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00:00:00It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden there lived, whom
00:00:15you may know, by the name of Annabel Lee.
00:00:20And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me.
00:00:27I was a child and she was a child in this kingdom by the sea.
00:00:34But we loved with a love that was more than love.
00:00:39I and my Annabel Lee.
00:00:57Edgar Allan Poe, one of America's most influential writers, was born on Thursday, the 19th of
00:01:06January, 1809 in a humble boarding house near Carver Street in Boston, Massachusetts.
00:01:13Both of his parents were actors.
00:01:16While on a business trip to Norfolk, Virginia, Poe's father David saw Eliza Arnold perform
00:01:23on stage, fell in love, and quickly joined her acting troupe.
00:01:28They soon married and would have three children, Henry, born in 1807, Edgar, the middle child,
00:01:36in 1809, and his sister Rosalie in 1810.
00:01:41His mother, Eliza Poe, played an astonishing 300 roles in her brief career, often to excellent
00:01:48reviews.
00:01:49One critic praised,
00:01:51Her interesting figure, her correct performance, and the accuracy with which she always commits
00:01:58her part, together with her sweetly melodious voice when she charms us with a song.
00:02:04His father David Poe was handsome, but not nearly as talented as his wife.
00:02:10He was often pilloried by theater critics.
00:02:13One early review said,
00:02:15The lady was young and pretty, and evinced talent both as singer and actress.
00:02:21The gentleman was literally nothing.
00:02:23Another reviewer complained,
00:02:25Mr. Poe mutilated some of his speeches in a most shameful manner.
00:02:30The young family traveled to theaters along the East Coast, as most American cities were
00:02:37too small to support a permanent acting company.
00:02:40But the Poe's lives soon began to unravel.
00:02:45David Poe's acting career came to a halt with his final stage appearance in October 1809.
00:02:52Two years later, when Edgar was just two years old, David Poe deserted his young family and vanished.
00:03:01Nothing is known of where he went or what became of him.
00:03:05Five months later, he died in Norfolk, Virginia.
00:03:10Well, David Poe probably had a few different reasons for abandoning his family.
00:03:13First of all, his wife's career, Edgar's mother, was taking off.
00:03:17She was getting better and better parts.
00:03:19Meanwhile, you see David Poe getting fewer and fewer parts and lesser parts.
00:03:24So it might have been a little bit of professional jealousy,
00:03:26but also the finances were really crumbling there.
00:03:29He was having trouble supporting his growing family.
00:03:32And about 1809, David Poe wrote a letter that said,
00:03:36the worst thing in the world that could have happened to me has just occurred.
00:03:39It's something so awful that he just doesn't want to keep living.
00:03:42He's ready to give up acting altogether.
00:03:44And that thing that had just happened was the birth of little Edgar Poe.
00:03:49Eliza was now in a very vulnerable position, having to raise three young children on her own,
00:03:57constantly moving from one theater to the next in a profession that lacked financial security.
00:04:04Then, tragedy struck.
00:04:07She fell ill with the dreaded disease of the 19th century, tuberculosis, and was left too weak to perform.
00:04:16She gave her final performance in October 1811.
00:04:21The following month, managers of the Richmond Theatre organized a benefit performance for Eliza with this urgent appeal in the local newspaper.
00:04:31On this night, Mrs. Poe, lingering on the bed of disease and surrounded by her children,
00:04:38asks your assistance and asks it for the last time.
00:04:43A week later, lying on her deathbed, she gives Edgar a miniature portrait of herself,
00:04:50several letters, and a painting of Boston Harbor, inscribing on the back,
00:04:56For my little son, Edgar, who should ever love Boston, the place of his birth,
00:05:03and where his mother found her best and most sympathetic friends.
00:05:10On the 8th of December, Edgar's mother passes away from tuberculosis at just 24 years old.
00:05:18Although she and her husband could not have known it, they die just three days apart.
00:05:25Not yet three years old, Edgar was now an orphan.
00:05:29John and Frances Allen, who had no children of their own, took Edgar into their home in Richmond, Virginia.
00:05:37Poe's foster father, John Allen, was a merchant who traded in tobacco, wheat, and agricultural supplies.
00:05:46He was described as impulsive and quick-tempered, rather rough and uncultured in mind and manner.
00:05:54His wife, Frances, was gentle, but often in poor health.
00:05:59She and her sister, Nancy, who lived with the Allens, lavished attention on Edgar.
00:06:06The Allens gave Edgar Poe his middle name.
00:06:10He would be known to the world as Edgar Allan Poe.
00:06:14Yet, they never formally adopted him.
00:06:18Unlike his sister, Rosalie, who was adopted by the Mackenzie family, Poe was never adopted by the Allens.
00:06:26And although he was relatively unconscious of that fact in his earliest years,
00:06:33as he became older, he came to understand what that meant.
00:06:40It meant that Allen had consciously decided not to give him the Allen name, not to give him any share of whatever fortune Allen would eventually accrue.
00:06:55And the irony for Poe is that Allen did, in fact, by the time Poe was 16, become a very wealthy man.
00:07:03For Poe's entire life, I think this was a sore spot.
00:07:09He wrote many tales in which he imagines the murder of an older man.
00:07:20And I can't help but think that that primal conflict with John Allen is at the very heart of it.
00:07:28Living with the Allens, Edgar's life changed dramatically.
00:07:32He was dressed in fine clothes, taken to fancy resorts, and was described as a, quote,
00:07:39lovely little fellow with dark curls and brilliant eyes, charming everyone by his childish grace, vivacity and cleverness.
00:07:49He was sent to excellent schools and learned the ways of elegant society.
00:07:55John Allen was said to have alternated in spoiling and scolding him.
00:08:01On the 23rd of June, 1815, just five days after the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo,
00:08:11John Allen and his family embarked on a 34-day ocean voyage to England to open a London branch of his mercantile business, Allen and Ellis.
00:08:24When Edgar was nine, he entered the Reverend Bransby's Manor House Boarding School in the country village of Stoke Newington, about four miles north of London.
00:08:37When later asked about his famous pupil, Bransby declared,
00:08:42I liked the boy. Poor fellow, his parents spoiled him. He was intelligent, wayward, and willful.
00:08:51Edgar later recalled his school days in England as lonely and unhappy.
00:08:57Unfortunately, John Allen's business venture proved a failure.
00:09:02He and his family returned to Richmond in the summer of 1820.
00:09:07Having lived abroad for five years, when Edgar enters the academy run by Joseph Clark, he is more cosmopolitan than his peers.
00:09:17During his three years there, Edgar studies mathematics and learns to read the classic Greek and Roman writers.
00:09:25Clark later recalled,
00:09:27He had a sensitive and tender heart, and would strain every nerve to oblige a friend.
00:09:34At age 14, Edgar enters William Burke School.
00:09:39In those days, such schools were usually private academies, consisting of about 20 male students.
00:09:46There, he studies Greek and Latin, French and Italian, geography and grammar.
00:09:53So, what was Edgar Allan Poe like as a boy?
