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Edgar Allan Poe
182 Plays2 years ago
Brook and Sarah discuss Edgar Allan Poe, the grandfather of American detective novels and his enduring legacy. Poe's works referenced (in order of mention) “The Raven” (1845) ”Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841) “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” (1842)
Others' works referenced (in order of mention) McAlpine, Gordon: The Misadventures of Edgar and Allan Poe Series Snicket, Lemony: A Series of Unfortunate Events The Simpsons
Resources Cody, Sherwin The Story of Edgar Allan Poe (2019) Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (1966). Doubleday and Co. http://airshipdaily.com/blog/09222014-edgar-allan-poe-virginia-eliza-clemm https://elifnotes.com/edgar-allan-poe-the-master-of-mystery-and-macabre/ https://poestories.com For more information, visit cluedinmystery.com Follow us on Instagram @cluedinmystery Contact us: hello@cluedinmystery.com Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – //www.silvermansound.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Setting the Stage
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to the Clued In Mystery podcast. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke. And we both love mystery. Brooke, I know this is a very exciting episode for you. Yes, I happen to be a big Edgar Allan Poe fan, so I'm so excited for today.
00:00:26
Speaker
Me too. I can't remember. I must have read Poe in school. He must be one of the kind of, when they're teaching literature in high school, one of the authors that we read. So I don't remember my first introduction to Poe, but I know I've read a bunch of his stuff and I've reread some of it in anticipation of our conversation today. So I'm looking forward to it too. So let's get started.
Poe's Early Life and Education
00:00:50
Speaker
That sounds great. Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19th, 1809 to David and Elizabeth Poe, who were both traveling actors. It is said that his mother was a wonderful actor, his dad, and not so much. The couple had two other children, a girl and a boy, and were quite poor. A mysterious end came to their household when David Poe deserted the family and Elizabeth died shortly thereafter. Edgar was only three years old.
00:01:19
Speaker
The three children were taken in by various friends and family. Edgar specifically went to live with the wealthy John and Frances Allen and took the name Edgar Allen. Mrs. Allen doted on the little boy who is said to have been a beautiful child with large dark eyes and shiny dark curls. He was extremely precocious and able to read and recite verse by the age of six.
00:01:45
Speaker
His years with the Allens were the only time in Edgar's life when he was not living hand to mouth, battling poverty.
Challenges and Career Beginnings
00:01:52
Speaker
The Allens moved to England for several years when Edgar was young and sent him to the finest boarding schools where he excelled. He received high marks in Latin and French, among other subjects. The school he attended was built in the Gothic style with large windows, black desks, and dark hallways, no doubt inspiring him in his later stories.
00:02:14
Speaker
Edgar was a strong, healthy boy and also excelled in athletics. As an older teen, he began having difficulties with Mr. Allen because he discovered Edgar had accumulated a $2,000 gambling debt. And although that doesn't sound like much, it's a whopping 50 grand in today's currency. Mr. Allen refused to continue paying his tuition.
00:02:39
Speaker
So Edgar returned to the U.S. and he continued to find it hard to make ends meet and so he joined the army. However, this was not a successful venture either. After several problems which were likely caused by more gambling and more drinking, Edgar was court-martialed and left military service.
Personal Life and Literary Success
00:03:01
Speaker
It was at this time that he started his writing career and published Tamerlane and other poems. This was also the beginning of his employment at literary journals in various cities such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City.
00:03:16
Speaker
His work included editing material for publication and writing literary criticism. He was known as a harsh critic of his peers, such as Dickens, Rufus Griswold, who quite literally hated Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and James Finnemore Cooper. During this period, he began using the name we recognize, Edgar Allan Poe.
00:03:42
Speaker
Poe began living with an aunt on his father's side, Maria Klam, his young cousin Virginia, his brother, and their grandmother Poe around this time. This living arrangement was likely for financial reasons, as most of his writing was netting a mere $10 or so per piece, making his income very sporadic. And there again, that $10 is maybe around $375.
00:04:09
Speaker
Poe eventually married Virginia when she was just 13 and he was 26. And while it was not unheard of at this time to marry a first cousin, the large age difference was definitely frowned upon. It's not clear if the couple had a physical relationship. Their letters to one another do not indicate romance, and they refer to each other as sis and brother. Still, it was harmful even then to Poe's already tenuous reputation.
00:04:39
Speaker
Poe's brother died in 1831, and then in 1847, Virginia also died after a lengthy illness with tuberculosis.
00:04:48
Speaker
understandably pose already fragile mental health, further deteriorated with the loss of his wife. And even though the Raven had been published in 1845, he was now famous and a revered author, his pattern of self-sabotage continued.
Mysterious Death and Legacy
00:05:05
Speaker
He would often be fired or quit just after an employer had given him a raise or a promotion.
