- Love, Love, Everywhere and Not A Drop To Drink -
Edgar Allen Poe remains one of the greatest writers America has ever produced. Yet, his reputation is often marred because of his drug and alcohol use, particularly alcohol. However, his brilliance as a writer was more inspired from the disadvantages and hard luck that plagued him his entire life than it was from any kind of chemically induced high. Death and love are his central themes and Poe was greatly influenced in his works from the many women he loved and the many close people in his life who died. This essay will explore how the various misfortunes in Poe’s life are apparent as influences in his writing.
One of the biggest influences from Poe’s life on his work was the unusual amount of death he experienced in his personal life, especially of those closest to him. His mother, a woman he loved, his foster-mother, and finally his wife all died early deaths. This death of those he loved is one of the factors that spurred in his writings his preoccupation with the intermingling of love and death. His story, William Wilson, is pretty much autobiographical and Poe tells us he is “his own pitiless destroyer…most men, were they honest, might make a similar confession. Yet, with Poe this was not entirely true. He might have destroyed himself, but the seeds of that destruction were germinated in childhood. Always haunting him was the thought of the death of his mother, then of the death of a women he loved, then of the death of his foster-mother, and finally his wife,” (Lindsay, 1953: 11).
After being orphaned, Poe moved in with the Allen’s who became his foster parents. When Mrs. Allen died, one of the few people with whom Poe ever felt at home, he and Mr. Allen quarreled and he eventually left. He dropped in and out of some schools, even though he was classically trained while with the Allens. Even though life with the Allens was as much home life...