Edgar Allan Poe His Life & Legacy (pgs 56-100)

Summary
When Poe's foster father got re married Poe was able to come back to Baltimore. Poe was thinking of how he was born his parents had to give him up and then he was an orphan at the year of two, he did not complete university education, expelled from West Point, rejected by his foster father and was scared how every women that loved him Eliza Poe, Jane Standard, and Frances Allan died. While Poe was in Baltimore he found his aunt Maria Clemm and his nine year old cousin Virginia who later becomes his wife. Poe was very close to Maria saw her as his mother so he had written a poem called, "To my mother" which was for Maria. Poe entered a contest called, "Saturday Courier" the prize offered 100 dollars for the best original story but he did not win. Poe used the several stories he wrote to make up a volume but never got to publish it. Since Poe decided to take car of Maria and Virginia he needed money, Thomas Willis White help Poe publish one of his stories in the March issue of the, "Southern Literary Messenger." Poe was doing really bad financially, so Poe began reading and writing so he can get some materiel for the magazine, he successfully publish a play everyone like called, "Politian" it was a romantic tragedy. after that Poe was beginning to publish more stories, Poe was very sensitive to criticism about his stories and he had a lot of enemies sometimes he would attack the author that criticize him. When Poe died, there was one guy named Tennyson a famous poet in England said he admire Poe's work. Poe got married at 27 to 14 year old Virginia, he began getting stress so he started to drink and would not stop until he ran out of money, he said drinking clam his nerves, alcoholism runs in Poe family his father and brother were alcoholics. Poe was one of the best editors in his time, but when he was about to loose his job because of his drinking he stop. Poe decided to move to New York to leave his problems behind.

Quotation
These are some of the reason why Poe started drinking again, " He drank when he was in danger of losing Virginia...He drank when overwhelmed by work...He drank to clam his nerves (though drinking actually excited them) " (Meyers 88).

Reaction
Edgar Allan Poe has gone through a lot as he gets older and there are not really good things especially him having financial problems, his wife is sick , and plus on top of that he needs to do his job. During that time it was common for people to drink a lot but Poe took it to the point where he just drank because of stress which is not good at all. I can see why he drank because of all the problems he had, but as people were finding out that he was drinking they did not like that especially when he would just drink out in the open. I think if it was not for his boss saying if you do not stop drinking you are getting fired and that was like a slap to his face so he stop. I think Poe just drank because it was a way from him to escape away from everybody he did not have to worry about anything. It was not a wise choice for him to start drinking especially when he needed the money. I would not doubt that the more I read this book that he would star drinking again because his father and brother were alcoholics and I see it as like father like son.