Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Edgar Allen Poe

Image result for edgar allan poeEdgar Allen Poe was a very successful American writer, editor, and critic. He was born on January 19th, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts and died on October 6th, 1849 in church home and hospital, Baltimore, Maryland. He is primarily recognized for his poetry and short stories. He belonged in the gothic fiction genre, as he was obsessed with death and is known for writing dark, grim tales of misfortune and mystery. With the more texts we read, we start to understand and recognized that most of his content is based on his own life. So, he was an incredible writer, but his life was filled with depression, disappointments and misfortunes.

He was adopted at the age of age 3 and by the age of 17, he was excepted to the University of Virginia. However, he early gained a gambling addiction and gambled all his scholarship money, which began his habit of alcohol abuse. He struggled with alcohol all his life, he found it hard to control his physical and emotional weakness. Which is why he turned to alcohol as an aesthetic to try and take the pain away. He even got as far as to drink a mixture of absinthe and brandy, which is very dangerous. He repeatedly tried to stop drinking and made promises that he would stop but his addiction only grew bigger and bigger over the years. Another important part of his life was the use of drugs. So, he started off using drugs for medical benefits with prescriptions from doctors. Opium was the specific drug that he was addicted to. Opium was used to help him get into a ‘dreamy’ state, which was mainly used to help him stray away from alcohol. However, with the medical use of the drug it got him addicted because in the process of trying to stop abusing alcohol he took a large amount of opium to compensate. There are serval possible outcomes that could’ve caused his death. But a lot of people believe that most likely the addiction to alcohol and drugs were the major reasons that he died at 40, so early.

Therefore, substance abuse played a major role in Poe’s life because it took major part and possibly ended his life. But also, were the theme of substance abuse influenced his writing through the narratives of his poem. Almost like he was hallucinating while writing his best work. But he had a tragic life, but it differentiated his writing style and made his characters so unique, from all the other writers. 


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