There has been a lot of controversy throughout Edgar Allan Poe’s life. “Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston Massachusetts on January 19, 1809”. “His parent’s names were David and Elizabeth Arnold Poe”. “David and Elizabeth were both actors at the time of Poe’s birth.” “Poe didn’t get to know his father to well because his father ran off when Edgar was only an infant”. “Poe also lost his mother at a early age”. “He witnessed her death at the age of three”. “Elizabeth died from coughing up blood from Tuberculosis after a performance”. “Poe was then adopted by his foster parents named Frances and John Allan”. “They were both tobacco merchants”. “His foster parents educated him in private academies in England and also in Virginia”

(Comprehensive Research and Study Guide of Edgar Allan Poe). Poe’s early childhood must have had a big impacted on him since he lost his parents.

Edgar Allan Poe’s Adult life was very different from his childhood. “On May 16, 1836 Poe married his 14 year old cousin, Virginia, who lived in Baltimore”. “Poe then lost another loved on from Tuberculosis”. “Virginia died from Tuberculosis in 1847”. “After Virginia’s death, Poe plunged into a severe depression”. “Poe started to drink heavily, use drugs and had a gambling problem again”. “Awhile after Virginia’s death Poe encountered several more women”. “The one who he became the closets to was Helen Whitman”. “Poe even asked Helen to marry him but she refused the marriage”. “Poe then attempted suicide with several overdoses of laudanum”. Poe then became a alcoholic again who suffered many relapses” (Comprehensive Research and Study Guide of Edgar Allan Poe). Poe’s life as a child an as an adult were pretty horrible times.

Once Edgar Allan Poe became older he enrolled in the University of Virginia in 1826. After graduating for Virginia he then entered in the United States Military Academy at West Point from 1830-1831. Poe then went to the army after getting in a quarrel with his foster father over a gambling problem.

There are many critics who all have different views of Poe’s works and Poe himself as a critic. Most critics who have negative things to say about Poe are all the same. Maya Angelou the author thinks, “even his works are somewhat over valued because Poe’s critics understandably became excessively eager to see him vindicated” (5-6). Maya Angelou also thinks “Poe’s genius was for negativity and opposition” (11). “In any tale that demonstrates the values of heightened intellectual powers, the narrators laziness of mind is marked”. I think that the critic is saying that Poe has a dull mind and his writing show this, which makes them boring. “Poe focuses attention less on what he would seem to point to, like beauty and truth, and more on what happens in them as they attempt to express the ineffable”. “Poe sometimes ride a hobby horse, he praises inferior works for their originality and he condemns superior works for their lacking originality” (Research and Study Guide of Edgar Allan Poe 154). I think the author is disappointed with Poe’s

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