00:09:58One boyhood friend recall that Edgar liked practical jokes, masquerades, and raiding orchards.
00:10:07The poets we think of the United States back then were lawyers, or people with family money, or the professors.
00:10:13But Poe's great dream was to be a poet somehow.
00:10:16His hero was a British poet, Lord Byron.
00:10:20The guy dressed all in black, with wild, curly black hair, had love affairs all over Europe, and posted,
00:10:25I want to be that guy.
00:10:27So, he grew up acting like a young Lord Byron, and sending love poetry to the girls in his sister's school.
00:10:34Apparently, they really liked the poetry until they found he'd send everybody the same poem.
00:10:39When fifteen years old, he becomes famous for swimming six miles in the James River under a hot summer sun, part of the way against a strong tide.
00:10:51But for years afterwards, Poe was a local legend.
00:10:54And even ten years after the fact, there was an article about it in the Southern Literary Messenger magazine here in town.
00:11:00And Poe proudly boasted, yeah, that article's about me.
00:11:04I'm the guy who set the record and still holds it.
00:11:06And to this day, Poe still holds the record of swimming against the tides in the James River.
00:11:12As he grows older, Edgar becomes more withdrawn and isolated from his classmates.
00:11:20In his later poem, Alone, Poe expresses how his feelings differed from those of his peers.
00:11:27From childhood's hour, I have not been as others were.
00:11:32I have not seen as others saw.
00:11:36I could not bring my passions from a common spring.
00:11:42From the same source, I have not taken my sorrow.
00:11:47I could not awaken my heart to joy at the same tone.
00:11:54And all I loved, I loved alone.
00:12:01While at the Burke Academy, Edgar grows very close to Jane Stannard,
00:12:06the warm-hearted, 30-year-old mother of his friend and classmate, Robert.
00:12:13Whenever unhappy or having problems at home, Edgar found great comfort in her company.
00:12:19When the two of them met, there was a kind of immediate connection.
00:12:28Almost mystical in the sense that there was something in Poe that yearned for someone like Jane Stannard.
00:12:41And there was really something in Jane Stannard that was very appreciative of this sorrowful, melancholy boy who admired her so much.
00:12:56And I think it was that recognition of what they had in common that led to a really intense and lasting friendship.
00:13:11Lasting in the sense that Poe remembered Jane Stannard his entire life.
00:13:17He was said to have loved her with all the affectionate devotion of a son.
00:13:24However, Jane suffered from what we know today as major depression.
00:13:29Edgar knew her for just one year in Richmond, before she died, around age 31, which greatly affected the young poet, who often visited her grave with her son, Robert.
00:13:43Jane's untimely death made Edgar despondent.
00:13:48When he first met her, he almost fainted right at her feet.
00:13:51The problem was she was his best friend's mother.
00:13:54He was 14.
00:13:55It wouldn't have really worked out.
00:13:56But poets like unrequited love.
00:13:58They like to worship somebody from afar.
00:14:01But shortly after they met, she died.
00:14:04He later wrote a famous love lyric about her called,
00:14:08To Helen, changing Jane to the classical figure Helen of Troy, comparing Jane to that ideal.
00:14:17Helen, thy beauty is to me like those Nicaean barks of yore,
00:14:24That gently o'er a perfumed sea the weary way one wanderer bore to his own native shore.
00:14:34On desperate seas long want to roam, thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
00:14:41Thy naiad airs have brought me home, to the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome.
00:14:50Lo, in yon brilliant window niche, how statue-like I see thee stand, the agate lamp within thy hand.
00:15:00Ah, psyche, from the regions which are holy land.
00:15:08Around this time, Edgar falls in love with 15-year-old Elmira Royster, and the two secretly become engaged.
00:15:17She later wrote about his melancholy.
00:15:20He was a beautiful boy, not very talkative.
00:15:24When he did talk though, he was pleasant, but his general manner was sad.
00:15:30The melancholic young poet began clashing with his quick-tempered foster father, who did not understand him and grew exasperated, writing in a letter,
00:15:42He does nothing and seems quite miserable, sulky and ill-tempered to all the family.
00:15:49I have given him a much superior education than ever I received myself.
00:15:54The boy possesses not a spark of affection for us, not a particle of gratitude for my care and kindness toward him.
00:16:01In February 1826, Edgar enters the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, which had just opened the year before.
00:16:18Thomas Jefferson, the first rector, founded the university, designed its buildings, and planned the curriculum.
00:16:26Every Sunday, he invited students to dine with him at Monticello, and Poe very likely met him on various occasions.
00:16:34Yet, just five months after Poe enters the university, Jefferson dies on the 4th of July, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
00:16:48Jefferson wanted to model the University on principles of the Enlightenment, but in reality, it was a wild place.
00:16:57Fights, drinking, and gambling were rampant, and the college rules were ignored.
00:17:03Between 1825 and 1850, only 10% of its students completed the three years and graduated.
00:17:13Poe registered in the schools of ancient and modern languages, taking classes in Greek and Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian.
00:17:25If you ever felt nervous about taking a final exam, imagine being examined by two former U.S. presidents, including the Father of the Constitution.
00:17:38In December 1826, Poe was examined for three hours by President James Madison, who had succeeded Jefferson as rector, and President James Monroe.
00:17:52Poe earned the highest honors in ancient and modern languages.
00:17:57While he excelled academically, Poe struggled financially.
00:18:01Although his foster father had inherited an enormous fortune from his uncle, making him one of the richest men in Virginia, he gave Poe insufficient funds to meet his expenses.
00:18:15So, Poe turned to gambling to try to meet his costs.
00:18:20The problem was, he was an inept card player.
00:18:24He lost an enormous sum of money, greatly worsening his financial situation.
00:18:30John Allen refused to cover his debts, and in December, Poe was forced to quit the university.
00:18:39Even though he was only there for less than a year, Poe's room at 13 West Range, known as the Raven Room, is preserved to this day.
00:18:50Two centuries later, UVA students cannot reside in Poe's old room, and it looks today much as it did when Poe lived there.
00:19:02When Edgar returned to Richmond, he worked without pay as a clerk in his foster father's counting house.
00:19:09It was there he learned that Elmira Royster, the girl he was secretly engaged to, was now engaged to someone else.
00:19:18Her father had adamantly opposed her engagement with Edgar, and had even intercepted his letters.
00:19:25Poe was miserable.
00:19:28After three months, he could endure it no longer.
00:19:31He decided to leave home and make his own way in the world.
00:19:36He wrote John Allen,
00:19:38Sir, my determination is at length taken, to leave your house and endeavor to find some place in this wide world where I will be treated not as you have treated me.
00:19:51I have heard you say, when you little thought I was listening, and therefore must have said it in earnest, that you had no affection for me.
00:20:01Poe heads to Boston, his late mother's favorite city.
00:20:07Cast out by his family, and feeling adrift in the world with few prospects, he enlists for five years in the army, as a private, under the pseudonym Edgar A. Perry, presumably to dodge creditors.
