Poe: A Life Cut Short.
Hippocrates鈥檚 classic pronouncement that life is short but art is long could have been coined with Edgar Allan Poe in mind. Although he died in 1849 at age 40, his literary legacy endures 鈥� not just in lugubrious stories and poems like 鈥淭he Tell-Tale Heart鈥� and 鈥�Annabel Lee,鈥� but in his influence on literature, including 19th-century French Romantic poetry and detective and science fiction.
Just in time for the bicentennial of Poe鈥檚 January 19, 1809, birth, master biographer Peter Ackroyd 鈥� born 100 years after Poe鈥檚 death 鈥� has written the brief but still amply detailed Poe: A Life Cut Short.
Ackroyd has demonstrated his adeptness at distilling masses of information with lively, full-gore biographies of such long-gone literary lights as T.S. Eliot, Charles Dickens, William Blake, and Thomas More. In 鈥淧oe,鈥� he provides a pared-down but rich portrait of a productive but dismal existence.
Poe dwelt, like the narrator of his poem 鈥淓ulalie,鈥� 鈥渋n a world of moan鈥� against a backdrop of 鈥渕idnights dreary鈥� not unlike that in his most famous poem, 鈥淭he Raven.鈥� Ackroyd writes, 鈥淗e was dogged by poverty, and cursed by lack of success.... His entire life was a series of setbacks, of disappointed hopes and thwarted ambitions.鈥�
Setbacks that started in childhood
He breathed the 鈥渁ir of menace and fatality鈥� from early childhood. By the time he was three, he鈥檇 lost both parents, travelling actors, leaving him with 鈥渇eelings of utter abandonment,鈥� which, along with an association of death with beauty, would become a leitmotif in his work. As an adult he would be burdened with an unfortunate inclination to seek nurture from dark-haired consumptives like his mother, even as he battled a predilection for alcohol inherited from his father.
Young Poe was fortunate to be taken in by prosperous, doting foster parents, Fanny and John Allan, who provided him with not just a middle name but also a stellar education in Virginia and England. Yet this relationship also ended badly, with Fanny鈥檚 death from consumption and Poe鈥檚 bitter estrangement from his foster father, who cut him off
without a cent in late adolescence.
Poe鈥檚 adulthood was a constant struggle against destitution and despair, frequently exacerbated by drunken binges. Even Ackroyd鈥檚 condensed account paints an exasperatingly repetitive cycle of 鈥淣evermore!鈥� followed by further rounds of self-destructive drinking.
In his search for 鈥渆xternal discipline鈥� and a source of income, Poe enlisted in the Army during his late teens and later enrolled in officers鈥� training at West Point 鈥� both poor fits. At the same time, he was writing and publishing poems.
At 27, Poe married his 14-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. He had met her when she was 9, when he moved into her mother (and his aunt) Maria Clemm鈥檚 household. Ackroyd comments that their relationship was 鈥渟piritual in temper鈥� and notes delicately, 鈥淲e can only speculate that physical intimacy with his child bride, if it occurred at all, came at a subsequent date.鈥�
An entire industry could be built producing 鈥淓dgar Allan Poe Lived Here鈥� plaques. Until Virginia鈥檚 death from consumption in 1847, the Poes and Maria Clemm relocated repeatedly, scrambling between boarding houses in Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York as Poe chased literary hack work. Ackroyd dutifully tracks each move, commenting, 鈥淗e never felt at home anywhere.鈥�
Poe鈥檚 steadiest source of income was not from his books, which earned him barely $300 during his lifetime, but from his employment as a 鈥淢agazinist,鈥� editing and writing stories and reviews for various literary journals. Unfortunately, he held each position only until seized by the self-destructive impulse he labelled 鈥渢he imp of the perverse鈥� in an eponymous 1845 story.
Poe鈥檚 reviewing credo was, 鈥淚 intend to put up with nothing that I can put down.鈥� Not surprisingly, this 鈥渜uerulous and acerbic critic鈥� garnered attention and enemies but few friends from his snarky reviews.
A body of writing shaped by fear
There isn鈥檛 much room in Ackroyd鈥檚 brief life to delve deeply into Poe鈥檚 writing, but he manages to convey a strong sense of the emotional draw of his dark, sensational, morbid output, which touched on universal, deeply rooted fears.
Occasionally, Ackroyd gets carried away by his enthusiasm, dubbing Poe 鈥渢he greatest prose writer of the country鈥� 鈥� ignoring contemporaries Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, for starters 鈥� and 鈥渢he greatest exponent of fantasy fiction in the English language.鈥�
Yet Ackroyd acknowledges that, however brilliant and influential in his work, Poe as a person was 鈥減ermanently incomplete ... like a cuttlefish floundering in his own ink.鈥� As William Butler Yeats wrote, 鈥淧erfection of the life, or of the work.鈥� Ackroyd鈥檚 short biography makes it clear which Poe achieved.
Heller McAlpin, a freelance critic in New York, is a frequent Monitor contributor.
