BIOGRAPHY EDGAR ALLAN POE – Journalist and writer, Edgar Allan Poe is a key figure in American romanticism. Author of numerous books, he wrote the famous poem “the Raven”.
Short biography of Edgar Allan Poe – Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in the United States, specifically in Boston, Massachusetts. He loses his parents from his early childhood. His father first, tuberculosis and alcoholic (a vice inherited by Edgar, and which will haunt him all his life), then his mother, who died at the age of 24. He is taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, alongside whom he grew up in the state of Virginia. He pursues brilliant studies, and in February 1826 entered the new University of Virginia. For lack of financial support, he is obliged to stop studying. Edgar Allan Poe then leaves his adoptive family, and enlists in the army. He then joined the military academy at West Point, from which he was voluntarily dismissed, and went to Baltimore to launch his writing career.
His first poems not winning particular success, he moved to Baltimore with his aunt and cousin, Virginia. He began a career of journalistliving off freelance, in poverty. In October 1833, Edgar Allan Poe won first prize in the Baltimore Saturday Visit thanks to his new the manuscript found in a bottle. His nascent notoriety then enabled him to practice the profession of literary criticism. He married his cousin Virginia in 1835, and two years later moved with her to New York, where he completed his first novel, The Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym. Published the following year, the book did no success. During this period, he also published Extraordinary Stories, a collection of new. Settling for good in Philadelphia, Edgar becomes Associate Editor of Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine. Bought by his friend George Graham, who renames him the Graham’s Magazine, Poe is hired as associate editor, and finally enjoys a comfortable position and total freedom of expression.
Edgar Allan Poe leaves Graham’s Magazine, with the idea of going up his own review. His project was unsuccessful, he returned to his freelance. However, he publishes the crow (entitled “The Raven“in the language of Shakespeare) in 1845, poem the most striking of her career. Thanks to his growing fame, he joined the Broadway Journal as a permanent collaborator, January 22, 1845. In October, he becomes the sole shareholder and realizes his dream: own review. However, the newspaper did not survive long, and disappeared in January 1846. Edgar and Virginia then moved to Fordham, in the New York Bronx, while Virginia was ill. She died in January of the following year, at just 24 years old. Edgar Allan Poe sinks into alcoholism. The end of his life is tumultuous, and his death suspicious. He died on October 7, 1849 in Baltimore, in particularly troubles. Died at the age of 40, he died young, like his parents and his wife. His work having therefore been strongly marked by death and morbidity, Edgar Allan Poe is considered to be one of the precursors detective and fantasy genre. His works, translated in France by Baudelaire, are a resounding success in the country and greatly influence literature.
Edgar Allan Poe: key dates
- January 19, 1809: Birth of Edgar Allan Poe
- The American writer was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1809. Having lost his parents, traveling actors, at a very young age, he was brought up by a wealthy couple, John and Frances Allan. He grew up with them in Richmond, Virginia.
- March 6, 1842: Edgar Allan Poe meets Charles Dickens
- During a tour of the United States, Charles Dickens meets Edgar Allan Poe. Together, they discuss an international copyright project to protect American literature.
- January 29, 1845: The poem “Le Corbeau” is published
- Edgar Allan Poe’s flagship poem was published in 1845. Thanks to this literary success, the fame of the American writer grew in the United States and England. The prestigious editors Wiley and Putnam of New York publish a selection of his tales. A collection of poems, The Crow and other poems, follows some time later in November 1845.
- January 30, 1847: Death of Virginia Poe, wife of the writer
- Virginia Eliza Clemm, Edgar Allan Poe’s second cousin, lives with her mother in Baltimore when young Edgar moves in with them to launch his career. In 1835, the writer married Virginia, then 13 years old. Gray areas remain around the nature of their relationship. Still, the couple is happy, moving to suit Edgar’s jobs. In 1842, while singing for friends, a vessel in Virginia’s throat ruptured, causing a hemorrhage that left her between life and death for months. His illness lasts for 5 long years, during which Edgar Allan Poe sinks more and more into alcohol. Virginia finally died on January 30, 1847, at just 24 years old.
- October 7, 1849: The mysterious death of Edgar Allan Poe
- The circumstances of Edgar Allan Poe’s death are suspect. On October 3, 1849, he was found in a very bad condition after having disappeared for 4 whole days. He is dressed in a shabby suit, instead of his elegant clothes which he never leaves. Amorphous and making incoherent remarks, he was taken to Washington College Hospital. He died there in the early morning hours of October 7, 1849, supposedly of a stroke. He is buried in the Presbyterian Cemetery in Baltimore, in relative anonymity. Despite his undeniable talent, Edgar Allan Poe will never have lived in financial ease.
- 1854: Charles Baudelaire translates the books of Edgar Poe
- Baudelaire discovers and then translates the works of Edgar Poe. The two men have a similar conception of art as well as a fascination with evil, what Poe calls the demon of evil.
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