Transcription
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, while I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—only this and nothing more.”
Ah! distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, and each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had tried to borrow from my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—for the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore, nameless here forevermore.
[Music]
[Music]
These are the first two verses of “The Raven,” a poem full of dark and disturbing images, rife with tension, fear, paranoia, terror, and the yearning for a lost love that has returned to this earth as a ghost.
[Music]
[Applause]
As a poem, “The Raven” is without doubt more famous and widely known than the troubled author who penned it.
[Music]
His name was Edgar Allan Poe, and his work was directly responsible for shaping the modern horror industry as we know it. He was the godfather, the father of fear, the master of the macabre, and the guardian of the gruesome, who was also one of the best mystery writers of all time. However, the most fascinating puzzle he left us was that of his own life, and in the next 60 minutes, we will follow in the great man's footsteps to turn detective.
[Music]
Edgar Allan Poe was born early in the 19th century, yet still his legacy lives on. Throughout this celebration of his life and work, you'll also get the opportunity to hear extracts from his poetry and prose, some of which will be very familiar but just as terrifying all the same.
Edgar was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in the USA on January 19th, 1809. He came from a family of theater folk, which may explain why he was such an amazing storyteller and poet with a vivid and creative imagination. His mother was Elizabeth Arnold Poe, an English actress whose parents had performed regularly at Covent Garden in London, and even as a tiny babe, she had been taken on tour with her parents all around the United Kingdom.
Sadly, Elizabeth's father died when she was three years old while they were performing at a theatre in Birmingham, and this was to be a big turning point in her young life. The city of Birmingham itself is at the heart of the Midlands, so named because of the region's central position in the middle of Britain.
[Music]
Today, the city is more famous as the birthplace of Ozzy Osbourne and all the other members of his heavy metal band, Black Sabbath. Ironically, Black Sabbath's brand of gothic imagery, atmospherically foreboding music, and satanic-tinged lyrics owe much to the writing of Edgar Allan Poe, with many critics citing him as an inspiration to the band. In fact, on the first Black Sabbath album released in 1970, the song lyrics are loaded with the sort of dark imagery that Edgar Allan Poe frequently included in his stories.
The start of the Black Sabbath album begins with a thunderstorm, the tolling of a church bell, and a scream, which could well have been inspired by these lines from Edgar's 1849 poem “Bells”:
“Hear the tolling of the bells, iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their mana day compels!
In the silence of the night, how we shiver with a fright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats from the rust within their throats
Is a groan.”
[Music]
Edgar's mother Elizabeth grew up to become an actress herself and in 1796, traveled all the way to America as part of a theater troupe called the Charlton Comedians. In later years, it would become a regular occurrence for performers from British music halls to sail across the Atlantic to tour the United States. The music halls of Britain were very similar to American vaudeville, consisting of comedy turns, acrobatic circus performers, and mismatched double acts.
In fact, this is how the now world-famous silent clown Charlie Chaplin got his first big break, touring America with the Fred Karno theater troupe from Britain. More than a hundred years after Elizabeth Arnold Poe, it was in America that Chaplin perfected his Little Tramp routine, embracing the new art of moving pictures for the cinema to become a comedy legend.
On Charlie Chaplin's first tour of America, he was understudied by a Lancashire lad called Arthur Stanley Jefferson, who would later change his name to Stan Laurel and find even greater success as one half of arguably the world's most famous comedy duo. The other, much larger half was Oliver Hardy. Together they were, of course, Laurel and Hardy.
[Music]
Now, while we're on the subject of double acts, one of Elizabeth Arnold's roles in America was as the wife in a comedy duo with 21-year-old David Poe Jr., and as you'll no doubt have guessed by now, she also married him in real life, becoming Elizabeth Arnold Poe at the tender age of 18.
The newlyweds settled in Boston, quickly starting a family, but they still continued their theatrical appearances. Elizabeth enjoyed rave reviews wherever they played, but David unfortunately did not. He became increasingly jealous of his wife, and after the birth of their second son, Edgar, he vanished without trace and was never heard of again.
