POE

Poe's life was full of sorrow and misery. He was known for his “romantic” style of writing which was dark, dreary, and full of mystery. His terrible beginning years seemed to have a great effect on his life and his writing later on in his life. I feel as if his works were basically based on his life, almost like a biography which he wanted to share with others. This man was basically sad his whole life with all the mourning of his dead family members! He had his dad leave at a young age, mom die when he was young, and many others die, most of who died from the same thing, tuberculosis. From a young age he was probably lonely and depressed. This left him without any parents, though; he was shortly taken in by a rich merchant named John Allan. John Allan wanted Poe to be a businessman but instead he wanted to be a poet. He went to college at University of Virginia and ended up being very broke, desperate enough to burn furniture for some sort of warmth during the winters. Some years later, his foster family ended up dying as well. It was almost normal for him to lose someone in his life. This probably screwed him up in the head.  In The Raven and Ligeia, the narrator was mourning the death of a loved one, probably what he was doing in real life when he wrote the literary works. Poe, in real life, was probably wanting to know more about his loved ones and wanting to be with them. This could have been linked to his lost fiancé, who left him for another guy. He made the situation alive for the readers with the amount of description he gave in the stories, like he was just giving an account of what actually happened in his life. His incestuous relationship with Virginia, his cousin, may have been his premise for The Fall of the House of Usher. After she died, Poe was described as being a drunk and mentally unstable, just like Roddrick (for the mentally unstable part at least). His dark gothic style of writing had the same themes that embodied Poe as a person. Some examples would be mourning, the supernatural, and death. Though Poe’s life was cut short mysteriously (mysterious just like his stories!), he has created some amazing literary works that brings to life the story and whose meanings are still being debated today.