in Poe's life, inspiring him to create outstanding creations. The young lady loved her Eddie so much that she put up with poverty, which stubbornly did not let their family go, and with the difficult character of a writer. It is worth noting that Edgar was strangely dependent on the well-being and mood of his wife. When Poe's beloved died of tuberculosis in January 1847, the writer fell into a prolonged depression. The widower preferred strong drinks to work and the hugs of other women. Only alcohol allowed the creator to forget the horror that he had to endure.

Death

Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849 in Baltimore Hospital. According to the testimony of a doctor who observed the writer's condition in the last days of his life, the author of the story "The Frog" was taken to the hospital on October 3, 1849. Disoriented in space and time, the writer was dressed in clothes from someone else's shoulder and did not remember his last name or first name. The man who lost his mind was placed in a room with barred windows. For a couple of days in the hospital, Poe never recovered. He was tormented by hallucinations and convulsions, he mentioned his long-dead wife, and also repeatedly pronounced the name of a certain Reynolds, whose identity could not be identified.

After four days in a medical institution, the poet died. His last words were: "Lord, accept my poor soul." All medical records, including the death certificate of Edgar Poe, have disappeared. The newspapers of that time explained the death of the writer as a brain disease and inflammation of the central nervous system. In the 19th century, these diagnoses were often made to people who died of alcoholism. What actually caused the death of the legend of world literature is still unknown. The funeral procession, which was attended by only a couple of people, took place on October 8 of the same year. Poe was buried in Baltimore's Westminster Cemetery in a cheap coffin without handles, a nameplate, bedspreads and pillows under his head.

On October 1, 1875, the writer's ashes were transferred to a tomb located closer to the entrance. Also, at the expense of fans of the writer's work, a monument was made and erected. The literary legacy of the mystifier has survived in collections of poems, poems and stories. Among other things, the works "The Well and the Pendulum", "The Fall of the House of Usher", "The Mask of the Red Death", "Berenice", "Murder on Morgue Street" and "Metzengerstein" formed the basis of the plot of modern films and television series.

Bibliography

• "Spirits of Death" (1827);
• Dreams (1827);
• Romance (1829);
• Metzengerstein (1832);
• "Manuscript Found in a Bottle" (1833);
• The Fall of the House of Usher (1839);
• Silence (1840);
• The Well and the Pendulum (1842);
• Linor (1843);
• The Mask of the Red Death (1843);
• "Premature Burial" (1844);
• The Raven (1845);
• Enigma (1849);
• Annabelle Lee (1849);
• "Jump-Jump" ("Frog") (1849).

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Edgar Allan Poe (01.19.1809 - 10.07.1849) is an American writer, the founder of modern detective and psychological prose. He became famous as the author of mystical stories and poems. Zodiac sign - .

Edgar Poe: biography

Edgar Poe was born in Boston. At two years old, he lost his parents, who were actors, from the close people remained an older brother and a younger sister. The elder brother was taken away by his father's parents, and Edgar and Rosalie's sister were taken up in different families.

There were no other children in the foster family, and all the love and care of the new parents went to him. At six he entered a London boarding school and studied there for five years. Returning to the United States, he started college. The next step was the University of Richmond.

Studying was easy: at the age of five he began to read, at school he received a versatile education - English literature, general history, mathematics, natural sciences. Physically he was well developed, his studies were accompanied by collective pranks.

From an early age he was fond of poetry, made fantastic plans, loved psychological experiments.

His well-to-do life ended in his first year at university. Edgar had an uneven, eccentric character, as a result, in his youth, it became difficult for him to find a common language with his adoptive father. There are different versions of what was the reason for the breakup.

After leaving home and university, our hero went to his hometown of Boston. There he publishes a collection of his poems "Tamerlane and Other Poems". This does not bring him success, and in order to have a livelihood, at the age of eighteen he enlists in the army, in an artillery regiment.

He successfully served a year under the name of Edgar A. Perry and even received the rank of sergeant major. The strict army framework is not for him, and at his request, the adoptive father found a replacement for his son, releasing him from service.

