Saturday, December 20, 2008

Absurdity Surrounds Poe

I found a particularly fascinating article regarding Edgar Allan Poe. It briefly discusses his life, but never in the way it should, as in most cases. There's even one silly man who has threatened to exhume and move Poe's body to a different state. Why? He passed through there during his life.

Investigate the World of Edgar Allan Poe

If the truth be known, Virginia should be the one for that reburial. Poe lived in Boston until the age of 3, when he was adopted, then raised in Virginia by his adoptive family. So there. He should stay put, but if moved, it should be to his family's land. He's buried in Maryland today. His death is still regarded as mysterious, but most likely occurred due to the simple voting practices of that time. Yes, it's completely boring and far from glamorous, but it's the most probable. It was common for political representatives in some areas to drug voters for their vote. Sometimes the substances used had adverse effects and the voter died.

Poe was a brilliant writer, but perhaps the most slandered in history. Insults have circled him stating he was everything from a necrophiliac to a junkie. He was a drunk. He was psychotic. Truth was, he lived in abject poverty nearly all of his adult life. He had to live with relatives and certainly didn't have money for constant supplies of alcohol or opium. True, his wife was 13, but life expectancy during his era was 45 for a man. Marriage at 13 and 14 was common. She was an accomplished pianist (Poe loved music) and socialite. There's also rumors that she was his cousin. The problem there is that Poe was adopted and, yes, marriage to cousins was fairly common then. He had no biological cousins in his family. Many of these rumors would've been regarded as the worst insults imaginable during his life.

Like most brilliant minds during those times, he was simply brilliant. He was ahead of his time. Like Melville, Dickenson, none of them received the credit they deserved while living.

No comments:

Post a Comment