Poe

We actually had the pleasure of reading my absolute favorite author from the nineteenth century, and possibly one of my all time favorites, Edgar Allan Poe. Back in late middle school, early high school, I became very interested in the work of Poe. The thing that set me off the most is that my middle name, Allan, is spell the same way his was. I learned about his life and his hardships even from an early age, which gave me a look at how a person with so many trials and tribulations can turn it around into something great and amazing. His problems ranged from gambling debts to the death of loved ones to illness. But in the struggle to find himself, he stuck with what came natural, writing.

All my life, I have been intrigued by horror and the macabre outlook on life. Not so much fixating on it, but enjoying hearing about it. It breaks away from the norm of society where everything has to be pretty and pleasant in order to be happy. In my case, I have a keen eye for the romantic and elegant. But on the other hand, I find it interesting, reading and hearing about other people's fears and misfortunes. As weird as that may sound, I think Poe was on the same page. He wrote beautiful poetry and prose about his love and at the same time still being able to focus on, sort of, the shock value, creating several amazing works that weren't your average bedtime stories. He practically started the idea of the detective story and wrote amazing short stories for all walks of life.

However, the very thing that intrigues me the most about Poe is not only what he accomplished while he was alive, but more the controversy over his death. The initial 'cause' of his death was of course alcoholism. But the doctor who made this assumption was very much apart of the temperance movement, which was to prohibit the amount of alcohol produced and consumed entirely. Thusly, saying that Poe died of alcoholism played very well into his work. In fact, the physician