00:20:23In June 1827, Poe self-publishes his first volume of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems.
00:20:33The work is published anonymously, the author identifying himself only as a Bostonian.
00:20:40But it receives virtually no reviews or attention.
00:20:44Only 50 copies are printed, of which 12 have survived.
00:20:49Amazingly, this 40-page pamphlet, completely ignored when published, has become the most valuable work in American literature.
00:21:01He spends the first six months as a company clerk, stationed at Fort Independence on Castle Island in Boston Harbor.
00:21:11By all accounts, he adjusts quite well to military life.
00:21:16After six months, Poe's battery is ordered to Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.
00:21:26I think the army looked attractive to him.
00:21:31So he joined the army, and he achieved the rank of sergeant major.
00:21:40He was called an artisopher.
00:21:44He was the guy that created the gunpowder for the bombs, for the cannonballs.
00:21:49And that was a very dangerous but very important job, because when you would shoot off the cannon towards the enemy,
00:21:57you wanted to make sure the cannonball didn't explode in the cannon or on your side.
00:22:03So he created the gunpowder mixture to make sure that it went where it was supposed to go.
00:22:11A very important job.
00:22:15And he excelled in the army.
00:22:18Sullivan's Island would be the setting for Poe's most popular short story, The Gold Bug,
00:22:25in which a man and his servant hunt for buried treasure.
00:22:30The Gold Bug directly influenced Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island four decades later.
00:22:38Stevenson even credits Poe in his preface.
00:22:42The Gold Bug also popularizes cryptography, or secret writing, as the character decodes a cipher to locate the treasure.
00:22:53Poe helped popularize the use of cryptograms in fiction.
00:22:58In his story, The Gold Bug, he has a character who finds a piece of parchment with nothing on it.
00:23:04When he holds over a flame, reveals that written in invisible ink, there's a code.
00:23:10When he decodes the message, it gives him a series of clues he has to follow to find a buried treasure.
00:23:15So this is the plot of Da Vinci Code, National Treasure, even the Goonies.
00:23:21It all goes back to The Gold Bug.
00:23:23And it was a huge hit.
00:23:24It was Poe's most popular story during his lifetime, even adapting to a stage play while he was still alive.
00:23:30And people thought he was a genius for creating this new kind of story.
00:23:34Now, cryptograms have been around for a long time, usually used by the military.
00:23:38It was a great way to sneak messages across enemy lines.
00:23:42And remember, Poe was in the military, so this is probably where he learned about cryptology, cryptography.
00:23:50Later in his career, Poe wrote a wildly popular newspaper column asking readers to send ciphers for him to decode.
00:23:59Many readers enthusiastically sent him all kinds of ciphers, which Poe unfailingly solved and published the answers in his column.
00:24:11William Friedman was widely considered the most preeminent cryptologist in U.S. history who broke the Japanese purple cipher that helped the Allies defeat Japan in World War II.
00:24:26Freeman was introduced to cryptology by reading The Gold Bug as a boy.
00:24:32It is a curious fact that popular interest in this country in the subject of cryptography received its first stimulus from Edgar Allan Poe.
00:24:41Should a psychological test be made, the word cipher would doubtless bring for most laymen the immediate response Poe or The Gold Bug.
00:24:51The fame of Poe rests not a little on his activities with cipher, and much of the esteem in which this American genius is held today rests in part on the legend of Poe the cryptographer.
00:25:03His wife, Elizabeth Smith Friedman, was also a brilliant cryptanalyst who successfully deciphered many enemy codes during both world wars, saving countless lives.
00:25:18She is considered one of the greatest cryptanalysts in American history.
00:25:27Living on the dreary Sullivan Island for 18 months with poor pay and no chance of advancement to the officer rank, Poe realizes he is at a dead end and attempts to leave the army.
00:25:41He eventually finds a substitute to fulfill his enlistment and leaves the army in April 1829 with an eye toward attending West Point.
00:25:52He decided that the army was not for him and he did what many people did in that time period.
00:26:00You could buy, you could buy your way out by finding someone who would take your place and you would pay that person some money to do that.
00:26:10And that's what he did.
00:26:13When Edgar is just 20 years old, his beloved foster mother, Frances Allen, dies at age 44 after a lingering and painful illness.
00:26:28She was the only source of genuine love and affection in his life to that point.
00:26:35And she supported his artistic ambitions.
00:26:40His sorrow for the death of all those who loved him is reflected in his later poem, The Conqueror Worm.
00:26:49Out, out, out other lights, out all.
00:26:56And over each quivering form,
00:26:59The curtain of funeral pall
00:27:03Comes down with the rush of a storm.
00:27:08When the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy
00:27:19of man, And its hero, the conqueror worm.
00:27:35When most people think of Edgar Allan Poe, West Point is probably not the first thing that
00:27:41comes to mind.
00:27:43But in June 1830, he arrives in upstate New York at the U.S. Military Academy, which enforced
00:27:50a very strict code of conduct.
00:27:53Cadets were forbidden to, quote, drink, play cards or chess, gamble, use or possess tobacco,
00:28:01read novels, romances or pleas, or bathe in the river.
00:28:08The routine was daunting, awake at sunrise, classes until four, military drills, followed
00:28:14by supper, and then evening classes.
00:28:18Yet Poe excels academically in his chosen fields of French and mathematics.
00:28:24Before a while, Edgar thrives under that regime, just as he had under the discipline of Army
00:28:30life.
00:28:31His fellow cadets took delight in his mocking verses about their West Point instructors.
00:28:38In spite of John Allen being one of the richest men in Virginia, thanks mostly to an inheritance,
00:28:46he barely supports Poe while at West Point, making life there even more difficult.
00:28:53As Poe complained in a letter back home,
00:28:57You sent me to West Point like a beggar.
00:29:00The same difficulties are threatening me as before at Charlottesville, and I must resign.
00:29:08What was more painful was that John Allen remarries, starts another family, and basically shuts Poe
00:29:15out of his life.
00:29:19Feeling disillusioned, Poe decides to leave the academy.
00:29:23He deliberately flouts the rules.
00:29:26He skips classes.
00:29:27He disobeys orders.
00:29:29He fails to participate in the drills.
00:29:32On the 28th of January, a general court-martial is convened.
00:29:37Edgar pleads guilty to all but one charge, and declines to offer any defense.
00:29:44He is found guilty on all charges, and is dismissed from West Point.
00:29:50Poe was a great example of what Charles Baudelaire called the poet Modi, the cursed poet, which
00:30:00Baudelaire regarded as a kind of a privileged perspective on society precisely by being cast
00:30:07cast out, by being the stranger, or by being the man of the crowd, the outsider who has
00:30:16a special insight into a social predicament.
00:30:19And I think that Poe's own experience of really intense rejection and dispossession, in a way,
00:30:27that was very important for the kind of poetic and literary perspective that he was so famous
00:30:35for, which is the perspective of the outsider.
00:30:37Set adrift in the world, without direction, without career prospects, without close friends, and
00:30:46shut out by his foster family, Poe decides to relocate to Baltimore.
