Edgar Allan Poe Obituary

Edgar Allan Poe was inarguably one of the most well known American poets. His criticisms, stories, and poems far out lived the man, but not his reputation. Even today any search of the poet Edgar Allan Poe will bring up facts that are dark, disputable, disgusting, and at times tragic. Mr. Poe wrote words of love, despair, anger, and mystery. He wrote what he knew best and he left behind a legacy that is unique, riveting, and thought provoking, even today. The question is did Edgar Allan Poe deserve the scathing final review that was his obituary? Are his beautiful and disturbing words the ravings of a mad man? It is generally accepted that he suffered from alcoholism and that was the reason of his death. However, his reputation was such that

Rufus Griswold was one and wrote the infamous defamatory obituatory and quiet often used the terms, womanizing, madman with no morals and no friends. Mr. Poe’s fans should thank Mr. Griswold for adding that little bit of extra mystique to the legend that was evolving as Edgar Allan Poe, mysterious and macabre. Mr. Griswold’s obituary piqued people’s curiosity enough at the time and ‘evermore’ for them to investigate the man behind the prose. The obituary was so dark that Rufus Griswold wouldn’t even sign his name to it. He wrote and published under the pseudonym

Some believe that Annabel Lee was written for his wife, but others think that the love of his life, Sarah Emira Royster, that he was parted from as a youth of 18, was the true recipient for the beautiful but morbid poem. . Mr. Poe was scheduled to wed the same Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton just days before his death. “The significance of “Annabel Lee” to their relationship may, however, be reflected in the account of his desire to have it published for the first time with their wedding announcement in the local papers. Since Poe died just ten days before they would have been married, the poem was instead first printed at the end of his obituary written by Rufus Griswold in the New York Daily Tribune” (Poe Museum)

Poe became a huge role model in American romance literature. "Edgar Allan Poe helped to establish the image of the Romantic artist as a being who not only created art from the essence of his own personal suffering but also came to define him through this suffering." (Magistrale 1). Poe's life and all his heartbreaks and suffrage through it all are what made him such a good writer. He wrote about sad, depressing, dreary feelings because that is how his childhood and later life was. Quoted from ? Poe