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Edgar Allan Poe
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Edgar Allan Poe is the classic voice of American fantastic literature. Though born in Boston, he eventually became more closely associated with his hometown of Baltimore, and it is there that his grave can be found, in the churchyard of Westminster Presbyterian Church. In 1845, his poem, The Raven, became wildly popular and is widely known still. The lyrical tale tells of the obsession and loss of a man beset by the title's seemingly prophetic bird. The poem is a poignant reminder of Poe's own loss, despair, and ultimate loneliness. This shirt shows the poem's raven, perched on a hoop of entwining Celtic knotwork that contains an aged excerpt of The Raven by Poe.
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Edgar Allan Poe was the second child born to the Poes and had an elder brother. David Poe abandoned his family and died soon after the third child, Edgar's sister, was born. The elder Poe had engaged in heavy drinking, and Elizabeth Arnold Poe was left alone with the children. As fate would dictate, Elizabeth died shortly before Edgar's third birthday, succumbing to tuberculosis. Before young Edgar was even three years old, he was an orphan.
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Edgar Allan Poe, one of the fathers to the contemporary literary horror genre, exerts a noticeable influence over King's writing as well. One of the best examples of this is shown with The Shining. The mangled phrase, "And the red death held sway over all," hearkens back to the original, "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all," from Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death." King's novel parallels Poe's short story fairly accurately. The two men ... share the common theme of the doppelgänger, although one might argue that this is prevalent throughout the entire horror genre and cannot be relegated as specific to one author. In addition, the theme of the short story "Dolan's Cadillac" bears an almost identical comparison to Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," up to and including a paraphrase of Fortunato's famous plea, "for the love of God, Montresor!"
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From the perspective of more than a century and a half, the achievements of Edgar Allan Poe as a man of letters are extraordinary. He may be regarded without too much exaggeration as the single most important influence on the development of an entire poetic tradition in Europe at the end of the nineteenth century: the Symbolist movement. He had a major impact on the writing of fiction in the United States and, indeed, the world. Although his critical reception has been marked by strong disagreement over the intrinsic merit of his writings, his achievement in poetry, criticism, magazine journalism, and fiction is at least historically impressive. As a professional man of letters in a young country, Poe tried in his career to unify the sophisticated and disparate roles of poet, writer of fiction, theoretical critic, practical critic, reviewer, journalist, editor, and philosopher.
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Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the son of David Poe Jr. and Elizabeth Arnold Poe, both professional actors. By the time he was three, Edgar, his older brother, and his younger sister were orphans; their father deserted the family, and then their mother died. The children were each sent to different families to live. Edgar went to the Richmond, Virginia, home of John and Frances Allan, whose name Poe was to take later as his own middle name. The Allans were wealthy, and though they never adopted Poe, they treated him like a son, made sure he was educated in private academies, and took him to England for a five-year stay. Mrs. Allan, at least, showed considerable affection toward him.
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For many years and many different reasons both before and after his death Edgar Allan Poe has been characterized as an alcoholic. There were constant stories and opinions concerning his drinking from all kinds of sources surrounding Poe. Some of these sources claimed that he was a maniacal drunk who routinely drank himself into oblivion. Others said that he drank only rarely, and when he did, kept excellent control over himself and was a perfect gentleman. In fact, Poe's attraction to liquor began when he was just a small adopted child of Mr. John Allan. If you take into account all the upsetting events of his life, Poe has many depressing reasons for drinking.
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Edgar Allan Poe