Why did Poe write poetry?

-- Anonymous, December 10, 1999

Answers

Edgar Allen Poe wrote poetry to express the feelings he kept from within.He had an unusual life.People had always cheated and mistreated him.That's why his poetry is so dreadful,and black.I hope I helped!!!!!!!!!!

-- Anonymous, December 17, 1999

Poe wrote poetry for the same reason any artist chooses a medium. He thought that, with his abilities, poetry was the best and most efficient use of his language to express a feeling. Compare the fact that he wrote short stories and poetry as well. He was moody to say the least. His mood swings effected the form of his writing.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2000

read Baudelaire's essays (from "Essays on Art and Literature")on Poe; he translated everything, loved the first american writer whom no one here received, and has a very good idea about what Poe meant to reveal (or conceal) in writing Poetry. Also read the preface Poe himself wrote and attatched to the beginning of his first published collection of poems. It may have to do with how he expressed his attatchment to the feminine in words. Otherwise, a mere 'answer' will not suffice.

-- Anonymous, January 09, 2000

Jerelyn,

Because that was his genius, his calling, his desire and his desperation. He had no other choices.

I tend to agree that it is superfluous to venture into the mindset of an individual such as Edgar A. Poe. Clearly a genius, alas, merely a man. Fundamentally, he differed little from an artist, an architect or even a carpenter. He simply used his talents, his learning, his passion and his most prized possession words. All of these, merely tools to shape and form, to illustrate and decorate, to fashion and orchestrate some of the most profoundly beautiful expressions of love and devotion ever written. Yet, with these same tools, he could effortlessly move us into some of the most intriguing mysteries and then, push us, ever so gently, over the precipice into that abysmal hell he spent during every drunken stupor. It was here, in these vile depths of personal abuse, that Poe saw and witnessed the horrible visions of which he wrote so ably.

The tragedy of Poes existence was not that it was spent alone. He often had many people, family and friends, to love and care for him. Several patrons and admirers that worked diligently to ensure his genius was published. Yet all of them, at some time or another, anguished over Poes own perversity and seeming determination to destroy himself. Poe knew all too well that man will always possess that internal imp, that strange propensity to violate his own common sense. By the time Poe was in his thirties, he had become an expert at doing just that.

But his genius was in his prose and his poems. In the Raven, Poe was able to, almost immediately, establish a foreboding setting, a sense of utter desperation for his lost love, and an evil, yet hopeful link to his lost Lenore. That is what the Raven represented. A last chance to be with Lenore regardless of the mocking and torture he had to endure from the evil Raven. It mattered little to him whether their reunion occurred in heaven or in hell, nor the price he had to pay to quench his growing despair. Most profound of all was Poes ability to bring that setting to life with the sounds of the setting itself. In the single line:

.. and the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Cant you hear the hissing, the shushing of the movement of the curtains, one silken fold on another as the breeze moves them one upon the next? Doesnt it lend to the agonizing despair he feels for his lost Lenore. Of course it does! That was Poes genius! There will exist no equal.

-- Anonymous, January 11, 2000

No stupid questions, just stupid people.

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001