POE, EDGAR ALLAN (1809-49). An American poet and prose writer, born in Boston, January III, 1809. The grandson of a prominent patriot during the War of the Revolution, the son of an actor whose wife was his superior in charm if not in power on the stage, Poe shared for several years the wandering life and vicissitudes of his parents, but after his mother's early death was adopted by Mrs. John Allan, the wife of a bnsi ness man of Riehmond, Va. The boy's per sonality gave promise of fascinating qualities, and he was given the best educational opportuni ties within the reach of his adopted parents. He was sent to a good school in Richmond: was taken to England in 1815 and placed in the Manor House School in the neighborhood of Lon don, amid surroundings which made a deep im pression on his sensitive imagination. In one of his most striking sketches, "William NVilson,” he recalled in vivid description the school, the village, and the old church to which the boys were paraded twice on Sunday. In 1820 the Allans returned to Richmond and Edgar read the classics and studied French under a pedantic Irish teacher. learning with great quickness, versatile, fond of reading, somewhat given to satirical comment on his fellows, agile and vig orous in movement and courteous in manner. In 1820 Poe entered the University of Virginia. which had just been established by Thomas Jefferson at Charlottesville on new- and promising lines'of organization and methods of work. in the schools of ancient and modern lan guages in which he studied, Poe gave his atten tion chiefly to Latin, Greek, Spanish. French, and Italian. Ileavy drinking and card-playing for money were popular forms of dissipation among students. and Poe's life was not free from ex cesses. There is, however, no foundation for the reports of excessive indulgence in these vices: he seems to have been neither better nor worse than many of his contemporaries. At the end of the first session he won 1101101'S in Latin and French, but his irregularities offended My. Allan. and Poe was placed in his adopted father's counting room. The work was very distasteful to him, and he soon made his escape from its drudgery to reappear in Boston. where his earliest ladunte. Tamerlane, and Other Poems, was brought out by an amateur publisher in 1827. The influence of Byron Was then at its height, and Poe's work showed how sympathetically he had studied the English poet whose mastery of the lyric form has given hint a foremost place among the sing ing poets. The verse in the little volume was
notable neither for power nor promise of original thought, hut it was full of poetic feeling, of sensi tiveness to the melody of words. and of rich imagery. In Nay, 1827. Poe enlisted in the United States Army as a private soldier, served two years with fidelity, was honorably discharged, secured a reconciliation with Mr. Allan, and fur nislu•tl more substantial evidence of his posses sion of original power by the publication of "Al Aaraaf" and other minor poems in Baltimore in 1829. Mr. Allan married a second time in Octo ber, 1830, having previously, by way of set tling his wayward ward in life, secured for him an appointment to the Military Academy at. West Point. Poe was then twenty-one years of age, a ready French scholar, had read widely if not wisely, and was a good mathe matician. He was, however, neglectful of his military duties, was often under arrest, and at the end of six month,: was dismissed from the Academy by court-martial. Ile was penniless and could no longer look to Mr. Allan for aid. In March, 1$31, another volume from his hand ap peared. this time in New York, under the title Poems. All the poems save six which had ap peared iu the previous volume were reprinted, with important changes in several instances, and six additional pieces were given to the public. Among the latter were "The N'alley of Unrest," "The City in the Sea," "Lenore." "To Helen," and "Israfel." No poetry of kindred beauty had appeared in America, and in certain respects those remarkable poems have not been surpassed. They showed a wonderfully sensitive ear for verbal notation, a touch so delicate and sure that it may be described as magical, and an imagina tion at once sombre and beautiful. An artist by temperament and by imitation, Poe had no les sons to teach, no truths to enforce. He cared supremely for beauty for its own sake; and so completely did lie master the resources of verse that he was able, by mere collocation of sound, to produce an almost hypnotic effect. to throw a spell over his reader, the secret of which re sides in the beguiling of the ear quite as much as in the awakening of the imagination.