00:30:51There, where his cousins lived, he would seek a new life for himself.
00:30:57In May 1831, Poe moves to Baltimore, then America's second largest city, to live with his ailing
00:31:14grandmother, Aunt Maria Clem, his cousins Henry and Virginia, and his older brother, also named
00:31:21Henry. His brother was an amateur sailor, and by age 20, had sailed the world on the USS Macedonian.
00:31:32He was said to have shared Edgar's dreamy romanticism, morbid melancholy, and weakness for liquor.
00:31:41A published poet and author, he may have inspired Edgar to take up writing tales.
00:31:48For a time, Edgar used the alias, Henry LeRenee, a name inspired by Henry.
00:31:57Sadly, just three months after Edgar moves to Baltimore, Henry, who had been ill for some
00:32:03time, dies from tuberculosis at 24, the same age as their mother.
00:32:12He is buried under this bush, in an unmarked grave, in the family plot.
00:32:18Around 1833, the family moves here, to 3 Amity Street, a very modest two-story row house, in what
00:32:30was then the countryside. The grandmother, who was bedridden, supported the household through her
00:32:36pension, while her daughter, Mariah Clem, brought in funds through dressmaking. But money was very tight.
00:32:44In 1832, half the prisoners in Baltimore City Jail were insolvent debtors. Edgar tried to find a teaching
00:33:03position, but to no avail. He wrote his foster father,
00:33:07I am perishing, absolutely perishing, for want of aid. And yet I am not idle, nor addicted to any vice,
00:33:18nor have I committed any offense against society which would render me deserving of so hard a fate.
00:33:27For God's sake, pity me, and save me from destruction." Mariah Clem, a widow, was an energetic and kindly
00:33:38woman who was completely devoted to Edgar, and this would remain so throughout his life. She believed in
00:33:47his genius and made significant sacrifices on his behalf. She, in effect, adopted Edgar as her own,
00:33:56acknowledging that he had become,
00:33:58indeed, a son to me, and has always been so.
00:34:03So Maria Clem, for example,
00:34:07apparently was a very loving
00:34:09woman. I mean, she would take anyone into the household, and she did. She took Edgar
00:34:14into the household,
00:34:15and she
00:34:17raised, I shouldn't say raised because he was
00:34:19basically an adult, but she treated him
00:34:22like her own son. And they became very close. He called her
00:34:26Muddy as a nickname, and she called him Eddie. And they were a very tight-knit family.
00:34:35And she supported him and did what she could to keep him happy, to promote him,
00:34:45and to do everything she could to encourage his writing.
00:34:53Edgar also grew especially close to Virginia, his first cousin, and served as her tutor.
00:35:00When Poe moves into this household, Mariah Clem's household in Baltimore, and he meets Virginia,
00:35:06they soon become very fond of one another. And this really is the first time that Poe really has a
00:35:12place, because he's orphaned at a very young age. His mother, Eliza Poe, dies. He's taken in by the
00:35:19Allens, but he doesn't fit into that world. But this world he does fit into. And so the three of
00:35:23them, Virginia Poe, Mariah Clem, and Edgar Allan Poe, kind of form this cohesive unit where he is at his
00:35:31happiest.
00:35:32It is in Baltimore that Poe launches his career as an imaginative short story writer,
00:35:39writing tales such as Morella, The Assignation, Berenice, and his first science fiction story,
00:35:47The Unparalleled Adventure of one Hans Fa. But what made Poe turn to short story writing?
00:35:57He may have been partly inspired by his older brother Henry's works. And Poe had a keen understanding of
00:36:04what the public wanted. Rising literacy rates, urbanization, and technological advances in
00:36:11printing presses increased the public's appetite for stories.
00:36:16So Poe lives in this transition time between the kind of the waning of the old rural America and the
00:36:21dawning of modern capitalistic commercial America. And just like in Europe and during Gutenberg's time
00:36:29when the printing press is invented, you have this kind of explosion of periodicals.
00:36:35Edgar's room was likely on the top floor. This was where he wrote some of his earliest short stories,
00:36:41including MS Found in a Bottle, that is, Manuscript Found in a Bottle, that wins a $50 prize in a literary
00:36:51contest given by the Baltimore Saturday Visitor. Published in 1833, this story
00:36:59launches Poe's literary career. The award also offers Poe much needed validation that he had
00:37:07talent and could devote his life to his craft. You know, for someone who is struggling and wondering,
00:37:14what am I doing, poetry, short stories, and to win such a prestigious award, he must have thought,
00:37:21this is it, this is what I want to do. And yes, he probably thought, I am a good writer, and this
00:37:30prize proves it. Here are these reputable judges, you know, telling me that you won the best story.
00:37:39MS Found in a Bottle is a shipwreck story that begins,
00:37:44Of my country and my family I have little to say. Ill usage and length of years have driven me from the
00:37:51one and estranged me from the other.
00:37:55Estranged from family and country, the unnamed narrator embarks as a passenger on a cargo ship
00:38:03from Batavia, now Jakarta, Indonesia. Days into the voyage, the ship is hit by a violent storm
00:38:12that capsizes the vessel and throws everyone overboard, except the narrator and an old Swede.
00:38:19In the next instant, a wilderness of foam hurled us upon our beam ends and rushing over
00:38:25us fore and aft swept the entire decks from stern to stern. By what miracle I escaped destruction,
00:38:32it is impossible to say. After a while, I heard the voice of an old Swede,
00:38:39who had shipped with us at the moment of our leaving port. We soon discovered that we were the sole
00:38:45survivors of the accident. Driven south by the storm, the narrator ship collides with a gigantic
00:38:52black galleon, and the narrator is thrown onto its rigging. Once aboard, he hides, but soon discovers the
00:39:01aged crew is unable to see him. They all bore about them the marks of hoary old age.
00:39:09Their voices were low, tremulous, and broken. Their eyes glistened with the room of years,
00:39:16and their gray hair streamed terribly in the tempest. The ship drifts toward Antarctica,
00:39:23where it becomes caught in a vast whirlpool and goes down. In March 1834, Edgar's foster father passes
00:39:33away in Richmond, a very wealthy man. He owned eight houses with shares in gold mines and banks. But
00:39:41Edgar does not receive one cent. The following year, Poe's luck finally turns. Through a mutual friend,
00:39:52he is introduced to Thomas Willis White, the owner and editor of the Southern Literary Messenger,
00:39:59a monthly magazine published in Richmond. Poe soon submits short stories, poems,
00:40:06and reviews that White publishes in The Messenger. White is somewhat taken aback by the bizarre nature
00:40:15of some of Poe's tales. Edgar writes him, But whether the articles of which I speak are or are not in bad
00:40:23taste is little to the purpose. To be appreciated, you must be read, and these things are invariably sought
00:40:32after with avidity. White is impressed with Poe's writing and advice as to how to grow the magazine,
00:40:41and offers him a position. In early August 1835, Poe decamps to Richmond to launch a new chapter in his
00:40:50literary career. Poe returns to Richmond to work on the Southern Literary Messenger. He proofreads
00:41:07articles, manages the correspondence, and writes the critical notes, all for a modest $15 per week.