The beginning of the creative path

Once free from service, Edgar devotes himself to creativity. His paternal uncle, George Poe, introduces the young man to the editor of a Baltimore newspaper, William Gwynne. A collection of poems "Al-Aaraaf, Tamerlane and small poems" is published, but this does not bring success.

In March 1830, Edgar was sent to the military academy against his will by his adoptive father. The young man had to study at the academy for five years. But at 22 (a year after admission) he was expelled, and relations with his adoptive father were ruined again. Edgar leaves for New York and publishes the third collection of his poems there, again without success.

Career

After the unsuccessful publication of the third collection of poems, he returns to Baltimore, where he lives with his mother's aunt. A difficult period begins. Poe writes short stories, poems, short stories. Within two years his life became financially scarce, and by the fall of 1833 - simply hungry.

So in 1833 he sent six of his stories and an excerpt from the poem "Colosseum" to a competition in the Baltimore weekly. His works are recognized as the best, and he receives a $ 100 prize.

After that, life changed. He joins the Richmond-based Southern Literary Messenger magazine. At this time, many of his stories and poems were published. In 1838. he and his family move to Philadelphia.

Work in new magazines is connected with the move. In 1844, the peak of the writer's fame comes. This is due to the publication of the poem "The Raven". The story "The Demon of Contradiction" followed.

Personal life

The writer married at the age of 27 his cousin Virginia Klemm, who at that time was 13 years old.

In 1847, Virginia dies of tuberculosis and the consequences of a bursting blood vessel. The writer had a severe nervous breakdown, which was not the first in his life. At first, his friend Ms. Shue helps him.

But after Edgar's mental state continued to deteriorate and seizures of alcoholism became more frequent, Shue withdraws from him. Further, the writer tried to find his happiness in communicating with women, but it did not come to marriage.

The trip to Richmond, where he gave a lecture on The Poetic Principle, was the last in his life. At the age of 40 (10/07/1849), he dies in a hospital in Baltimore.

The twenty years during which Poe wrote his works made him famous. Jules Verne was admired before his work, considering him the founder of the genre in which they later worked.

Edgar Poe: a short biography (video)

By Edgar Allan (1809-1849), American writer.

Born January 19, 1809 in Boston into a family of itinerant actors. Very early he became an orphan: in 1810 Edgar's father disappeared, and two years later his mother died. The boy was brought up by the family of a merchant from Richmond J. Allan.

In the years 1815-1820. Poe lived in England, where he was brought up in a closed boarding school. Upon returning to America, he attended college. In 1826, he entered the University of Virginia, which he had to leave a year later, because his adoptive father flatly refused to pay his stepson's gambling debts. Fleeing from creditors, Poe enlisted in the army, and in 1830 he became a student at the military academy at West Point. However, the hardships of military service turned out to be unbearable for the young poet, who by that time had published the first collections of poetry. Leaving everything, he went to Baltimore, where his aunt lived, and completely devoted himself to literary activity.

He wrote stories, poems, critical articles, worked as an editor. In 1835, Poe was offered to head the journal "Southern Literary Bulletin". Improving his life allowed him to start a family - in 1836 he married his 14-year-old cousin Virginia. However, the happiness lasted only 11 years. The death of his wife from consumption in 1847 was a terrible shock for Po, from which he could no longer recover. The writer fell into depression, tried to commit suicide. Drowning out the mental pain, I got carried away by alcohol.

Poe stands at the origins of several genres: science fiction (The Tale of the Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym, 1838); literature of horrors (two-volume "Grotesques and Arabesques", 1840); detective (Murder on Morgue Street, 1841; The Golden Beetle, 1843).

This writer is considered an unsurpassed master of the novella, which, under his pen, could be tragic, and humorous, and "terrible" and fantastic.

Poe's early poetry carries the features of romanticism (Tamerlane and Other Poems, 1827). In adulthood, with the help of his imagination, he tried to overcome the finiteness of time, the inevitability of death ("The Raven" and other poems, 1845). In mysticism, Po seeks answers to heartbreaking questions.