Elizabeth was left to look after and support her sons and a newborn baby girl called Rosalie. By 1811, ill health had forced her to retire from acting, and soon after this, she died with her young family at her side. It is said that little Edgar cried continuously for 24 hours and always maintained that his mother stood at the end of his bed every night.
Suffering such trauma at an early age was to shape Edgar's future, and his fascination with death and the afterlife certainly dominated his later work, as typified in these lines from his 1827 poem “Spirits of the Dead”:
“Thy soul shall find itself alone mid dark thoughts of the great tombstone.
Not one of all the crowd to pry into thy hour of secrecy.
The breeze—the breath of God—is still,
And the mist upon the hills is shadowy, shadowy yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token.
How it hangs upon the tree is a mystery of mysteries.”
[Music]
Edgar was only three years old when his mother died. All he had to remember her by was a miniature portrait and a watercolor painting of Boston Harbor. On the back of the painting, Elizabeth had written a few lines:
“For my little son Edgar, who should ever love Boston, the place of his birth and where his mother found her best and most sympathetic friends.”
Edgar's mother had been helped by donations from the wealthy theater patrons of Boston, who deemed her a charitable case because of her three young children, and after her death, arranged their adoption.
[Music]
A successful tobacco merchant called John Allan and his wife Frances took Edgar, and later he would adopt the name Allan as a tribute to his foster parents. The Allans were originally from Scotland, with its dramatic landscape of rugged mountains, deep valleys, windswept forests, and rich history of rebellions, uprisings, royalty, and treachery. Stories of the MacCabb abound with torture, disembowelment, and executions being commonplace, as in the case of William Wallace, the great Scottish rebel made famous by Mel Gibson in the movie epic “Braveheart.”
[Music]
The Allan family's successful tobacco business was based in Richmond, Virginia, in the USA, but after adopting Edgar, they decided to return to the United Kingdom to continue expanding their business. In 1815, their first port of call was their home country, Scotland, where John, Frances, and young Edgar spent a year visiting relatives. The drama of the countryside made quite an impression on the young boy.
This description from one of Edgar's short stories called “The Landscape Garden,” published over 25 years later, describes Scotland perfectly:
“Here was indeed the fairest field for the display of invention or imagination, in the endless combining of forms of novel beauty, the elements which should enter into combination being at all times and by a vast superiority the most glorious which the earth could afford in the multi-form of the tree and in the multi-color of the flower. He recognized the most direct and the most energetic efforts of nature at physical loveliness, and in the direction or concentration of this effort, or still more properly in its adoption to the eyes which were to behold it upon earth, he perceived that he should be employing the best means, laboring to the greatest advantage in the fulfillment of his destiny as a poet.”
Edgar spent a year being educated in a Scottish school, relishing learning the bloody and violent history of the Celtic people, until in 1816 the Allans moved to London to set up an English branch of their tobacco business.
[Music]
They bought a townhouse in Russell Square, just minutes from Covent Gardens, where Edgar's mother Elizabeth had so often performed on the stage. However, John Allan's business suffered as the tobacco market went into a decline, and he was forced to sell the grand house and rent a nearby property.
Edgar, meanwhile, was being educated at a boarding school in Sloane Street, Chelsea, and was later enrolled in the Manor House School of the Reverend John Brassy at Stoke Newington, which was a leafy London suburb.
Edgar Allan Poe later recorded his memories of England in “William Wilson,” which were unusually for him, very pleasant indeed:
“My earliest recollections of a school life are connected with a large rambling Elizabethan house in a misty-looking village of England, where were a vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees and where all the houses were excessively ancient. In truth, it was a dreamlike, spirit-soothing place, that venerable Old Town. At this moment in fancy, I feel the refreshing chilliness of its deeply shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance of its thousand shrubberies, and thrill anew with indefinable delight at the deep hollow note of the church bell breaking each hour with sullen and sudden roar upon the stillness of the dusky atmosphere in which the fretted gothic steeple lay embedded and asleep.”
