- 23 Maj 2005, 10:21
#284612
Evo ga...
Edgar Allan Poe- maintaining the beauty
"Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven...
...And it makes me wonder..."
(J. Page, R. Plant, "Stairway to Heaven")
Always wanting to have had a chance to meet Edgar Allan Poe, I couldn't help but wonder whether he, as "one of the cursed ones" among the writers, had been influenced by his illusory mystical and obscure life, or not. A brief comparison of the biographical facts and his work is tried to be made in the lines to come, disregarding the present (past) fame which surely means little in the pure form of art itself.
"It was many, many years ago..." Edgar Allan Poe, born in Boston in 1809, was clearly struck by events beyond his will and prediction- all of which, in one way or another, made it clear that he was to become one of the world's most important and accepted figures. Since his parents, both actors, had died in his early childhood, he was adopted by an aristocratic family of Poe. In 1815, the Poe family moves to England, and it is there, among the strict and conservative atmosphere of the classrooms of the Victorian age, where young Poe gains his education.
Moving back to the States again, he continues his education in the schooling of the University of Virginia. Despite all of his obvious talents he is to leave the University soon after, and all because of some gambling issues of his. Yet, under a fake name he joins the Military Academy in West Point willing to make himself an army career. At that point, in 1829, a small collection of his early poems, including "Tamerlan" and "Al Araf", is published. Once again, a viceful and slovenly life makes it impossible for him to continue with his education, and he is released of military service in 1831.
Having an enormous row with his stepfather results Poe getting nothing according to the testament after his stepfather's death in 1834. Keeping in mind his own success accomplished in 1833, resulting two prizes won on an open contest (one for a poem and one for a story), he fully devotes himself to writing. Moreover, he becomes an associate of different newspapers and magazines.
The golden period of his creativity is probably initiated with his marriage with Virginia Klem in 1836. Tragically, she dies soon after (1837), leaving Poe no other choice but to come to a full and characteristic way of writing and expressing on the whole: 1848 is marked with "The Storytelling of Mr. Arthur Gordon Primm", a work of fantastic and avanturistic content. This piece of writing is followed by novels and stories titled "The Stories of Arabesc and Grotesc" in 1839, and the world's famous "Raven" in 1845, enhancing his skilness and enduring the burden of his lonely, darkened soul, and, at the same time, revealing it in a most sophisticated way. One of the weirdest surely is "Eureca", a mixture of half-philosophical and half-fantastical elements found in a form of a poem in prose.
"And this was a reason that long ago..." Poe's genuine gift and creativity had influenced not only European symbolists, but the post-romantic goth movement and many other subcultures.
Just one year kept him apart from the death he got face-to-face with in a hospital in Baltimore. It is fragility and alcoholism that had brougt him to his state; "how fortunate the man with none..."
It is, however, not too late for us to interpret the delicate signals ever-pulsing through his works, nor to accept the messages in all of their brightness.
Cacak, 2005
Hvala. I u pravu si za pasiv, mada profesorima nije smetao...meni zvuci pomalo grubo, nedefinisano...