Edgar Poe's biography is full of blank spots. This stems from the disdainful attitude of many of his contemporaries and the writer's plight. In fact, the history of the poet began to be restored with an open mind only in the 20th century, but by that time there was little information about his life. Today Edgar Allan Poe remains one of the most mysterious personalities. There were many assumptions about the circumstances of his death already in 1849, but the real cause of the poet's death will most likely remain unsolved forever. However, this fact does not prevent millions of people today from enjoying the prose and poetry of the great writer.

Loss of parents, foster family

The story of Edgar Poe begins on January 19, 1809 in Boston (USA). The future writer appeared in a family of traveling artists. Edgar did not live long with his parents: his mother died of consumption when he was only two years old, his father either disappeared, or died even earlier. Then the boy, by and large, was lucky for the only time in his life - he was taken up by Allana's wife. Francis, the adoptive mother, fell in love with the baby and persuaded her husband, a wealthy merchant John, to adopt him. He was not happy with the appearance of Edgar, but gave in to his wife, who could not give birth to her own son.

Edgar Allan Poe spent his childhood in Virginia. He did not need anything: he was dressed according to the latest fashion, he had dogs, a horse and even a servant at his disposal. The future writer began his studies at a London boarding school, where he was given at the age of 6. The boy returned to the United States with his family when he turned eleven. There he went to college in Richmond, and then, in 1826, to the University of Virginia, which had opened the year before.

End of luck

Edgar quickly mastered knowledge, was distinguished by physical endurance and a passionate, nervous character, which subsequently gave him a lot of trouble. As biographers note, the latter feature predetermined his quarrel with his father. The exact reasons are unknown: either the young writer forged his stepfather's signature on the bills of exchange, or he got angry because of the gambling debts of his adopted son. One way or another, at the age of 17, Poe was left without funds and left the university, having studied only in the first year.

The young man returned to Boston, where he studied poetry. Edgar Poe decided to publish the poems written during that period under the pseudonym "Boston". However, his plan failed: the book did not come out, and the already meager funds ran out.

Short military career

In such a situation, Edgar Poe made an unexpected decision. He entered the military under an assumed name. Poe spent about a year in the army. He received the rank of sergeant major, was considered one of the best, but could not stand such a regulated life. Presumably, at the beginning of 1828, the young poet turned to his stepfather for help. He, after the persuasion of his wife, helped Edgar to be released from service. The writer did not have time to thank his stepmother: she died on the eve of his arrival in Richmond. So the poet lost the second woman truly dear to him.

Baltimore, West Point and long awaited publication

Having safely parted with the army, Edgar went to Baltimore for a while. There he met with paternal relatives: aunt Maria Klemm, uncle George Poe, his son Nelson. Being in a tight financial situation, the writer settled with his aunt, and a little later returned to Richmond.

During his stay in Baltimore, Edgar met W. Gwynne, the editor of a local newspaper, and through him also with J. Neal, a writer from New York. Poe gave them his poems. After receiving positive reviews, Edgar decided to try to publish them again. A collection entitled "Al-Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Small Poems" was published in 1829, but did not become widely known.

The stepfather insisted on continuing the education of his adopted son, and in 1830 the young man entered the Military Academy at West Point. Despite the strict daily routine, Edgar Poe found time to be creative and entertained fellow practitioners with satirical poetic sketches of life at the academy. He was supposed to serve five years, however, like the last time, already at the very beginning of his studies, he realized that a military career was not for him. Edgar tried again to turn to his stepfather, but another quarrel interrupted his plans. However, the poet was not at a loss: having ceased to comply with the charter, he achieved expulsion from the academy in 1831.

Attempts to gain recognition

The biography of Edgar Poe is extremely scanty for information about his life in the period from 1831 to 1833. It is known that he lived for some time in Baltimore with Maria Klemm. There he fell in love with her daughter and his cousin Virginia. The girl was then only 9 years old. Since the fall of 1831, practically nothing is known about the poet's life. Some researchers of his biography believe that he could have gone on a trip to Europe. Numerous detailed descriptions of the Old World, found on the pages of the writer's works, indirectly testify in favor of this fact. However, there is no other confirmation of this theory. Many biographers note that Poe was severely limited in funds and could hardly afford the travel expenses.