[Music]
Edgar Allan Poe's writings are something of an enigma to the literary community, and when you consider what he experienced as a young child, it's no small wonder that his style is distinctive and yet mysterious. While he was being educated in London, Edgar was a great reader, and he would have no doubt come into contact with a sensational new novel that shaped his young impressionable mind.
“Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley was published in 1818, two years after he'd moved from Scotland to London, and it was considered to be a classic gothic novel touching on the supernatural, death, madness, and terror. In fact, Frankenstein's monster has become a stalwart of the horror industry alongside many of Edgar Allan Poe's creations.
So perhaps in early 19th-century London, which was also home to Mary Shelley, there was something in the air. The idea of desperately wanting to bring a loved one back to life, a feeling young Edgar obviously experienced after the death of his mother, permeates the story of “Frankenstein,” and for good reason.
A year before the publication, Mary Shelley had lost a child that was stillborn, and for the impressionable Edgar, her ideas of restoring the dead to the living must have struck a resonant chord.
Now, surprising as it may seem, if you want to know what life was like for Edgar Allan Poe in Stoke Newington all those years ago, a visit to this London suburb can still be quite revealing. Great Britain's capital city has undoubtedly encroached on many of the district's wide-open spaces, but the character of the place remains.
The Manor House School in Church Street that Edgar wrote about so eloquently in “William Wilson” sadly doesn't exist anymore, but the site where it once stood now accommodates the town hall and library. The school may be long gone, but you can bet your bottom dollar that Edgar Allan Poe's collections of short stories and poems are to be found on the bookshelves, and who knows if a spirit presence remains upon this now municipal hallowed ground?
A walk around Stoke Newington is a delight, and when you reach the castle built in 1865, long after Edgar Allan Poe's writings had been published, you can't help wondering if his poems might not have inspired the architect. The castle is actually the entrance to the huge West Reservoir, surrounded by greenery, which used to be a pumping station for the supply of fresh water to East London. There's an atmosphere of the Gothic about this building, despite its once practical function, and this is typical of Victorian Britain and the architecture that shaped a generation.
Stoke Newington has a delightful atmosphere even at its busiest in the 21st century, and it was actually home to a number of literary greats down through the ages. The name Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, might not be instantly recognizable, but some believe this to be something of a historical injustice. Edward de Vere, who is commemorated by a plaque in Sister's Place, on a pair of red brick houses that stand on the site of his mansion, was an extraordinary footnote in literary history for much more than being a wealthy patron of the arts during the 16th century.
There are noted scholars who think de Vere may have been the writer responsible for the plays of William Shakespeare along with the sonnets and poems, because the educated literati of the day could not believe that the real William Shakespeare—thought of as an illiterate plowboy from Warwickshire—could have been the greatest dramatist the world had ever known.
It's a debate that rages on, and just like the mysteries of Edgar Allan Poe, it is unlikely to ever be resolved. The other more well-known literary inhabitant of Stoke Newington was Daniel Defoe, an early exponent of the art of novel writing, and young Edgar would undoubtedly have read his most famous work, “Robinson Crusoe”—the adventures of a respectable gentleman shipwrecked on a desert island.
The house the author lived in has long since been demolished, but the street has been renamed Defoe Road, and a blue plaque commemorates Defoe's time in the district. However delightful the environment of Stoke Newington proved to be, it became a short interlude in the life of young Edgar, because in 1820, problems beset John Allan's tobacco business, and the family moved back to America.
Edgar resumed his schooling in the United States, and his teachers regularly commented on how he excelled in amateur theatricals, languages, and oratory. Obviously, Edgar followed in his birth parents' footsteps with his love of the stage drama and the spoken word. He soon began to write poems, which he performed himself during his teenage years as he developed his narrative skills.
[Music]
Meanwhile, things were not looking good for the family tobacco business, and John Allan was forced to sell off real estate just to cover his debts. But the fates were evidently smiling, because in 1825, a wealthy uncle died and left his entire fortune to the Allan family, allowing them to shut down the tobacco business and enjoy a life of leisure.
This certainly benefited Edgar Allan Poe's prospects, as he was sent to the University of Virginia. The son of a rich man, naturally his fellow students, all from elite and wealthy families, had no idea that he wasn't the real son of John Allan and expected him to live as they did, treating money as a mere trifle.
