Poe

    Edgar Allen Poe was known as a very famous romantic writer in the early/mid 1800s. His writing was mainly poems and short stories, and was thought to be fictional. This may or may not be true; considering what was happening to him in real life throughout his writing career may have affected his works more than we think.

     Two very central themes in many of his stories are death, and how one perceives and deals with it. In his poem The Raven, his lost love Lenore has died, as well as in his story Ligeia. In Fall of the House of Usher, death also occurs. In his real life, his mother and the love of his young life died. His father left him and his siblings to an adoptive family, so not only was he hardened by the deaths in his life, but also the abandonment and dissupport of his adoptive family. 

     In his real life, he also was a struggling alcoholic. He claimed to have always been sober when in the newspapers, but his substance abuse can be easily seen in some of his writings. In both Ligeia and The Raven, the narrator indulges in drug abuse, taking pills or other things to try and black out his emotions. This could have been transpired from his real life easily, considering that he didn't have very much support and seemed to have constantly dark emotions because of the deaths in his life. Maybe the reason that he was so alcoholic in real life wasn't much different than why the characters in his poems and stories do it. 

     Poe's work is obviously very dark and slightly disturbing, and thats how most people viewed him in real life. Though it may or may not be true, his life seems to have greatly influenced most of his writing and seems to draw many parallels within his stories and poems.