00:41:15He soon becomes lonely in Richmond. Separated from Mariah Clem and her daughter Virginia,
00:41:22he receives word that his wealthy cousin Nielsen Poe invited Virginia to live with him and his family.
00:41:31Nielsen offered to educate Virginia, give her a comfortable life, and be her guardian. He writes a
00:41:38deeply personal letter, imploring them to rebuff Nielsen's offer.
00:41:45My dearest auntie, I am blinded with tears while writing this letter. I have no wish to live another
00:41:54hour. Amid sorrow and the deepest anxiety your letter reached, and you well know how little I am able to
00:42:05bear up under the pressure of grief. My last, my only hold on life is cruelly torn away. I have no desire to
00:42:18live and will not. I love, you know I love Virginia, passionately, devotedly. I cannot express in words
00:42:32the fervent devotion I feel towards my dear little cousin, my own darling. It is useless to disguise the truth
00:42:44that when Virginia goes with Nielsen Poe, that I shall never behold her again. That is absolutely sure.
00:42:53Pity me, my dear auntie, pity me. I have no one now to fly to. I am among strangers, and my wretchedness
00:43:06is more than I can bear. For Virginia, my love, my own sweetest sissy, my darling little wifey,
00:43:17think well before you break the heart of your cousin Eddie. Moved by his pleas, the Clem sacrificed
00:43:28material prospects and soon moved to Richmond. In the fall of 1835, Edgar, Maria, and Virginia lived together
00:43:37in a boarding house on Capitol Square. In December, Poe becomes editor of the Southern Literary Messenger.
00:43:45If Baltimore was where Poe became a short story writer, Richmond was where he became a magazine editor
00:43:54and critic. He soon achieves fame, or infamy, for his cutting but insightful literary reviews.
00:44:04Most critics in Poe's day engaged in what was called puffing. They would lavish praise on mediocre
00:44:12literary works when they hardly deserved it. Part of the reason was to establish America,
00:44:18not just Europe, as a home of great writers.
00:44:24But Poe refused to go along. He announced it his mission to reform the national habit of coddling
00:44:31mediocre American writers. In fact, we are now strong enough in our own resources.
00:44:38We have at length arrived at that epoch when our literature may and must stand on its own merits,
00:44:46or fall through its own defects.
00:44:49Poe was fundamentally and temperamentally against the practice of puffing. He was critical of those who
00:45:00puffed so flagrantly and made fun of them in many ways. And I think, yes, indeed, he went out of his way to
00:45:14to make the case that if American literature was going to attain any respectability in the world,
00:45:23Americans had to establish some critical standards. And that puffery was the antithesis of that.
00:45:33And he didn't mince his words. Writing his reviews on this desk, he called the work
00:45:41ups and downs a public imposition. It should have been printed among the quack advertisements.
00:45:48About the novel The Swiss Harris, Poe declared it,
00:45:52Should be read by all who have nothing better to do.
00:45:57He wrote of the work Paul Urich,
00:46:00Such are the works which bring daily discredit upon our national literature.
00:46:05More outspoken and honest, and some would say reckless, than any other critic, he soon earned the nickname
00:46:16the Tomahawk Man for his biting reviews. But there were two writers who Poe consistently praised,
00:46:24Alfred Lord Tennyson, whom he called a magnificent genius, and Samuel Cooleridge.
00:46:31While working for The Messenger, Poe publishes 37 reviews of American and foreign books and periodicals,
00:46:40establishing his place as a premier critic in the United States.
00:46:49Back home, Edgar grew closer to Virginia, an attractive girl with a very sweet and gentle disposition.
00:46:56One friend noted,
00:46:58He devoted a large part of his salary to Virginia's education, and she was instructed in every elegant
00:47:06accomplishment at his expense. He himself became her tutor at another time. I remember once finding
00:47:13him engaged on a certain Sunday in giving Virginia lessons in algebra.
00:47:18Everyone who saw her was won by her. Poe was very proud and very fond of her, and used to delight in
00:47:27the round, childlike face and plump little figure. And she in turn idolized him. She had a voice of
00:47:35wonderful sweetness and was an exquisite singer. And in some of their more prosperous days, she had her
00:47:41harp and piano. At home, the character of Edgar Poe appeared in his most beautiful light, playful, affectionate,
00:47:50witty, for all who came, a kind word, a pleasant smile, a graceful and courteous attention.
00:47:58And they would say they never saw so much love in that small household between Edgar and Virginia.
00:48:05He would dote on her. She would dote on him. And so much love in that household.
00:48:15And there's no doubt in anyone's mind that they were truly devoted to each other.
00:48:23On the 16th of May, 1836, the 27-year-old Poe married his cousin Virginia in a simple ceremony
00:48:32at their boarding house. Virginia was only 13 years old, but was presented as 21 on their marriage
00:48:40certificate. The couple spend their honeymoon in Petersburg, Virginia, staying on the second floor
00:48:49of this house. His nickname for her was Sissy. He thought of her like a little kid's sister.
00:48:55There's one letter he writes for calls are my little Sissy, my darling cousin, and my little wifey.
00:48:59So at first, it probably was a platonic marriage. It was maybe a marriage out of convenience,
00:49:07maybe something that the mother-in-law had something to do with arranging. Although he genuinely adored
00:49:12her, maybe at first as a kid's sister. And when she did get older, he made sure that she had piano
00:49:20instructors, even a harp instructor, made sure that she had tutors. She apparently was very excellent
00:49:25to speak Italian. So it seems like a seemingly happy home life, even though they always struggle with poverty.
00:49:40Poe had a penchant for self-destruction, which soon began to emerge. He would strive intensely for a
00:49:48desired goal. And just when it was in reach, he would destroy his own chance of achieving it,
00:49:55often through self-destructive drinking or turning friends into enemies.
00:50:00It's a terrifically revealing motif in Poe because it's fundamentally rooted in his own life experience of
00:50:14being an orphan, of having the experience of being rejected or abandoned by a parent, and then going
00:50:25through the process again with John Allen being pushed away, refused a place in the family. And I think for Poe,
00:50:35this kind of, and for really any young person who experiences similar kinds of loss and abandonment,
00:50:46this can very easily create feelings of worthlessness, of self-hatred.
00:50:57This impulse for self-sabotage was present throughout Poe's life and is a theme in several of his short stories.
00:51:07In a story titled Imp of the Perverse, Poe tackles this theme head on.
00:51:13We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss. We grow sick and dizzy.
00:51:24Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably, we remain. A thought,
00:51:33one which chills the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror.
00:51:39It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height.
00:51:50Examine these similar actions. We shall find them resulting solely from the spirit of the perverse.
00:51:58We perpetuate them merely because we feel that we should not.
00:52:03In the story The Black Cat, the narrator also experiences the imp of the perverse.
00:52:12Pluto, this was the cat's name, was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me whenever I went about the house.