This caused a pure terrible difficulties as he attempted to keep up with his friends while his foster father limited his funds. As a result, the young man began to build up colossal debts, something in the region of twenty-five hundred dollars. Yet he continued to excel in his studies, living by the “work hard, play hard” motto, which included consuming copious amounts of alcohol.
There is a school of thought instigated by a rival poet who published the first biography after his death that Edgar Allan Poe was a raging alcoholic. It has since been proven that this was far from being the whole truth. He did drink alcohol, and its effects upon him were indeed devastating, but he never depended upon it. Poe's constitution was such that the smallest amount of alcohol in his system would be enough to change his personality entirely.
Unfortunately, when he did drink, it was not in moderation, and he would often end up wandering around the next day in a town he didn't know the name of, with no money, no memory of what had happened, or even how he'd got there—and more often than not, in someone else's clothes.
[Music]
This was, of course, a recipe for disaster, especially as John Allan refused to pay off Edgar's not inconsiderable debts, and he was forced to leave university. The relationship between father and adopted son was tempestuous to say the least, and for a short while, Edgar left home to pursue his dream of becoming an actor and writer.
Francis Allan smuggled money and food in packages to the young man without John Allan's consent or knowledge, as she and Edgar were very fond of each other.
[Music]
While away, Edgar Allan Poe self-published his first book of verse called “Tamerlane and Other Poems.” The title page of the little volume proclaimed the work to be by a “Bostonian,” rather than revealing his identity, and this book today is so rare due to the limited print run that a copy of it sold in recent years at auction for $200,000.
[Music]
Edgar did return home eventually because Francis Allan had become very ill, and he even attempted a reconciliation with John Allan for her sake. Nevertheless, the problems between John Allan and Edgar were never far away, as the young man had developed a hatred for his foster father, whose extramarital affairs were, he believed, contributing to the decline of Francis Allan.
[Music]
They had amazing arguments, sometimes lasting for hours and often at night when the neighbors complained of the noise. They never came to blows, but Francis Allan in her letters described them as being violent in words rather than in nature. The two men would square up to each other, remonstrating with fingers and hands, gesticulating wildly with anger, and their faces would be contorted into horrific masks of rage. This would hardly have been conducive to Francis Allan's health.
But a short-term solution was found: Edgar Allan Poe enlisted in the United States Army in 1827, where he stayed for two years. He achieved the rank of sergeant major and never touched a drop of alcohol during the entire time he was in his country's service.
These long periods without alcohol would become regular interludes in Poe's life; however, during the spells in-between, he more than made up for his abstinence.
[Music]
Edgar was discharged from the army when Francis Allan, his beloved foster mother, died in 1829. The feud between him and John Allan intensified, as she had requested that her son be allowed to return home to see her before she died. John Allan refused.
Francis then begged that when she passed away, she wasn't to be buried until Edgar had been able to see her finally resting in peace. This request was callously ignored, and Francis was buried almost within hours of her death.
Edgar Allan Poe returned home to find the woman who had nurtured and supported him already dead and buried after the message that she was dying had been purposely sent too late, as had been the case when Edgar had lost his birth mother as a small boy. The grief was all-consuming, and a few years later, he would publish a poem called “Fanny,” the name that Francis Allan was fondly known by:
“The dying swan by northern lake sings its wild death song, sweet and clear,
And as the solemn music breaks, O hill and glen, dissolves in air.
Thus musical thy soft voice came, thus trembled on thy tongue
My name, like sunburst through the ebon cloud which veils the solemn midnight sky.
Piercing, cold evening sable shroud thus came the first glance of that eye,
But like the adamantine rock, my spirit met and braved the shock.
Let memory, the boy recall who laid his heart upon thy shrine,
When far away his footsteps fall, think that he deemed thy charms divine,
A victim on love's altar slain by witching eyes which looked disdain.”
Shortly after he lost his second mother, Edgar Allan Poe moved to Baltimore in 1830 to take up a position at the United States Military Academy, where he would have no further contact with his adoptive father.
