This may seem awkard, but, What happenings between 1835 and 1839 inspired Edgar Allan Poe and if so were any motives for any of his poems?

For example: If there was a fire in Philadelphia ( where he was living from 1838-1844), in 1839, that could've been the motive to write one of his poems. Catch my drift?

Please include 2-3 examples if you can give me that many?

Also for inspirations in this time period? Any other writers in the time period that inspired him to write any poems or were just inspirations in general?

I hope you can answer some of the preseneted questions, thanks!?

-- Anonymous, April 29, 2003

Answers

Generally his marriage and abject poverty were discouraging him from thinking he could make a go of the literary profession alone. For more complete sourcing on indiividual poems one start might be mabbott's book on EAP "Complete Poems" and another tome on the tales. A severe winter in New York, poverty, and other deprivations may have had something to do with his only novel which has a lot of extreme hunger in it as well as filling in the pages with borrowed South Sea trivia and material from his textbook on Conchology(seashells) which he mainly did for the money.

In fact the Pym novel was based very much on the adventures of Jeremiah Reynolds who explored the mysteires that intrigued Poe about the "hollow earth" theory. ("Ms. Found in a Bottle"). Running off to sea might have appealed to him as an idea but the novel shows he had little temptation to brave those miseries.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2003