Happy Birthday Edgar

Today is Edgar Allan Poe's birthday. My love affair with Poe began as a kid reading scary stories under the covers with a flashlight and reciting lines of weird poetry on the playground as surrounding eyes narrowed at this strange tomboy who quoted "Annabel Lee." At the time, the best reason I could give for liking Poe's work was the way it sounded. Today, as an English teacher who has read, reread, and reread Poe; given lectures on his life; graded a zillion analyses of "The Tell-Tale Heart," and recited line upon line of "The Raven," I still dwell on his facility for language. Poe's descriptions - in the typical romantic style of his day - over flow with color and noise. "The Cask of Amontillado" is a study of  irony in all its forms while "The Masque of the Red Death" is an allegory about the folly of tempting fate and thinking oneself beyond the reach of death. Each of Poe's stories grapples with time and the impotence of man. Each reminds the reader of his own frailties and begs the question, "What would you do in this situation?"

After all, that was Poe's impetus for writing. He wanted to know what makes men tick, and he used the most horrific and stressful situations to uncover their souls. Unfortunately, each time he wrote, Poe found only the darkness of his own torment which he sought to understand through art and escape through drink. He is the iconic tortured writer who cannot come to terms with what he knows about humanity. Many such artists have lived throughout history. Of course, Poe's inner demons were the result of a tumultuous childhood, rebellion against his adoptive father, and rebellion against an age of philosophers and romantics who found God in nature, life in light.

These days, that stereotypical angst that drove Poe to seek the depths of depravity seems mostly relegated to frustrated teenagers and heavy metal musicians. The idea that being a great writer means one must turn into an abusive drunk has faded away. Today's writers seem to have sunnier dispositions - especially on the talk show circuit. However, those, too, may be in response to the dark days of our society. Now, rebellion comes by saying one grew up in a two-parent household, held watermelon seed spitting contests in the summer, and drank dandelion wine in August. These idyllic scenes play to the damaged psyche of today's American because they are the opposite of "normal." Thus, even those of us who are generally happy, trying to knock out a page or two a day and call ourselves writers must feel the weighty presence of Edgar Allan Poe.