00:52:25It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.
00:52:29Our friendship lasted in this manner for several years, during which my general temperament and character,
00:52:37through the instrumentality of the fiend and temperance, had, I blush to confess it,
00:52:43experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others.
00:52:57And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of perverseness.
00:53:04Of this spirit, philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives than I am that
00:53:13perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart. Who has not a hundred times found
00:53:21himself committing a vile or a silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not?
00:53:28This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow.
00:53:33One morning, in cold blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree,
00:53:42hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes and with the bitterest remorse at my heart.
00:53:51I think Poe in the 1830s is already doing what would take much, much longer to be recognized as
00:53:59stream of consciousness writing in the 20th century with Joyce or Wolf or even back in the late 19th century with Dostoevsky.
00:54:07Poe is a very important kind of under acknowledged precursor for all of this experimentation where
00:54:15mental associations themselves become the object of representation in a way.
00:54:21So a lot of his crazy narrators who are so swept up in their own kind of mental preoccupations,
00:54:30artistically, that was very experimental for Poe to be focusing on.
00:54:36Perhaps weighed down by heavy financial burdens and an overbearing owner,
00:54:42Poe's own imp of the perverse emerges and he begins to self-destructively drink.
00:54:49Well, Poe had an extreme intolerance of alcohol. They say that after a glass of wine,
00:54:53he gets staggering drunk. It seems to be a hereditary problem because his sister,
00:54:58they say after just a thimble full of whiskey, she was staggering drunk, be sick for days afterwards.
00:55:03The Poe family seems to have had some kind of hereditary intolerance of alcohol, which they
00:55:09describe as a family curse. They didn't really have a word for alcoholism back then to really
00:55:15understand the concept. But Poe's friends said that, sure, if he'd go to a party, he'd try to avoid the
00:55:21alcohol. But if he just had a single drink, he became a completely different person. He'd embarrass
00:55:26himself. He'd alienate friends. And then he'd be just sick for days afterwards. So Poe stayed away
00:55:35from alcohol for months at his time. His employers, his wife and mother-in-law all encouraged him to
00:55:41stay away from drinking because that's when he was productive. When he's clean and sober,
00:55:46he was able to write thousands of words. But when he had something to drink, he was bedridden.
00:55:52As Poe begins drinking again, many arguments ensue with his boss. White soon dismisses him from the
00:56:00messenger. Poe likely had mixed feelings leaving the magazine. He resolved to make a brand new start
00:56:08of it in the upcoming year. He would move his family to the largest city in America.
00:56:21In early 1837, Poe moves his family to New York, where they take up quarters near Washington Square.
00:56:32But their timing could not be worse. In May, as Queen Victoria ascends to the throne in England,
00:56:40the Great Panic of 1837 begins, leading to one of the worst depressions in American history.
00:56:49Work was very difficult to find. The family had to survive on Poe's occasional publications and taking
00:56:56in boarders. The family was destitute, often living on bread and molasses for weeks at a time.
00:57:05Yet, they seemed happy to outsiders, as they were a very close-knit trio.
00:57:11It was at this time Edgar falls ill and is treated at the nearby Northern Dispensary on Waverly Place
00:57:21in Greenwich Village. The building still stands today. While in New York, Poe completes his only
00:57:29finished novel, the narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, about a young man who stows away
00:57:37aboard a whaling ship called the Grampus. He experiences myriad adventures and misadventures,
00:57:46mutiny, shipwreck, and cannibalism among them, before the crew of another ship rescues him.
00:57:53It's a very interesting tale. It's inspired by Poe's brother, Henry, who had been a sailor and
00:58:00had traveled the world. Henry's stories inspired this and Poe's own creative genius.
00:58:11Starting out as a somewhat conventional adventure at sea, the novel becomes increasingly strange and
00:58:19difficult to classify, with one critic calling it, quote, one of the most elusive major texts of
00:58:26American literature. The novel addresses one of Poe's recurring themes, man's unconscious desire for
00:58:35destruction. To lend authenticity to this tale, Poe draws from contemporary travel journals and real
00:58:44life accounts of sea voyages, as well as his own experiences at sea. Critics generally dislike the work,
00:58:53finding it disjointed. Poe himself later disavowed it, calling it a very silly book. Still, the novel
00:59:02has made somewhat of a comeback. In 2013, the UK Guardian cited it as the 10th best novel written in
00:59:11English. The novel later influenced Herman Melville's wailing epic, Moby Dick.
00:59:17I agree with Melville that failures can be great works of art. And I think in this narrative,
00:59:28Poe achieved more than he expected to. And the effects that he creates continue to entice us into this
00:59:42very tangled narrative that seems to operate on so many different levels.
00:59:51Unfortunately, economic conditions do not improve. And in the summer of 1838, Poe is forced to move his
00:59:59family to Philadelphia, then the publishing capital of the country, to seek better opportunities.
01:00:07It is here that he will enter the most productive and brilliant period of his literary career.
01:00:23After moving to Philadelphia, Poe finds work as an assistant editor with Burton's Gentleman's Magazine.
01:00:30William Burton was an actor, often away on tour, and needed someone to run the magazine he owned.
01:00:38Burton offers to pay Poe a woeful $10 per week for what he claims will be two hours of work per day.
01:00:46Of course, the actual editorial job takes far longer, and Poe is exploited.
01:00:52Burton also disapproves of Poe's biting literary views and does not permit him to edit the magazine.
01:01:02Needless to say, Poe is quite unhappy with the arrangement.
01:01:08It is during this time that he pens one of his most mysterious and brilliant short stories,
01:01:15The Fall of the House of Usher.
01:01:17The tale opens with the narrator approaching the House of Usher on horseback, feeling the weight
01:01:24of the mansion's gloominess.
01:01:27During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds
01:01:32hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone on horseback through a singularly
01:01:38dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on,
01:01:43within view of the melancholy house of Usher. I know not how it was, but with the first glimpse
01:01:50of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.
01:01:55One theme the story explores is how the fate of the crumbling mansion, with its eye-like windows
01:02:03and dour landscape, is intertwined with the two troubled proprietors residing in it.
01:02:12The narrator had recently received a letter from his friend Roderick Usher, complaining of an illness,
01:02:20and finds him in an oppressed state.
01:02:23I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow, an air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung
01:02:32over and pervaded all. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses. The most insipid
01:02:39food was alone and durable. The odors of all flowers were oppressive. His eyes were tortured
01:02:45by even a faint light. And there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments,
01:02:53which did not inspire him with horror. To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden
01:02:59slave. I shall perish, said he. I must perish in this deplorable folly.
