Edgar Allan Poe - an enigmatic life

Edgar Allan Poe - an enigmatic life

Over the years, I have always felt a shudder course through my veins as I read Edgar Allan Poe. I am not sure why. A collection of his short stories, journalistic pieces and poems always rest near my reading lamp. And every now and then, when my mind gets slightly weary, or when I find myself hindered by “Writer’s block”, I turn to Poe’s prose like a moth to fire. It doesn't matter if know his stories well enough, it doesn't matter if some of his ideas are far fetched and abstract, it doesn't matter that his style sometimes is too ornate and embroidered for modern readers; I don't care, I guess, it’s the overall quality of his language, passion and an insane energy his words and sentences evoke – that takes me along in its voluptuous flow like a river in spate. I come out after having dipped into his writing completely refreshed and rejuvenated. How do I describe this feeling - the closest I can think of is the experience of first sip of alcohol after a hard day’s work – a warm tingling sensation, the bitter sweet taste of awakening, sudden clarity of perception in a benumbed brain and a mesmerizing grip of fantasy and imagination that gently takes hold of ones being.

Over the last two centuries, this has been Poe’s mysterious attraction. Writers, critics, and avowed purists of style have not been able to point their finger at what makes Poe’s writing tick. There is an intangible quality to his work that is tantalizing. Is it his stories that enchant, or the way he wrote them? No one is sure. After all, what he wrote during his brief life time of forty years can easily be condensed in couple of volumes, and most of it is a motley collection of themes so bizarre and otherworldly , not relevant at all to times he lived in. But then it is addictive, and he books even today sell like hot cakes. There is reprint after reprint of Poe’s unfathomable tales and essays . Selections, complete works, abridgments, borrowed screenplays, costumes, Halloween themes - innumerable offerings bearing his name continue to exist, and new incarnations keep popping up with unswerving regularity .It seems His hold over public imagination is almost unshakeable, despite what pundits have to say. Yet, the man himself lived the most solitary, depressing life possible. It is only by a curious stroke of fate his works managed to survive at all. Probably, divine intervention- But Poe wouldn't have believed in it.

Poe was the first writer in recorded literary history who actually "wrote" for a living. In the sense, each essay or short story he produced, he needed money from it to live, to drink and sustain. Perhaps that is one of main reasons, he could never produce a longer work of fiction. He simply didn’t have the time, luxury or monetary incentive to write them. His efforts were more of the moment: a flash of insight turned into art, or a figment of morbid imagination catalyzing into something evil, or a piece of science fiction becoming an essay in science, or a cryptographic puzzle that would quickly transform into detective enterprise, or a weird observation emerging from his feverish brain as a warped story of chilling horror, or a historical fact turned into a gothic terror - his brain and pen was ever ready to write them in a flash, and cast it away into publisher's hands to earn a few pennies. He needed money, and he wrote his little masterpieces for it. To be fair, he was a genius caught in unfortunate times. America in the mid eighteenth century was in the throe of grinding financial depression, and being a writer was the last thing one wanted to be. There was no hope, and Poe's life and work reflects the gloominess, brooding melancholy and shadows of uncertainty prevalent during those times.

A troubled childhood, loss of both parents at an early age, bought up by his uncle and aunt with whom he seems to have had a love-hate relationship, dropped out of college, relieved of military duty because of his compulsive habit of lying, tragic death of his wife from tuberculosis - Poe had all the markings of a colossal failure in life. He hated the world, and his art reflected it - How else can one think of a story like "The golden bug" or "the pit and the pendulum", "The premature burial" ,"the black cat" or numerous other short stories that extol the virtue of darkness in the human heart.

As I said earlier, it is providential that his works have survived at all. His bitterest critic, artistic rival, his one time publisher - Rufus Griswold acquired the rights to Poe's manuscripts from his Mother in law only to besmirch Poe's reputation as a Human being and a writer. The short biography that Rufus wrote of Poe, after the collected works were published were ridden with factual errors, and unwarranted character assassination – which unfortunately remained the only details available on Poe's life for long time. Therefore, For nearly hundred and fifty years, it was Griswold's inaccurate portrayal of Poe which held sway in Public imagination. People were lulled into believing that only such a depraved man could have written such stories of grim insanity and darkness. Modern scholarship has however, in the last century disproved most of Griswold's claims, and also exposed Poe's alleged letters to him as forgeries. Poe now stands redeemed in the literary world, but I guess, it wouldn’t have made a dime of difference to him. He never had any great respect for his reading public . "The nose of a mob is its imagination", he wrote "By this , at any time, it can quietly led.."

What then is Poe's legacy? Surely he established the short story as a powerful narrative, created the genre of detective fiction, popularized tales of darkness, and predicted the birth of science fiction as a means to stretch man’s imagination. Generations of writers after him have, consciously or unconsciously, imbibed his spirit. Auguste Dupin, precursor of the iconic Sherlock Holmes was a class act. The police procedural began with him. The clean, methodical, objective and meticulous observation of facts without the cloud of presumptions touched a mystical chord in most readers. His dark stories of Human heart and paranormal occurrences resonates in thousands of modern books and movies. Stephen King, master of the Horror genre acknowledges all members of his trade as "children of Poe..”. And lastly, his lasting legacy would always remain his uninhibited style of writing, his use of words, marvelous sense of description and an indescribable energy he bought to his paragraphs. When we hear a Vincent price or Christopher lee read his works, one could hear a lilting melody in his sentences, a cadence that is at once dark and immensely beautiful - a gentle balm to weary souls. That such a man should have died like a beggar on the streets of Boston, of unknown causes, was indeed a great tragedy. But, perhaps, that is how it needed to end. Two hundred and more years have passed, and Poe still remains a mystery to us: How and why did life pack so much talent into a man to have had him waste away into nothingness, leaving behind only a little of what could have been potentially possible, if He had lived longer. Why could not such genius be recognized in their own life times? Why does the cruel hand of fate mete down such injustice time and time again? We ask these questions with an aching voice each time gifted individuals pass away? Don't we not? But , an answer never comes; never will…..!.

God bless…

Yours in mortality,

Bala