00:05:11
Speaker
He planned to start his own literary journal for several years, but it never got off the ground. Poe's death is a mystery in and of itself. He died on October 7, 1849 in Baltimore after several stressful and traumatic days. His cause of death is still argued. Was it a heart attack? Results of his alcoholism?
00:05:33
Speaker
The consequences of a fight? We don't know. The doctor in attendance said Poe continued to ask for someone named Reynolds. This person has never been identified. He's buried at Westminster Hall Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland. Poe's relatively small body of work has left an immense impact on the world of literature. He's called the architect of the modern short story, the grandfather of detective fiction,
00:06:00
Speaker
And he popularized the gothic and horror genres in the US. The Edgar Award is given each year by the mystery writers of America for distinguished work in the mystery genre. That is fascinating. His whole life, I think. It sounds to me like it was a pretty troubled life. And I think maybe you see some of that in some of his stories, right? And the whole mystery around his death is just absolutely fascinating.
00:06:29
Speaker
I agree, I agree. He did, in comparison to, first of all, this is the first American author that we've discussed. We've been discussing The Brits up until this point.
Pioneering Detective Fiction
00:06:40
Speaker
So that's kind of a different situation and also the time period that we find him in. It's earlier than the other authors we've talked about.
00:06:50
Speaker
But he also did not have a luxurious life. I don't know if I really want to say that Agatha and Doyle had luxurious lives, but they definitely were very comfortable. And that's different with Poe. He lived a hard life. He saw a lot of suffering and disease and
00:07:08
Speaker
That's certainly the impression that I have, but thinking about his bio, even thinking about the lives that Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived, I feel like my life is really boring.
00:07:24
Speaker
Yes. Sure, this is a different kind of intrigue and excitement, I guess, and somewhat more sad and melancholy, but still he had an exciting life. His time in England when he was going to the boarding schools, he won swimming competitions and he was able to meet people who went on to become famous. He spent time where Shakespeare had written his work and a lot of
00:07:51
Speaker
very exciting things just like the other people we've talked about and it it creeps into their work I mean it obviously shapes the way that they're able to to write their stories mm-hmm you mentioned that he's kind of the considered the grandfather of detective fiction when I was reading up about him I thought it really interesting that the word detective didn't actually exist like it wasn't a
00:08:14
Speaker
something that was, that was used. So he came up with, I don't think he, he used the word detection. He used another word, uh, Ray, I don't know how to pronounce it ratio ratio nation. Yeah. Playing off the word rational.
00:08:29
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Rashido Nation. Yeah, I don't know. But you can see in the stories that are his detective stories where he's really laid the groundwork for that genre, right? Absolutely. And he's got the sidekick and the, you know, the methodical analysis of the cases that are presented to him.
00:08:55
Speaker
I can't imagine what it would have been like to have been a reader at the time reading something like that
Innovative Storytelling and Impact
00:09:01
Speaker
for the first time. Right. We don't have the pleasure of it being new to us. And it sincerely is a template. You could look, you can listen to Murders in the Room org and think, oh, well, this is precisely what Doyle took and ran with it. And maybe you might say perfected it because there are parts of Murder in the Room org that you can see it needs more polish. It needs to like,
00:09:23
Speaker
get the series of events a little bit cleaner. But it was a template, and we don't have the pleasure of reading that genre for the first time. Now when we pick up a mystery novel, we know, okay, first we're going to see the crime, and then we're going to see the investigator and his sidekick go through the interviews or gather the clues, and then we're going to have the denouement. We know, which is still fun. It's still fun. But yeah, to be someone to read that for the first time, it must have been so exciting.
00:09:53
Speaker
pretty sensational, I would think. I have to imagine so, yeah. And one of his mystery stories, the Marie Roget, that was taken from an actual crime, right? So it was based on the body of a beautiful woman found, I guess, in the Hudson River in New York or in New Jersey. And the facts of the story that he wrote are based largely on that case. And that case was very sensational.
00:10:21
Speaker
right? And actually I think his remains unsolved. Oh, so fascinating. And so I read something that he came up with a theory and so was taking advantage of the popularity of this mystery and wrote his own take on it. And that's how it got published, right? And so he was, you know, probably one of the first people to rip from the headlines his fictional work.
00:10:47
Speaker
Right. Yeah. He was said to love ciphers and in his work at the literary journals, he would dare readers to send him a cipher that he would not be able to figure out. And so that kind of makes me think that he saw that
00:11:04
Speaker
unsolved mystery in the headlines and sort of took it on as a challenge. Like, well, let's try to figure out what happened here and put all the pieces together. And little did he know in the process, he's creating an entire genre of fiction. It's just so neat. He's such a creative guy. And it really, it's sort of maddening to me on one level that he could never like get his life together and really use that to its full potential. He was sort of always, like I said, self-sabotaging himself.
