Essay on Edgar Allan Poe

Submitted By sloaneyerger
Words: 552
Pages: 3

I. Edgar Allan Poe had a difficult life from the beginning to the end. (160)
A. Father: David Poe. Second-rate traveling actor who was a heavy drinker. (160)
B. Mother: Elizabeth Arnold. Talented actress. Husband left while Poe was still a baby. (160)
1. Died while on tour in Richmond and Poe was an orphan by the age of three. (160)

II. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan; a charitable, childless couple from Richmond. (160)
A. John Allan: Ambitious, self-righteous merchant (160)
1. Became Poe's guardian (source of Poe's middle name) (160)
2. Provided Poe's education. (160)
3. Allan was kind but Poe grew up feeling the lack of a natural father and Allan's (160) disappointment.
4. Allan made it obvious that he was disappointed in Poe's inactivity, indifference to business life, and his literary ambitions. (160)
a. Allan's criticism led to Poe's growing moodiness (160)

III. Poe entered the University of Virginia at the age of seventeen. (160)
A. Poe was a good student but he resented the meager allowance Allan gave him. (160)
1. Poe tried gambling and went into debt. (160)
a. Allan refused to help Poe and withdrew him from college (160)
1. after fight Poe ran away to Boston (160)

IV. In 1827 Poe published a small book of poems Tamerlane (160).
A. Didn't attract much attention and he couldn't find any other work so he joined the army (160)
1. Poe didn't like the army life so he called for Allan's help (160)
a. Allan helped him enter US Military Academy at West Point (160)
b. While in the academy Poe wrote his second book of poems El Aaraaf in 1929 and received his first recognition as a writer (160).

V. Poe moved in with his aunt Maria Poe Clemm in Baltimore (160)
A. In 1935 he married her thirteen-year-old daughter (his cousin), Virginia. (160)
1. Poe supported them by working as an editor for various magazines and wrote when he could. (160)
a. He finished his first and only full length novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym several years after his marriage. (160)
2. But it was his short stories that had the greatest effect on other writers. (160)
a. Poe laid the foundation for the modern detective story. (161)
1. He inspired Sherlock Holmes. ( (161)
VI. Poe was the master of the psychological thriller. (161)
A. His tales were ghastly and grotesque and filled