Comments on: Edgar Allan Poe: Pioneer, Genius, Oddity

By: nforche gerald

nforche gerald — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 19:07:43 +0000

i admire the xwrititngs of this genius so much. i am just 22 btu i started reading poe about seven years agao. he has inspred me greatly and i am doing well in writing gothic short stories. the narrative of Gordon Pym is a great work, one of the greatest short stories ever written in american literature and in english.

every genius has a self-destructive element in him or her and you must know this. there is hardly a genius without a mental problem. it may be just a small mental prob or a very big one, but trust me there are few geniuses without one. any body who calls himself a genius without acting at times abnormally is not a genius. just that geniuses have to transcend or go beyond the ordinary either for inspiration or solace.

i have had this problem since i began creative writing. many peoople have called me names, others praised me, otheres are indifferent but nonetheless i am an aratist an i have to identify with other artists and geniuses subconsciously.

so thumbs up to this great man for he was never artificial.

By: W. Aaron

W. Aaron — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 23:26:22 +0000

I personally find the idea of “cooping” to be plausible. As referenced by Wikipedia: http://books.google.com/books?id=LEd-z8zUpcEC&lpg=PA27&ots=1dwIK00w4_&dq=%22Cooping%22%20voting&pg=PA27#v=onepage&q&f=false

As far as “mental illnesses” are concerned, I think that mental illness needs to be distinguished from eccentricity. Poe, after all, lived in the early-to-mid- 1800s, and was an anomaly of his time. I find it more frightening that most people were unwilling to delve into anything dark and were complacent with the times.

Poe invented the detective story. He wrote about travel to the moon even before Jules Verne came onto the scene. Mystery & macabre are simply a fraction of his works. He may have hated Transcendentalism, but I would recommend that anyone wishing to see another side of Poe to read “Landor’s Cottage.”

By: Literary Rob

Literary Rob — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 14:51:34 +0000

A late response, but I must say this is shoddy work, though it’s hard to blame the author or the interviewee for merely perpetuating a number of schoolboy assumptions about Poe (and not merely the incorrect spelling of Virginia Clemm’s last name).

Poe’s writing was not particularly dark for the time (Hawthorne, Melville, and George Lippard come to mind immediately), nor are they particularly dark today. Poe’s own reasoning for writing a few horror stories was that they sold well. And, ultimately, his horror stories constitute only about 1/3 of his published prose; generalization of his entire body of work (i.e. “he obsessively crafted dark, mysterious poetry, then turned to short stories in a similar vein”) can only come from one who has not read much of his writing. Even Longfellow, that champion of wholesomeness, wrote just as often about death as he did about life. Death as a wholly negative or even taboo topic is a modern convention.

As for marrying his cousin, well, certainly it seems strange today. But many were doing it, including Charles Darwin, and Poe’s acquaintance and fellow poet Thomas Holley Chivers. Age was another matter: 13 was young. It was far more acceptable to wait until the age of 15 or 16.

I won’t even get into the “he must have been drunk” aspect of his death. That flat statement is so ambivalent of the various contemporary sources and more modern disputes that I can only assume it is parody. The same about Transcendentalism’s contemporary popularity, rather than it being a relatively small and isolated movement among a few friends.

I think what most frightens people today about Poe is the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he was fairly normal.

By: Bill Allison

Bill Allison — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 01:11:34 +0000

Virginia Clemm was indeed Edgar A. Poe’s first cousin by blood–she was not a relation of the Allan’s (his foster family), but rather of the Baltimore Poes. Maria Poe Clemm, the younger sister of David Poe Jr. (Poe’s father), was Virginia’s mother, making Virginia and Edgar first cousins.

IIRC, marrying first cousins was far more common in early America; for what it’s worth, 1st cousin marriages are still legal in Maryland..

http://on.msnbc.com/wIAV5h

and, according to Wikipedia, in Virginia:

http://bit.ly/wdRcmK

By: Mary

Mary — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 21:41:01 +0000

Edgar Allan Poe was not married to his first cousin BY BLOOD. She was a cousin by his foster family. It is said they were very much in love. Yes she was very young, but that didn’t matter. By the way, her age was changed on the marriage certificate.

By: Leigh

Leigh — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:37:53 +0000

What makes the marriage to the first cousin worse is that Edgar moved in with her family when she was seven. The fact that her mother consented does not make it less creepy.

By: sarah a. n.

sarah a. n. — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:07:12 +0000

I have to agree with Mr. Ward. In the 19th century it was not normal to marry your 13 year old FIRST COUSIN. Though Mr. Poe was a master at his craft, he had his faults and made his own mistakes. He is regarded as one of america’s best writers and forever will be.

By: david ward

david ward — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 12:34:11 +0000

The commentator is mistaken: it was not normal in the early 19th century for a man to marry his 13 year old, first cousin. The marriage age for both men and women in the nineteenth century was roughly the same as it is now. And the taboo against first cousin marriage has always been in place, both customarily and judicially.
The blog was centered on the anniversary of Poe’s death, hence its emphases.

By: donna stafford

donna stafford — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:59:49 +0000

I disagree with many of the comments by Mr. Ward. Much is made of the fact that his cousin was 13 when they married. That was not that unusual at that time and it was with the full consent of Virginia’s Mother, who lived with them. I agree that the death of his wife from TB affected his fiction, but so did the deaths of both his Mother and his foster mother from TB. Poe was often quoted that nothing was as tragic as the death of a beautiful, young woman.
While he did drink, many of those who knew him described the unusual effect that even the smallest amount had on his system. There is speculation that he was one of those people whose body couldn’t break down alcohol. It actually made him physically ill.
The theories on his death are legion–from being shanghied by local election fraudsters to pneumonia or rabies.
While it was true that he hated Transcendentalism, he had his own philosophical ideas (Eureka). He was a shameless self-promoter and very obstreperous when it came to literary criticism. He would attack any competition and his views on their work might change depending how threatened he felt.
As for the view that his macabre stories went against the grain of 19th Century literature, Mr. Ward must be speaking of the Literary Establishment’s opinions. Certainly the multitudinous newspapers of the age loved stories of death, murder and the macabre. Even Louisa May Alcott–a walking definition of Transcendentalism–wrote many tales of murder and twisted love before becoming known for LITTLE WOMEN and its sequels.
It didn’t pay much and it was impossible to live well by writing without another source of income. It tells you something of his tenaciousness and need for vindication that Poe lasted until age 40.
The genius of his carefully crafted lyricism–in his short stories as well as poetry–has made him one of the most famous American writers of the 19th Century. He wrote some of the earliest Fantasy and Detective fiction. The award for best Horror is called the Edgar in his honor. Vindicated and honored after death, he definitely still lives in our collective memories.

By: Geek Media Round-Up: October 11, 2011 – Grasping for the Wind

Geek Media Round-Up: October 11, 2011 – Grasping for the Wind — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:02:04 +0000

[...] Interview: The Smithsonian profiles Edgar Allan Poe. [...]