00:11:33
Speaker
wallowing. I hate to say that because he definitely had so much struggle in his life, but it was like he could never rise above it. I was just thinking about how I wished he had lived longer and created more and I wished that he could have used these talents more. Then on the same side, it's like if he had been able to
00:11:53
Speaker
take a hold of his life, would we have the works that we do? Because it was something about him that created this very melancholic macabre set of stories and we wouldn't have it if he wasn't the person that he was.
Enduring Cultural Influence
00:12:07
Speaker
So it makes me sad and yet I'm so thankful that we have what we do because they're wonderful stories and they tap into those things that we all have, fear, fear of death,
00:12:17
Speaker
mystery, suspense, we all experience those emotions and he could grasp it so well. Yeah, we have the stories he wrote because of the life that he had, right? And it's, yeah, it's a pity that he was so self-destructive. But, you know, the kind of mystery surrounding his death, I wonder if that didn't contribute to some of his popularity.
00:12:44
Speaker
Right. Cause I imagine that that mystery would have been quite gripping. He obviously didn't plan that. Right. It wasn't, it wasn't intentional, but may have contributed to some of the legacy that is associated with him. Right.
00:12:59
Speaker
Yeah. In some ways you think, what other way could this man possibly go? You know, it's like such a fitting end to it wouldn't have made sense for him to live to the ripe old age of 80 or, you know, die peaceful in his sleep. I mean,
00:13:16
Speaker
in a way, this sounds terrible, but I think he would have wanted it this way because he enjoyed that grittier side of life and it just honestly was sort of the perfect ending to his life. He's one of those authors who continues to be relevant today, right?
00:13:39
Speaker
I don't remember when I first read anything by him. I'm sure it was in school. He would have been one of the authors that we had to read. We might have done The Raven for poetry or something like that. But he's just someone that
00:13:59
Speaker
kind of like Sherlock Holmes, right? Someone that everybody knows about, right? When I was looking to see what my library had for me to refresh my memory on some of his works, I came across some middle grade fiction that is called The Misadventures of Edgar and Alan Poe, and it's twin brothers who are descendants
00:14:22
Speaker
of Edgar Allan Poe and they get into hijinks that middle grade boys get into. And so I'm interested in that series because I have
00:14:38
Speaker
a young reader in our household. And so that may be a way to kind of introduce him to Poe. That's definitely something that I'm going to check out is this series. That sounds great. I am too. And I love that writers are keeping him alive with our younger readers. I think that you're right. He is, especially here in the US, he's somebody that we always read
00:15:02
Speaker
maybe in middle school, but definitely in high school. And so this is great, keeping him alive. I think that Lemony Snicket, doesn't he play off? I think that there are some characters names that are Poe-esque and it's been a long time since I've read, but I just love that we can do some adaptations of his work, especially for the younger audience. I love that.
00:15:24
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I would, I would say Lemony Snicket was definitely sort of gothic, gothic esque or for children. Yeah. Yeah. I love that series by the way. I remember trying to describe that series to, to someone. She said that this isn't funny. I was like, no, no, it is. She's like, no, it's not. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:46
Speaker
This is supposed to be, isn't this good fun, all this death and destruction? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tragic tales, these orphans. But yeah, like you can, well, I was just going to say you can draw a line, right? Yeah. Oh, and absolutely, um, Lemony Snicket was 100% inspired by Poe.
00:16:05
Speaker
I also think one reason that as students we read Po is because we're back to that topic that we brought up with Agatha Christie is it's very easy to read. He writes very short, concise sentences. It's very clear. The language isn't difficult. They're simple to read.
00:16:23
Speaker
even if they have maybe some plot lines that aren't always suitable for kids. It's really simple. It's almost like a journalistic style that he writes in. And I really enjoy that about it too. So you can, it's accessible for younger audiences. Yeah. I mean, as you say, the subject matter is maybe not necessarily appropriate for really young audiences, but
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah. I think, you know, I think, isn't there a Simpson episode, Simpson's episode where Lisa, right? It's the telltale heart. Yes. Yes. I think they redo the telltale heart. Yeah. And she's, you know, that little intelligent nerd. So she, yeah, she's the perfect character.
00:17:03
Speaker
It was probably one of their Halloween specials, right? So apart from the influence that he had on other authors, so I know Doyle and Christie both acknowledge that he influenced their writing, and I'm sure that's true for many other authors. And as you say, you can see in
00:17:23
Speaker
any detective fiction or mystery fiction that's written now, whether people know it or not, they're influenced by Poe's stories. But there is still this cultural relevance that Poe has, whether it's a Simpsons episode or the middle grade books that I just mentioned. I like that he still exists as someone who's not been forgotten.