[Music]
John Allan died in 1834 and left nothing to Edgar in his will, even though he had large amounts of money and real estate to bequeath to friends and relations.
[Music]
Ironically, Edgar moved to the house of John Allan's sister, Aunt Maria Clem, and published a second book of poems. After a year taking orders from the military, he deliberately refused to do so any longer and promptly got himself dismissed, which meant he could make a real attempt at using his writing to carve out a legitimate career.
Edgar Allan Poe's first literary success came late in 1833, when his short story entitled “The Manuscript Found in a Bottle” won the top prize of $50 and was printed in Baltimore's “The Saturday Visitor.” Subsequently, he submitted work that began to appear regularly in this journal, and his reputation flourished.
[Music]
The following lines from “The Colosseum” are typical of Poe's developing talent:
“Lo! Amphitheatre gray! Colosseum!
Type of the antique Rome!
Rich reliquary of lofty contemplation!
Left to time by buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length—at length, after so many days of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst—
Thirst for the springs of lore that in the lie,
I kneel—and altered and an humble man amid thy shadows
And so drink within my very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory.”
Further success followed, and he was soon appointed assistant editor of the “Southern Literary Messenger,” increasing its subscriptions by a large margin because of his forthright opinions regarding literary criticism, journalistic articles, and book reviews, along with his well-received short stories and poems.
Poe barely worked on the publication for two years, but in that short time, the circulation increased from 700 to nearly 4,000, attracting national attention. It was also while working on the “Southern Literary Messenger” that his poems and stories began to become more rooted in the dark and the macabre.
Even so, romance was evidently in the air, and Edgar Allan Poe married the daughter of Aunt Maria in 1835. Her name was Virginia Eliza Clem, and at the time, she was little more than a child. Because of this, their union was kept secret until a year later, and in 1836, Edgar married her a second time, but this time publicly, when she was nearly 14 years old.
[Music]
Despite her youth, Virginia was an intelligent and mature girl who was as devoted to her 27-year-old husband as he was to her. By all accounts, their marriage was happy, loving, and faithful. Sadly, only six years into their marriage, Virginia contracted tuberculosis, and her health declined rapidly. She was soon an invalid, too weak to leave her bed, let alone the house, and Edgar was stricken with despair.
He fell into a deep depression. Watching her intense suffering and long, drawn-out death was something that changed Edgar beyond measure. When writing to a friend, he described himself as “completely insane, but with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
During his wife's illness, Edgar Allan Poe published such classics as “The Murder in the Rue Morgue,” which had been acclaimed as the first detective novel, inspiring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to begin writing his series of Sherlock Holmes novels.
[Music]
Poe also completed “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and he accepted an appointment to contribute and edit “Burton's Gentlemen's Magazine.” Just as happened on the “Southern Literary Messenger,” Edgar Allan Poe was incredibly successful, and within 18 months, the subscriptions from the readership rose from 5,000 to 40,000.
[Inevitably, Virginia died in 1847 after five years of terrible suffering, and Edgar Allan Poe's behavior became increasingly erratic. As if to try to ease his pain, Edgar wrote a poem entitled “Annabel Lee” about his wife's life and premature death. It takes the form of a dark fairy tale along similar lines to “Sleeping Beauty” by the Brothers Grimm, where the princess pricks her finger on a cursed spinning wheel and is put to sleep for a hundred years, as seen in the traditional fairy tales of old.
Edgar's poem begins happily and becomes darker as the story unfolds. Such fairy tales were commonplace in Europe, most notably created by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. They were all literary contemporaries of Edgar Allan Poe, and there is an interesting amalgamation of styles in this memorial verse to Virginia that begins:
“It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee.
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
And finishes:
“For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee,
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.”
[Music]
Ironically, the writing of Edgar Allan Poe is often compared to the darker side of the Brothers Grimm, and it's also more than possible to draw parallels between his literary style and that of Mary Shelley in her gothic horror novel “Frankenstein.”
