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Driver's Seat
The man who wrote ‘The Raven’
By BOB DRIVER, columnist
Article published on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007 |
This week it would be nice if at least a few English teachers in Pinellas County classrooms took a moment to remember Edgar Allan Poe. It was on Jan. 19, 1809, that Poe was born, in Boston. He died in Baltimore only 40 years later, in terrifically lousy shape, but his work as a poet, critic and short-story writer has survived in a surprising number of ways.
In pro football, for instance. Baltimore’s NFL team is called the Ravens, named after Poe’s most famous poem. The team has three mascots (persons wearing raven costumes) named Edgar, Allan and Poe.
Next time you see a horror film or read a detective story, chances are fairly good you’ll run into a reference, character or plot twist that can be traced back to Poe. His work influenced Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, Dostoevsky and many other writers and film-makers.
However you choose to define a checkered career, Poe had one. His parents were actors who died young. With a foster father, Poe spent five early years in England, then came back to America and a life of penury and making-do. Early on he began to drink and gamble. He joined the Army for a couple of years, won entry to West Point, disliked it, and got himself kicked out. He married a beloved cousin, Virginia Clemm, who died of tuberculosis a few years later.
Through it all, Poe kept writing. He also became an able editor of literary magazines in New York, Richmond, Philadelphia and Baltimore, but he seldom earned enough money to stave off the wolves. Still, because of his poetry, well-respected
criticism, and his marvelous short stories, Poe’s reputation grew, especially in England and France.
His poem, “The Raven,” was a sensation when it was published in 1845 by a New York newspaper. After his wife’s death two years later, Poe’s own life disintegrated. His body was found on the streets of Baltimore under strange circumstances. The exact cause of his death was never confirmed, but possibilities ranged from alcoholism to cholera, rabies and tuberculosis.
His Baltimore grave is a tourist attraction, partly because of a legend that began in 1949. It is said that each year on Jan. 19 a mystery man, dressed in black and carrying a silver-tipped cane, kneels at Poe’s grave and sips from a bottle of cognac. He departs, leaving behind the half-empty bottle and three red roses.
Poe felt that a work of art – including his own poems and stories – should be a spiritual experience that elevates the soul. He was a champion of “magazine literature”, i.e., short stories, during a time when this kind of writing was viewed as vulgar.
Each of Poe’s stories focused on one human trait, such as guilt, fear or revenge. To give your pulse a workout, just try reading “The Pit and the Pendulum” or “The Tell-Tale Heart” late at night when you’re alone and your house begins to creak. Poe was a godfather of Gothic literature; death, decay and madness were favorite topics.
Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and his other works of detective fiction influenced Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of Sherlock Holmes. Film director Alfred Hitchcock once said, “It’s because I liked Poe’s stories so much that I began to make suspense films.” Each year the Mystery Writers of American confer an award for excellence. It’s name: the Edgar.
Last year I entered a book store and exchanged a twenty-dollar bill for Poe’s complete works. I soon discovered that mixed in with Poe’s morbidity was a biting sense of humor. His “How to Write a Blackwood Article” and “X-ing a Paragrab” are funny and first-rate.
I suppose Hemingway, Faulkner and some of the other greats left behind one-word trademarks that will always be remembered. But none of them will outlive Poe’s immortal raven – sitting there black, pitiless and silent, except to croak its hope-ending verdict “Nevermore!”
Send Bob Driver an e-mail at tralee71@comcast.net.
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Article published on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007
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