Edgar Allan Poe Stereotypes

Edgar Allan Poe was a popular American author during the Romantic Era. During this era, authors wrote with emphasis on emotion and imagination, and Poe fits this stereotype perfectly. John Chua describes his reasons for writing by saying, “Poe’s writing aims at a concentrated affection or emotional response from the reader.” In many of his poems, Poe uses characters and plots that touch both the reader’s heart and imagination. These characters were often modeled after actual people in his life, such as his mother and many lovers. His poetry became even more famous after his death because of the “evil” persona that was associated to his name (Meyers 263). In fact, two of Poe’s most famous poems, “Annabel Lee” and “The Bells,” were published

Edgar Allan Poe’s biographical background contributed to the theme of death, role of women, and the use of doppelgänger to produce an emotional response from the reader. Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 and led a very traumatic life. Both of his parents died of consumption when he was two years old, and then “Mr. John Allan, a very wealthy gentleman of Richmond, Virginia, took a fancy to me, and persuaded my grandfather, General Poe, to suffer him to adopt me” (Symons 3). Though he never legally adopted him, John Allan gave him the name “Edgar Allan Poe.” Poe and his adoptive father never had a healthy relationship, which caused him to run away, “without a dollar on a quixotic expedition to join the Greeks, then struggling for liberty” (Symons 4). When Poe came home his adoptive mother was dead, but he met his sweetheart, Elmira Royster. He enrolled in school at the University of Virginia, but Poe’s gambling problems forced his foster father to take him out of school. However, when Poe returned home to Richmond he found Royster engaged to another man. Poe went out on

In Poe’s works, death is viewed as “a forgone conclusion as the end of a decaying process that started long ago” (Wang). This is illustrated in poems such as “The City in the Sea,” “The Bells,” and “The Conqueror Worm.” The narrators in most of his works is only able to feel complete in death. Many critics attribute Poe’s fascination to the deaths of almost all of the significant women in his life (Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe). Since nearly all of the important people in his life died, Poe was forced to ponder the truths of death and how it fit into the plan of life. The way Poe depicts death in his poems illustrates his unique obsession with