Edgar Allen Poe :: essays research papers

Edgar Allen Poe   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Who is Edgar Allen Poe? He was a 19th century American writer born to Elizabeth (â€Å"betty†) Arnold Hopkins and David Poe. (Internet source) Poe was an well-educated individual. He would attend a private school in London and then an academy in Richmond. Later being accepted to the University of Virginia, this however would not work out for him. He then would travel to Boston for work in which there would be none. Defeated he enlisted in the Army and soon regret the decision. Once out he would again try a military career, he was accepted to the U.S Military Academy. (Encyclopedia Britannica) This time he immediately regretting the decision. After his expulsion he entered a contest sponsored by the Baltimore Saturday Visitor. His story â€Å"MS. Found in a Bottle† â€Å"was considered to be the one of the world’s first science fiction stories, he won both the $50 prize and acclaim for its 24-year-old author.† (Internet source) He would then work at several different editorials, none of which really worked out for him. His dream though would be to own a magazine or paper of his own. He would come close twice but never succeed in keeping them alive due to his different habits.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  What made Edgar Allen Poe? Through his lifetime many different misfortunes and disasters would strike him. All of these would shape him and his writing to what we now associate as the father of modern diabolic fiction. (Internet source) The first of the tragedies to plague him would be the abandonment by his father. He would grow never knowing who his real father was. His father had left his family when Edgar was only an infant. The next misfortune would be the death of his mother when he was three. There was yet another factor that would shape him throughout his lifetime. He would also come how from his studies in England to find that his sweetheart from childhood was engaged. This caused him to write his first serious poem â€Å"Tamerlane† out of heartbreak. His luck with women throughout his lifetime would be rather in the bottom end of the barrel. He would eventually marry Virginia Clemm, his thirteen-old cousin. He would later lose her to tuberculosis and stop writing for a while, only to concentrate on â€Å"Ulalume† to express his mourn. He would try to remarry on two different occasions the first was ruined by rumor the second by his drinking habit.