Depression In Edgar Allan Poe's Poetry

Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry differs from many. In order to have understanding of Poe’s meanings in his works it is beneficial to know his life before poetry. Therefore; on January 19, 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts (The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe). Poe’s parents passed away before he turned three years old, and Poe was forced to live with a foster family. As Poe grew he began to excel at education and attended The University of Virginia. Poe and his foster family suffered from some sort of money issues and Poe had no choice but to join the United States Army at a very young age. Durning this time Poe published many different collections of poems. His poems, related to his time of war and his life of no real family. Poe’s wife died in 1847 from tuberculosis (The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe), with this news Poe began to suffer from a great depression and alcoholism. …show more content…
Poe’s work is said to be found under mystery, and is said to lie between this concept of fact and fiction. (Analysis of “The Raven”) To quote a source that discusses Poe’s style of writing a critic says, “Poe’s work has often focused on elements of his tragic life and early death; his drinking and drug use, and the deaths of virtually all important women in his life, including his mother, his foster mother, and his wife”. (The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe). Because of Poe’s, drug and alcohol abuse combined with his dysfunctional and unsupportive broken family, shapes the mold for Poe’s unique writing styles and themes. The most common trend in all of Edgar Allan Poe’s works was having an underlining meaning or message to convey his life events to the novel. Poe uses imagery, symbolism, and tone to develop the theme of his poems. “The Raven” especially focuses on this theme of death, despair, and