However, all researchers agree that the three years following the expulsion from West Point were productive. Edgar Poe, whose books were not yet popular, continued to work. In 1833, he submitted six short stories and poems to the Baltimore weekly Saturday Visitor competition. Both those and others were recognized as the best. For the story "Manuscript Found in a Bottle," Poe was rewarded with a cash prize of $ 100.

In addition to money, Edgar received some fame, and with it, invitations to work in magazines. He began collaborating with the Saturday Visitor and later with Southern Literary Messenger, published in Richmond. In the latter, the writer published in 1835 the short stories "Morella" and "Berenice" and a little later - "The Adventures of Hans Pfall".

Gorgeous virginia

In the same year, Edgar Poe, whose work was already more famous than before, received an invitation to become editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. To take office with a fee of $ 10 a month, it was necessary to move to Richmond. Po agreed, but before leaving he wished to marry his beloved Virginia, who was then less than 13 years old. A girl of extraordinary beauty has long captivated the writer. In the heroines of many of his works, you can guess her image. Virginia's mother agreed, and the young married secretly, after which Poe left for Richmond, and his beloved lived in Baltimore for another year. An official ceremony took place in 1836.

Less than a year later, Edgar Poe resigned as editor after an altercation with the publisher of Southern Literary Messenger, and moved to New York with Maria Klemm and Virginia.

New York and Philadelphia

The two years he spent in New York were controversial for the writer. Edgar Poe, whose poetry and prose was published in the pages of several magazines in the city, received very little for his work. He published works such as Ligeia and The Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym, but earned the most from the chronology manual, which was an abridged version of the work of a Scottish professor.

The family moved to Philadelphia in 1838. Edgar got a job as editor of Gentleman’s Magazine, where he published several of his works. These included The Fall of the House of Escher and the beginning of the unfinished Papers of Julius Rodman.

Dream and reality

Working in various publications, Edgar Poe was looking for something more. He dreamed of his own magazine. He came closest to the realization of the idea in Philadelphia. Announcements for a new magazine called Penn Magazine were published. For lacked a little - money, but this obstacle turned out to be insurmountable.

In 1841, Gentleman’s Magazine merged with The Casket to release a new Graham’s Magazine, with Edgar Poe as its editor-in-chief. Short stories, poems and short stories, written earlier, he shortly before combined into two volumes and published the collected works "Grotesques and Arabesques" at the end of 1840. It was a short period when everything seemed to be going well. However, in March 1842, Edgar was again unemployed. The magazine collapsed, and Rufus Wilmot Griswold was invited to the editorial office of Gentleman's Magazine. The latter, according to one version, was the reason for Poe's departure: he, to put it mildly, disliked Griswold.

Then there was work at the Saturday Museum and the publication of several fairy tales and short stories for mere pennies. The only exception, perhaps, was the "Golden Beetle". Edgar sent him to a literary competition. The Golden Beetle won and brought its author $ 100. After the story was reprinted many times, which, however, did not bring income to the writer, since then it was a matter of the future.

New misery

Edgar Poe's biography is full of sad events. As the researchers of his life note, the reason for many of them was his passionate nature, a tendency to depression and alcohol. However, one of the main tragedies - the death of Virginia - was not his fault. The poet's wife was sick with tuberculosis. The first sign of severe illness, throat bleeding, appeared in 1842. The patient was on the verge of death, but after a while she recovered. However, the consumption that took away Edgar's mother did not give up. Virginia died slowly over the years.

For the unstable nervous system of the writer, it was a heavy blow. He practically stopped writing. The family was again in dire need of money. In 1844 they returned to New York. New works written by Edgar Poe were published here. The Crow, the poet's most famous poem, was published in the Evening Mirror.