[Music]
In his letters, Edgar Allan Poe proudly owned up to being influenced by Charles Dickens, the great British author who penned such classics as “Oliver Twist,” “Great Expectations,” and “Bleak House,” that showed us a dark side to human nature as anything that Poe ever penned.
Equally, just like Edgar's poems and short stories, the novels of Charles Dickens have also stood the test of time and have been adapted for the big screen as often as those of his American admirer. We now know that both men were touched by life in London in the early part of the 19th century, and there were other fascinating similarities. Just like Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens was a great orator and an ardent follower of the theater, even acting himself on occasion.
Dickens toured America extensively in his later years, giving readings from his novels, and who knows if Edgar Allan Poe hadn't died so young he may have joined Charles Dickens on some of these tours, traveling from place to place to delight audiences with really scary stories on a stormy winter's evening.
However, Edgar Allan Poe did not feel any such enthusiasm for fellow American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, and he wrote unflattering reviews of his countryman. Poe was convinced that Hawthorne was plagiarizing him, stealing ideas, themes, and imagery. Nathaniel Hawthorne is most famous for his short story “The Scarlet Letter,” which features the Salem witch trials.
These trials were of innocent women in the village of Salem who had been accused of witchcraft by a hysterical community. The irony of this story, based on fact, was that those who admitted to being witches were set free, although branded for life, but those that protested their innocence were put to death—equally a terrifying concept as anything that the critical Poe ever wrote.
However, Edgar Allan Poe did find inspiration in the work of an American author, namely Washington Irving, the literary genius responsible for creating “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.” Although the style of Washington was very different from that of Poe, the subject matter was remarkably similar as both men dealt with the macabre, the frightening, and the supernatural to the absolute delight of their terrified readers.
In the years after his wife's tragic death, Edgar Allan Poe jumped from publication to publication, editing and contributing to anything that would earn him a living and allow him to continue working hard enough to block out his grief. Needless to say, he also turned to drink once again.
Once again, it is believed he began taking opium, a drug made from the unripe seed pods of the opium poppy. It was the preferred drug of the 19th century, especially among the artistic elite, with opium dens springing up all over the United States. When mixed with alcohol to make laudanum for more widespread use, it was a dangerously addictive concoction.
Poe's most famous work was completed in 1845, laden with paranoia induced by perhaps both alcohol and opium, and it's where we started this journey of discovery on the trail of Edgar Allan Poe.
“The Raven” is believed by critics to be an autobiographical work, and Edgar himself admitted to feeling haunted by the ghosts of his dearly departed foster mother, Francis Allan, and his late wife, Virginia.
The Raven has a narrator who thinks that the tapping on his window is the ghost of his former love, but quickly discovers it to be a raven—traditionally a sign of the tragically deceased and also a minion from the depths of hell.
“And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!”
Edgar Allan Poe's unhappy days were numbered, and he died in 1849, a delirious and despondent wreck. He was found wandering the streets of Baltimore by a stranger who was quoted as saying that Edgar needed immediate assistance and was in great distress.
Edgar never became coherent enough to explain how he came to be in such a terrible predicament, wearing beggar's clothing and carrying no money whatsoever. The circumstances of his subsequent death were mysterious to say the least, as there was no doctor in attendance to give an account of what happened.
[Music]
Nevertheless, with such a prominent figure, rumors started to fly, with the majority of folk believing that Poe's demise was due to alcoholic poisoning, although others did speculate that he may have contracted rabies from an infected cat's bite. His love of cats materialized frequently throughout his work, and his symptoms certainly fitted the bill.
But like so many of Edgar Allan Poe's fictional mysteries, it's unlikely that anyone will ever know for sure what happened.
[Music]
As a literary critic, Poe made few friends, and a poet that he was very scathing about waited until Edgar's death to get his revenge. Under the pen name of Ludwig Rufus, Wilmuth Griswold placed a bitter obituary in the New York Tribune:
“Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it. The poet was known personally or by reputation in all this country. He had readers in England and in several of the states of continental Europe, but he had few or no friends, and the regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the consideration that in him literary art has lost one of its most brilliant but erratic stars.”