01:03:05As depicted in a 1928 avant-garde silent film, Roderick believes it is the family mansion that is the
01:03:17main cause of his malady, and that of his twin sister, and only companion, Lady Madeline, who is
01:03:25also gravely ill. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which
01:03:32he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth. An influence which some
01:03:39peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion obtained over his spirit, an effect
01:03:46which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down
01:03:53had at length brought about upon the morale of his existence. The narrator tries to lift his friend's
01:04:01morale by listening to improvised musical compositions on the guitar, but Roderick reveals that he believes
01:04:10the family mansion to be alive and their fates tragically intertwined. The belief, however,
01:04:18was connected with the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The evidence of the sentience was to
01:04:25be seen, he said, in the gradual yet certain condensation of an atmosphere of their own
01:04:30about the waters and the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, in that silent yet
01:04:37importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had molded the destinies of his family,
01:04:43and which made him what I now saw him, what he was.
01:04:46When Roderick and his sister perish, this also brings about the mansion's destruction,
01:04:54as if their fates are bound together.
01:04:56From that chamber and from that mansion I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath.
01:05:05There came a fierce breath of the whirlwind. The entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon
01:05:10my sight. My brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder. There was a long tumultuous
01:05:18shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters. And the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed
01:05:25sullenly and silently over the fragments of the House of Usher.
01:05:30Well, The Fall of the House of Usher is a tour de force of Poe's ideas of unity of effect.
01:05:37And it's also a mirror image in itself. The whole story is about mirroring.
01:05:42And Poe wrote it in what's called a chiastic pattern. The beginning and the end reflect each
01:05:49other. Even the internal parts reflect each other. So for instance, the beginning of the story starts
01:05:54out as they're approaching the House of Usher. They see its reflection in the tarn. So the house itself
01:06:01is reflected. The story ends with them leaving the House of Usher and looking at it as it collapses
01:06:08into the tarn. So begins and ends at exactly the same place. But also within the story,
01:06:14we meet Madeline and Roderick Usher, who are twins. They live in a house with two eye-like windows,
01:06:21copies of each other. The house itself copied in its reflection. So it's all about mirroring. It's all
01:06:29about doubles. Are these actually twins? Or are they mirrors of the same person, the same personality?
01:06:36Another major theme in Poe's work is buried secrets do not stay buried. Hidden secrets erupting to the
01:06:46surface is the theme of the Telltale Heart, also written in Philadelphia. The story begins with the
01:06:54narrator revealing his madness as he attempts to deny it. True. Nervous. Very, very dreadfully nervous. I had
01:07:03been and am. But why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed,
01:07:11not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. The mad narrator describes his obsession in
01:07:19killing the old man, as conveyed in this 1928 experimental silent film. It is impossible to say
01:07:28how first the idea entered my brain. But once conceived, it haunted me day and night. I loved
01:07:36the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire.
01:07:45I think it was his eye. Yes, it was this. He had the eye of a vulture, a pale blue eye with a film over it.
01:07:55Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold. And so by degrees, very gradually,
01:08:01I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
01:08:08The narrator describes how he murders and buries the old man under the floorboards. But when police
01:08:15officers arrive to search his home, he cannot hide his crime. So tormented is he by the increasingly
01:08:23loud sounds in his ears of a beating heart. No doubt now I grew very pale. But I talked more
01:08:31fluently and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased. And what could I do? It was a low,
01:08:39dull, quick sound. Much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath.
01:08:46But the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles in a high key with violent
01:08:54gesticulations. But the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? Oh God, what could I do?
01:09:03I phoned. I raved. I swore. Villains, I shrieked. Dissemble no more. I admit the deed. Tear up the
01:09:15planks. Here. Here. It is the beating of his hideous heart.
01:09:20Poe's narrator may be showing us a certain situation or scenario, but the real subject of the tale in a way
01:09:31is the narrator's perspective itself. So that focus on the narrator's perspective or point of view
01:09:39will go into in the 20th century stream of consciousness writers like Joyce where the thought
01:09:45process is the interesting thing. The Telltale Heart was one of the most extraordinary stories
01:09:51that Poe ever wrote and it really sets him apart in many ways. It was not the first story in which Poe
01:10:03used an unreliable narrator, but it's probably the most spectacular. If we think about the way that
01:10:11horror stories now are related through cameras and film, it's a story that's told from the point of
01:10:20view of the killer and we see closing in on the victim, the viewer is seen from the killer's perspective.
01:10:29Although mainly remembered as an author and poet, Poe was also a highly influential critic.
01:10:46He was the first American writer to produce important literary criticism. His literary theories
01:10:55on what makes the short story or prose tale effective and powerful help shape the conventions of the
01:11:05emerging genre. The most important of these theories was what he called unity of effect.
01:11:13So the unity of effect is drawn from Poe's work, the philosophy of composition, where he says that all the
01:11:18components in a story should lead into this one effect, whether it's melancholy in his poems or horror in his stories.
01:11:28But this unity of effect can only be achieved if the work can be read in one sitting or else the effect is lost.
01:11:36In the brief tale, the author is enabled to carry out the fullness of his intention, be what it may.
01:11:43During the hour of perusal, the soul of the reader is at the writer's control. There are no external or extrinsic
01:11:52influences resulting from weariness or interruption. And he emphasized the importance of the opening
01:11:59sentence and every word in the tale in contributing to the unity of effect. If his very initial sentence
01:12:08tend not to the upbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition,
01:12:17there should be no word written of which the tendency is not to the one pre-established design.
01:12:24And by such means, with care and skill, a picture is at length painted, which leaves in the mind of
01:12:31him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction. In his renowned critical
01:12:40essay, The Philosophy of Composition, Poe reveals that he begins with the consideration of an effect.
01:12:49Keeping originality always in view, I say to myself in the first place, of the innumerable effects
01:12:57or impressions of which the heart, the intellect, or the soul is susceptible. What one shall I on the
01:13:05present occasion select? Once selected, the intended effect influences not only the story's plot, but also
01:13:14its tone and mood. In fact, Poe suggested authors not put pen to paper until the overall effect is determined.
01:13:24There are so many writers today who have been influenced by Poe, directly or indirectly,
01:13:35that it's almost hard to see how pervasive that impact has been. But Poe was one of the first to
01:13:43recognize that from a technical perspective, a great short story is harder to write than a great novel.
01:13:52because the lines on the court are much tighter. You have to be very precise. You have to know exactly
01:14:01what you're doing from the get-go. Whereas, as Poe knew from writing Arthur Gordon Pym, you kind of figure
01:14:09it out as you go. Meanwhile, things were going poorly at Burton's magazine. Poe was understandably resentful
01:14:17that although the magazine was bringing in $4,000 a year, he earned but a small fraction of it, despite
01:14:25doing most of the work. Even worse, he felt Burton mistreated him. Poe's lifelong ambition, which he had
01:14:36since his days in Baltimore years before, was to establish his own literary magazine that would
01:14:44publish outstanding literature and raise the literary standards in America. He also craved the freedom to
01:14:53speak his mind and gain financial security. Sensing an opportunity, Poe draws up a prospectus for his proposed
01:15:03pen magazine to attract financial backers. But when Burton finds out, he fires Poe on the spot.
01:15:12Unfortunately, Poe falls very ill during this time. He cannot find financial backers and is forced to put his dream on hold.
