Anniversary of E.A. Poe's death

His science was almost as good as his fiction.

His essays were.

He is one of the rare people whose death is almost more appropriate to commemorate than his birthday.

He perfected angst. Angst can come across as pathetic and he had much to validate that adjective to be thrown at him but he managed to talk about his pathetic nature eloquently.

"I became insane, with long intervals of
horrible sanity. During these fits of absolute
unconsciousness I drank, God only knows how
often or how much. As a matter of course, my
enemies referred the insanity to the drink
rather than the drink to the insanity."

He symbolized what is now all-American. The angst ridden loner.

ALONE
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were I have not seen
As others saw I could not bring
My passions from a common spring
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone
And all I lov'd I lov'd alone
Then in my childhood in the dawn
Of a most stormy life was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still
From the torrent, or the fountain
From the red cliff of the mountain
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by
From the thunder, and the storm
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view

E. A. Poe

My Complete Works is on on the desk...must go over a few pieces today.

Some dudette still has my complete works in Brazil. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest her armpits.

Craven, I think we discussed the fact that Poe did not die of alcoholism, but complications of diabetes. Another fact that eludes many is whether "Annabel Lee" was indeed written about Virginia Clemens.


Cav, I have The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe which contains everything but his critiques and poetry. Somewhere I read that "The Cask of Amontillado" was the result of finding a human skeleton encased in some sort of wall when Poe was a private in the army in 1827.

The man of mystery and the macabre attracts mysteries:

EDGAR ALLAN POE:
Every decade since Poe died in the late 1800's there has been a new theory about how he died. He left Richmond en route to New York and disappeared for ten days, at the end of which he was found in a voting booth in Baltimore during a Federal election wearing another man's clothes and raving. He was taken to hospital and continued to rave for four days and then died. Some of the theories have been that he died of an overdose of opium, that he asphyxiated, that he was epileptic, and that he was demon-possessed - the theories are endless. And the mystery has never been solved.

Since 1949 a mysterious man has appeared on the night of Poe's birthday, January 19th, between midnight and 6am, leaving three red roses and half a bottle of cognac for Poe. Called "The Poe Toaster," the man's identity has never been discovered.

Poe also left six cryptograms for future generations to solve. They remained unsolved for over a hundred and sixty years, after which a challenge was launched on the Internet. A Toronto computer programmer solved them two years ago.

Hmmmm. Had no idea about the cryptograms nor the Canuck who solved them.