AIM: HOW DID EDGAR ALLAN POE’S EXPERIENCES AND KNOWLEDGE OF HISTORY INFLUENCE HIS CREATION FOR MANY OF HIS STORIES?
Pestilence:
A contagious and fatal epidemic disease, for example- bubonic plague.
Plague:
A highly infectious, usually fatal bacterial disease. Infects many and kills most.
Note: The Bubonic Plague, Smallpox, Yellow Fever, Cholera, Tuberculosis, Malaria. COVID 19 is NOT considered to be a plague, as it is viral, rather than bacterial.
A disease is not a pandemic simply because it kills lots of people. It has to be infectious as well. Cancer is not a pandemic, while AIDS may be.
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Tuberculosis- A contagious lung infection, people who had it would cough up blood from the lungs.
Edgar Allan Poe was touched by Tuberculosis; lots of people around him died from it.
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EDGAR ALLAN POE: BIOGRAPHY
Born in Boston
January 19, 1809-October 7, 1849
Buried in Westminster Presbyterian churchyard in Baltimore
Orphaned at age 2
Taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, VA
Attended University of VA at age 1
Lost all his money gambling and drinking
Got excellent grades at school
Married 13 y.o. cousin Virginia Clemm when he was 26
Daughter of Maria Clemm, Poe’s aunt
Died of tuberculosis at age 24
OBSTACLES
Being orphaned
Rejection by John Allan
Drinking
Poverty
Gambling
CHARACTERISTICS
Melancholy – as shown in work
Unstable – difficult relationships with employers
Alcoholic – seemed to have a drinking problem
Ambitious – always wanted to start own magazine
Loving – Maria Clemm and Virginia, his wife
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WRITING
Length – should be read in one sitting
Impression – contemplating beauty
Tone – sadness/melancholy
Subject – death of a beautiful woman
He shaped literature
Poetry is memorable
Created the modern short story
Created the detective story (inspired Sherlock Holmes)
Influenced Dreiser, Faulkner, Doyle, Shaw and King
ANNOTATIONS
The “Red Death” (subject) had long devastated the country. (subject is bad) No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar¹ and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban² which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellowmen. And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour. (Terrible symptoms, only takes half an hour)
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