HoWdY aLl I really need to know what Poe's view on life was and his dependences by tonite. The paper is due tomarrow. Pleeeeease help me Thanx if u do

-- Anonymous, November 11, 2002

Answers

I need to know his view on DEATH and his DEPENDENCIES.

-- Anonymous, November 11, 2002

That was rather too difficult a question for such a short time, even if I could explain it briefly enough. it is and isn't simple and you have to read poe broadly and know something about his life before jumping to any conclusions.

Life seems to be, as in "A Dream Within a Dream" a steady series of irercoverable but ever haunting losses(understandable in looking at his personal losses and inadequate career). So he refuses the easy answers of hope, which honestly is equally remote and dark and unsure of attainment. So he defiantly latches onto past happiness, refusing to compromise it by getting over it(also knowing it is now a weight to present and often a joyless regrettable burden)and projecting it ahead to a future hope, in which it symbolizes his salvation(like Beatrice to Dante). Life is mainly spinning out and returning to a rebirth(Eureka) a repeating process of destruction and absorption intoperfection. Just more of the same unrequited grieving that dogged Poe into a perpetual state of irresolution on the subject of life-death-afterlife. The same relentless, inescapable circle, but one he wills not to escape if the Ideal is there as well.

Dependencies? Drugs? Mainly alcoholism plain and simple, an addiction that he could not shake which was worse in times of stress, especially his wife's illness. See the "Imp of the Perverse" and "The Black Cat" which barely touches the shame and helplessness he exhiibited before his dying Virginia. It affected his health enough to shorten his life considerably it would seem(heart problems, hypoglycemia, DT's, etc). Nor did it aid his career or mental powers, much mythical speculation to the contrary. A few experiments with drugs. Charles Baudelaire was mostly the opposite, an epicurean hooked on drugs but could handle the alcohol despite his poems enlarging on the dark subject. Contrast that to Poe's convivial "Lines on Ale"(www.eapoe.org).

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2002

need help! wut's poe's dependencies? thanx.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2004