00:17:49
Speaker
And it's almost the reverse of what we see with Doyle. With Doyle, it's Sherlock Holmes that everyone knows. And maybe there's certainly people that probably wouldn't even be able to name the author that created him, right? And with Poe, we don't really cling to any of his characters. Probably people recognize the Raven, but of course, you know, they wouldn't be able to necessarily name any of the characters in his stories. But it's him as the figure.
00:18:18
Speaker
He's sort of that poster boy for the tormented artist or the mad genius. Sometimes you see him just wandering through a scene of a cartoon with his quill and a raven mumbling and lamenting about something. He is a remembered figure and I'm with you. I'm so glad. I feel like he was such a sad guy and I'm just so glad that we've kept him alive in our literary canon.
00:18:47
Speaker
One of the other things that I thought was interesting about him, and this is true again for Doyle and for Sayers, and to a lesser extent for Christy, but that he wrote in multiple genres. That he didn't limit himself to a single genre, and I think
00:19:08
Speaker
as a writer, that's a really interesting thing to think about other ways to express that creativity or that it's okay to explore other ways of writing.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah. And maybe necessary, right? Oh, absolutely. And in this day and age, we're sort of steered away from that. But we've seen it time and time again with these classic authors that they did that. And I feel like exactly what you said, you know, maybe they would experiment and work on one genre for a while as a way to sort of fill the well for something else or in Doyle's situation.
00:19:50
Speaker
one thing paid the bills, but that enabled him to do the other literary work that he really liked. And I think that we can learn something as contemporary authors from that and maybe not take the advice that's being given that, you know, you need to stick to one and, and just be very narrow, focused and a niche and learn from
Conclusion and Invitation for Feedback
00:20:10
Speaker
that. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Totally.
00:20:12
Speaker
I didn't come across this, but the Baltimore Ravens NFL team, are they named that because of Pose Association with Baltimore? They are. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I'm not a big sports fanatic, but I do have to root for the Ravens. They'll just have to be my team. Well, I wonder how many other professional sports teams are associated with literary figures.
00:20:38
Speaker
I bet zero. I'm going to have, I'm going to go with zero, but that's a challenge. I'll do some research and make sure that I'm not fibbing just because of my bias for Poe. But Baltimore has really embraced him. You know, there's a lot of statues and I think several of the museums of his are in Baltimore.
00:20:56
Speaker
I don't think I've ever been to Baltimore, but I think I would like to go on a little, I think I'd like to go on a little literary tour of the US because I think there's probably some, some really interesting places to go that are associated with, with writers and that, you know, at some point, maybe, maybe a trip that I do in the future.
00:21:15
Speaker
Yeah, I've never been to the East Coast either. I was thinking, Sarah, on our Sayers episode, you shared that Dorothy Sayers would be one of the six people that you'd like to have dinner with. I don't know what it says about me, but I would put Poe on my list.
00:21:33
Speaker
It's a little creepy. I think that he would also be the person. You know you have the friend who you're always trying to make them feel better. Unfortunately, I think it might be like that. You're like, no, no, you're all black clothing. It's not creepy. You're fine. No, it's all right. Perk up, Poe. I think he might be that kind of a dinner companion, but I'd take it anyway. Cool.
00:21:57
Speaker
The other question that I had, and I didn't look this up, was whether he had spent any time in Paris. Because I don't remember seeing that in his bio, but he certainly in the Dupin stories, you know, they're all set in Paris, and he seems to have a pretty good grasp of the way I imagine that the city felt at the time. Yeah, that's interesting. But maybe when he was going to school in England, he went
00:22:20
Speaker
Perhaps. Yeah, you're right. I haven't ever come across that he spent time there. I do know that during his lifetime, he was actually more famous or more well known for his short stories in France than in the US. So he definitely had some French fans and perhaps somebody that he corresponded with, but that's a great point. I don't know because you're right. He definitely
00:22:41
Speaker
if he makes the city feel real and it comes alive. And that's, you know, if, if he'd never actually had been to Paris, that's pretty remarkable that he managed to do that without the internet, without a lot of, you know, access to photographs, I'm sure. Um, you know, he would have, yeah, had to rely, I guess, on, on correspondence with people or speaking with people who had, who had been there to, to be able to build that picture as well as he did.
00:23:09
Speaker
That's a great point. Yeah. We are so, we have so much luxury in being able to look up information and research and, and yeah, for sure. He, he wouldn't have had any of those resources. Well, so Brooke, I think that was a really great conversation and a really interesting man to learn a little bit more about. Yes, that was fun. And I'm sure that we'll be referencing him in future episodes because he has made such a mark on the genre.
00:23:34
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. So thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your feedback. You can reach us on Instagram at CluedInMystery. You can find us online at CluedInMystery.com. Until next time, I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke. And we both love mystery. Clued In Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Steven. Music is by Shane Ivers at Silvermansound.com.
00:24:00
Speaker
Visit us online at CluedInMystery.com or social media at CluedInMystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.