01:15:22Around the time William Henry Harrison is inaugurated as President of the United States in 1841,
01:15:35Poe begins work as editor of Graham's Magazine, owned by the Philadelphia lawyer and publisher, George
01:15:43Graham. While Harrison is only president for 30 days before succumbing to pneumonia, Poe's employment at
01:15:51Graham's Magazine lasts a little longer. He receives $800 per year and enjoys far better working conditions.
01:16:03It was at this time that Poe writes a story that changes the history of world literature,
01:16:11a story whose impact is still widely felt in novels, movies, and television to this day.
01:16:21In the April 1841 issue of Graham's Magazine appeared Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue,
01:16:35inaugurating one of the most popular genres ever conceived, the detective story. The word detective did
01:16:44not yet exist in English, so Poe called these stories tales of radio summation. Nothing like this had
01:16:52ever been written before in literature. The first thing he did was publish The Murders in the Rue Morgue,
01:17:00a new kind of story about a character who solves impossible crimes. In this case,
01:17:06two women who have been murdered inside a locked room that's still locked from the inside,
01:17:10when the door is broken down, no murderer is there. How could he have murdered both these women in such
01:17:16a brutal fashion as to shove one of them up the chimney and nobody's seen him? Is it supernatural?
01:17:23Was it a ghost? Well, Poe has a character, a private investigator, Auguste Dupin, who's able to solve the crime
01:17:31using reason and analysis, studying the crime scene, profiling the suspect. And this became the first
01:17:39detective story. A whole new literary genre. Poe became the first American to invent a new literary
01:17:46genre. Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of 18, I there became acquainted
01:17:53with Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue Monmartre,
01:18:01where the accident of our both being in search of the same very rare and very remarkable volume
01:18:07brought us into closer communion. We saw each other again and again. I was astonished at the vast
01:18:16extent of his reading, and above all I felt my soul enkindled within me by the wild fervor and the vivid
01:18:23freshness of his imagination. It was at length arranged that we should live together during my stay in the
01:18:30city. Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no visitors. Indeed, the locality of our retirement had
01:18:38been kept a secret from my own former associates, and it had been many years since Dupin had ceased to know
01:18:45or be known in Paris. We existed within ourselves alone. Then we sallied forth into the streets, arm in arm
01:18:55continuing the topics of the day, or roaming far and wide until a late hour seeking amid the wild lights
01:19:03and shadows of the populous city that infinity of mental excitement which quiet observation can afford.
01:19:12Their seclusion is broken when they read a newspaper account of a baffling double murder. A mother and
01:19:20daughter have been found dead at their residence in the rue morgue. The mother was found with broken bones
01:19:28and her throat deeply cut, while the daughter was found strangled to death and stuffed upside down in a
01:19:35chimney. The murders occurred in a fourth floor apartment that was locked on the inside. Like Dupin and
01:19:43the narrator, the women lived in an extremely retired life, seeing almost no one. Several witnesses reported
01:19:51hearing two voices at the time of the murder. Their first voice spoke French, but they could not identify
01:19:59the language of the second shrill voice. The police are mystified. After visiting the crime scene, Dupin ingeniously
01:20:10the police deduces how the two women were killed. Poe's story establishes certain attributes of the
01:20:17detective genre that many authors later follow, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes
01:20:25and Agatha Christie with Hercule Perrault. The detective as a detached, gentlemanly amateur not associated with
01:20:34the police. The use of first-person narrator who is a friend of the detective, such as Dr. Watson for
01:20:41Sherlock Holmes or Archie Goodwin for Nero Wolfe. The opening intrusion of the outside world on the
01:20:49detective's bachelor office or quarters, such as 221B Baker Street in London. And using the powers of reason,
01:20:59the detective revealing how the crime was committed. So indebted to Poe was Conan Doyle that he wrote,
01:21:09Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?
01:21:15Doyle also called Poe's detective stories a model for all time. In fact, in Doyle's very first novel,
01:21:24A Study in Scarlet, Watson remarks to Sherlock Holmes,
01:21:29You remind me of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of
01:21:36stories. But what may account for the detective novel being conceived at this particular time?
01:21:43It's a confluence or a convergence of cultural factors. One of them is the growth of cities,
01:21:51the creation of urban cultures, the fascination with urban types. Baudelaire became fascinated with
01:22:01the flaneur, the city walker, somebody who studies people in the streets. This is also historically the
01:22:09time at which many of the great cities of the world began to found police forces.
01:22:15Poe soon wrote a sequel, The Mystery of Marie Roget, in which C. Auguste Dupin returns to solve the
01:22:24murder of a Parisian girl whose body was found floating in the Seine. He closely based this tale
01:22:31on a real-life sensational case of the time, the slaying of Mary Rogers, a beautiful 20-year-old
01:22:38cigar girl in New York whose body was found floating in the Hudson River. Although not as well received,
01:22:46this was the first detective story based on a real true crime. Many television series, including the
01:22:53long-running program Law & Order with its adapted from the headlines format, follow in the tradition
01:23:01pioneered by Poe. Poe considered his third and final tale of radiocination, the purloined letter,
01:23:11to be his best. In this story, the detective C. Auguste Dupin and the narrator are secluded in their
01:23:19Parisian quarters discussing famous cases when a prefect of the police visits. He requests their
01:23:27assistance in recovering a letter from the French queen, stolen by one of her ministers.
01:23:35The police cannot locate the stolen letter that contains information damaging to her reputation,
01:23:41but Dupin ingeniously solves the case, discovering the stolen letter hiding in plain sight at the
01:23:49minister's residence. In this story, Dupin smokes a pipe, an attribute that Conan Doyle adopts for
01:23:56Sherlock Holmes. And Poe develops the rapport between Dupin and his friend that would be echoed in many
01:24:04detective partnerships through the years. With these three tales of radiocination, Poe firmly establishes
01:24:14the conventions of the detective story. Although he could not have known it at the time,
01:24:20his place in literary history was assured. At home, Poe tutored Virginia in languages and algebra and provided
01:24:32her a harp and piano. He often encouraged her to sing, which she loved to do. Visitors observed that she was an
01:24:41excellent singer. Poe had reached the peak of his literary powers. He made many friends in Philadelphia
01:24:50and participated in prominent literary salons. He also found refuge in a happy home life and great joy
01:24:59with Virginia. Yet life as he knew it was about to radically change.
01:25:11Lastly, God want to find out more ideas. Oh my God.
01:25:13Amen Naik also Johanüberid Engleey, O�olo Paulo?
01:25:16weaving in words yelling is a gift that any people will not enter very that Norman
01:25:20of course only write the gospel! Otherwise he chooses to dress at the same time. Oh my God.
01:25:23Time is loved one another pairing. Otherwise he AKA the 만� old person Christ which
01:25:25has opened the same place. The Sunday language has always been treated
01:25:29for someone. His friend tends to dress at the same time during the same time during the pandemic.
01:25:33Phil Zimpeliff causing the battle for his grave since April 1.
01:25:35It pleases his daily life until Seki includingøye et Cann centresku,
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