[Music]
Griswold also went on to produce a 35-page memoir of Edgar Allan Poe that was filled with malice, lies, and forgeries. Sadly, because it was the first published account of Poe's life, it was the one that people believed. Griswold was eventually exposed as a charlatan and a fraud, but it was too late—the damage had been done.
Even today, the popular image of Edgar Allan Poe is that of an alcoholic lunatic obsessed with the devil. Griswold also claimed to be the literary executor of Edgar's estate and convinced Aunt Maria Clem, Poe’s mother-in-law, to part with all the letters and manuscripts he had written, which Griswold then published, and she never received a penny.
The episode of Griswold was not the only strange happening after Edgar's death, because there is a tradition that is still practiced to this day at his graveside that began in 1949, known as the “Poe Toaster.”
A man dressed in a black hat, black cloak, a scarf that obscured his face, and carrying a silver-tipped cane appeared in the early hours of Poe's birthday, January 19th, at Westminster Hall and burying ground in Baltimore at Edgar Allan Poe's grave. He raised a toast of cognac to the great man and then left three red roses, believed to be a tribute to Poe, his wife Virginia, and his mother-in-law Aunt Maria Clem—all of whom are buried alongside Edgar.
[Music]
The identity of the Poe Toaster has never been revealed, and even though people gather to see this annual tribute, nobody has ever tried to stop, unmask, or catch him, proving just how powerful this tradition has become.
It's widely believed that the original toaster has passed the mantle on to his son, as the bottle of cognac that is left on the grave after the toast usually has a note attached of a suitably cryptic nature.
In 1993, the note read, “The torch will be passed,” which led many to think that the original Poe Toaster was passing the tradition on to the next generation of Poe admirers.
So even in death, Edgar Allan Poe commands an air of mystery and the macabre, just as his writing continues to intrigue and mystify. His legacy to modern horror can never be underestimated, with many of the influential writers to follow in Poe's footsteps citing their main influence as his poems and short stories.
[Music]
Even the ancient tradition of Halloween, celebrated all over the world on October 31st, All Hallows' Eve, is now closely linked with Edgar Allan Poe because of his obsession with the dark side. Halloween night could never be considered complete without a film version of one of Poe's horror stories being screened; and of course, when it came to black cats, Edgar Allan Poe was without doubt the master.
The truth is, as human beings, we actually like being scared in a controlled situation, and this is of course why the modern horror industry is so successful. However, it's interesting that the writings of this almost insignificant man in real life, who died young, should still be as deliciously terrifying to a 21st-century audience as anything more contemporary.
Without trying to psychoanalyze Edgar Allan Poe, if we look at the work of the father of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud, this is one mystery surrounding Poe that we can shed some light upon. Freud believed in the power of dreams to help unravel a troubled mind, and because they were the province of the subconscious, it was possible to discover why mental health problems were developing.
Often, the difficulties were rooted in early childhood experiences, and as we now know all about Edgar Allan Poe's difficult early years, we can be pretty certain that Mr. Freud would have had a busy time had Poe come to him for help.
Now this is where it gets interesting, because much of what Poe wrote can be described as dreamlike, or perhaps more accurately, nightmarish. There is evidently a great honesty in his work, because when we read “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Raven,” we can identify his nightmare visions with those we have all experienced ourselves.
[Music]
This is one explanation for Edgar Allan Poe's continuing popularity and indeed the cult following that seems to grow year by year, because he taps into our natural human fear. He speaks a language that we all understand, and it's proving to be timeless.
Poe was evidently very aware of how he was able to reach out to the subconscious minds of others through his writing, as illustrated when he was asked a very important question:
“Were I called on to define very briefly the term ‘art,’ I should call it the reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through the veil of the soul.”
This proves without doubt that Edgar Allan Poe was much more than a teller of scary stories. He was true to his own definition of what art should be, and as a result, achieved immortality in a truly unique way.
His poem “The Raven” may have said “Nevermore,” but the fans of Edgar Allan Poe prefer the concept of “evermore,” and what more fitting epitaph could there possibly be for this enigmatic writer who truly was the master of the macabre?
[Music]