The culmination of creativity

Edgar Poe is considered one of the finest American authors today. He laid the foundation for the genre of "science fiction", the writer's books became the first examples of mystical detective story. The main work of Poe, which brought him fame and recognition, but not wealth, was "The Raven". The poem perfectly conveys the writer's attitude to life. A person is allowed only a short moment, filled with suffering and hard work, and all his hopes are in vain. The lyrical hero yearns for his deceased lover and asks the talking bird if he can ever see her again. Such is Poe: "The Raven" is distinguished by a special inner tension and tragedy, which completely capture the reader, despite the almost complete absence of a plot.

The writer received $ 10 for the publication. However, "The Raven" brought him more than money. The poet became famous, they began to invite him to lectures in different cities, which somewhat strengthened his financial position. During the year, while the "white" streak lasted, Poe published a collection of "The Crow and Other Poems", published several new stories and was invited to the editorial office of Brodway Journal. However, even here his irrepressible character did not allow him to prosper for a long time. In 1845, he fell out with other publishers, remained the only editor, but due to lack of funds was soon forced to leave his post.

Last years

Poverty came into the house again, and with it cold and hunger. Virginia died early in 1847. Many biographers note that the suffering poet was on the verge of insanity. For some time he could not work due to grief and alcohol and survived only thanks to the care of a few faithful friends. But sometimes he gathered strength and wrote. This period saw the creation of such works as "Yulalum", "Bells", "Annabel Lee" and "Eureka". He fell in love again and shortly before his death was going to marry again. In Richmond, where the writer lectured on The Poetic Principle, his literary work, Edgar Poe met his childhood friend Sarah Elmira Royster. He swore to his bride that he was over with hard drinking and depression. Before the wedding, there were only a few things to settle in Philadelphia and New York.

The Mystery of Edgar Poe

On October 3, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe was found in a semi-insane state on a bench in Baltimore. He was taken to the hospital, where he died without regaining consciousness on 7 October. There is still no consensus about the reasons for the death of the writer. Many researchers of the issue are inclined to the version of the so-called couping. Po was found on election day. Then in Baltimore, groups rampaged, driving citizens to secret shelters. People were pumped up with alcohol or drugs, and then forced to vote for the "correct" candidate several times. There is evidence that Edgar Poe was drunk at the time of the discovery, and not far from the ill-fated bench was one of these shelters. On the other hand, the writer was famous in Baltimore at the time and would hardly have been chosen as a victim.

Among the possible causes, various diseases are named today, from hypoglycemia and brain tumors to alcoholism and an overdose of laudanum. The reason for this confusion is the lack of medical records and the first biography of Edgar Poe, written by Griswold, an enemy of the writer. He portrayed the poet as a drunkard and insane, not worthy of trust and attention. This point of view on the personality of Po dominated until the end of the 19th century.

Creative heritage

One of the versions says that Poe's death was planned by the writer himself, as the last spectacular gesture for the public, greedy for mysticism and horror. The poet subtly felt what the reader wants. He understood that romanticism is much inferior in popularity to mysticism, which tickles the nerves and keeps in suspense. Edgar Poe, whose stories were full of fantastic incidents, skillfully combined imagination and logic. He became a pioneer of the genre Science fiction occupies a significant place in the writer's works. Edgar Poe's books are distinguished by their combination of imagination and logic. He laid a tragic tradition in American literature, formulated the principles of science fiction, and presented the world with a mystical detective story.

Today, Edgar Poe, whose books are an inspiration for many people, is considered a representative of intuitionism - a philosophical trend that recognizes the primacy of intuition in the process of cognition. However, the writer knew well that creativity is also painstaking work. He created his own aesthetic paradigm and several works on the theory of poetry: Philosophy of Creativity, Nathaniel Hawthorne's Novelistics, Poetic Principle. In "Eureka" the writer outlined philosophical and epistemological ideas. Edgar Allan Poe's contribution to the development of literature, including many of the favorite genres of modern readers, is invaluable. Studying his biography makes you think about fate and destiny. Who knows if Poe would have created so much if life had been more favorable to him?