Poe's death doesn't haunt me one bit. He had a serious drinking problem -- which lost him a number of good jobs in editing -- and he was routinely seen passed out in gutters from New York to Baltimore. Sometimes he got helped home, sometimes not. He managed to be the town drunk of NYC, Philly, and Baltimore almost simultaneously and he got his start at Mr. Jefferson's university, until he left there for West Point, and was ultimately expelled from there.
I love Poe, but he had major problems. He'd probably tried to gamble his way into a few more bucks for drink, lost, and then been given the debtor's clothes of gambling houses in those days (the weird, ill-fitting clothes he was found in), but he managed to escape his captors only to be found in a gutter, raving.
Brain tumor, maybe. But he died as he lived, so it wasn't a big mystery.
And don't forget that Carlin Romano has versified the currently raging Poe War:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_left_story/20071015_Let_this_body_be_lifted_evermore_.html
Poe's death doesn't haunt me one bit. He had a serious drinking problem -- which lost him a number of good jobs in editing -- and he was routinely seen passed out in gutters from New York to Baltimore. Sometimes he got helped home, sometimes not. He managed to be the town drunk of NYC, Philly, and Baltimore almost simultaneously and he got his start at Mr. Jefferson's university, until he left there for West Point, and was ultimately expelled from there.
ReplyDeleteI love Poe, but he had major problems. He'd probably tried to gamble his way into a few more bucks for drink, lost, and then been given the debtor's clothes of gambling houses in those days (the weird, ill-fitting clothes he was found in), but he managed to escape his captors only to be found in a gutter, raving.
Brain tumor, maybe. But he died as he lived, so it wasn't a big mystery.