3.2 Death of Ligeia..1

  3.3 The Symbolic Meaning of the Death of Ligeia.1

4. Poe’s Views of Beauty in Ligeia and Views of Beauty in 21st Century of China...1

  4.1 Poe’s Views of Beauty...1

  4.2 Views of Beauty in 21st Century of China.1

5. Conclusion..1

6. Reference1

1. Introduction

1.1 Three Stages of Poe’s Eventful Life

    George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), a prestigious Irish playwright once claimed that America had bred two magnificent authors—Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain. Celebrated as the best-known poet and master of short stories in 19th century, Poe didn’t earn his reputation as easily as most people used to think according to the record. His short but influential life can be summarized with one word EVENTFUL and can be pided into three stages: an unplanned child in a poor family, a rebellious young man and an unrecognized maverick genius of literature in his later days.

    1.1.1 A Unplanned Child (1809-1811)

    Poe was delivered in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809 as the second of the three children of wandering actors David Poe and Elizabeth Poe. At that time, acting was considered frivolous therefore never received due respect from its audience. Professional as Poe’s parents were, they still fought extremely hard to meet their daily needs. The birth of Poe tightened the budget of the destitute family which made the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Poe’s biological father, David Poe ran away from his responsibilities for the family not long after Poe’s birth. Broke and deserted, Elizabeth Poe was stuck by tuberculosis and passed away two years later. Poe was an unplanned child in his family and because of it, he was doomed to an eventful childhood compared with other children at his age.  

    1.1. 2 A Rebellious Young Man (1811-1828)

    The turning point of Poe’s life began in 1811 when he was barely three years old. In this year, Poe was adopted though illegally by a wealthy Scottish tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Fanny Allan. The Allans provided Poe with excellent opportunity to receive good education after their business led him and his family to move to England. Poe stayed in England for five years. It was in England that Poe forged his initial interest in ancient and modern English literature as well as exposed himself to European culture. In early February 1826, Poe attended the University of Virginia where he learned to master archaic and modern languages and therefore stood out in his class. Outstanding as Poe was in his academic performance, he was no well-behaved student. He failed to resist outside temptations and ended up amassing 2,000 gambling debts. Poe’s foster father, John Allan refused to clean Poe’s mess, which ultimately led to Poe’s drop out of university and addiction to heavy drinking. In 1828, Poe entered US Military Academy at West Point with the help of John Allan. Poe was no aficionado of the force. He joined the army with the only intent of meeting his temporary need for food and housing. In less than six months, Poe was discharged from the army because of his deliberate indiscretion. John Allan was furious at Poe and decided to strip Poe of his right to inheritance. 

    1.1. 3 An Unrecognized Maverick Genius of Literature (1828-1949)

    After John Allan ceased to support Poe financially, Poe was completely penniless. In order to make money, Poe collected his verses written in his early days and got them published. Then he recollected and revised his early poems. Calvin F.S help Poe publish them in Baltimore under the name of Tamberlane and Minor Poems. In 1831, Poe made his third publication Poems by Edgar A.Poe- Second Edition. In this book, the gracious poems such as To Helen, Annabel Lee and Israfel were included, which offered Poe a great opportunity to cut a figure on contemporary literature stage and show his creative abilities of using language in a musical way. Besides composing poetry, Poe also contributed himself to journalism. He became a freelance writer in many cities, namely Baltimore, Richmond, Philadelphia, New York. From 1839 to 1849, Poe worked as an editor successively for Southern Literary Messenger, Quarter Review, Graham’s Magazine, Mirror, The Broadway Journal and Stylus. Poe succeeded in increasing subscription of those magazines and won many readers. However, his addiction to alcohol and offensive reviews of many contemporary works made him discouraged. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) claimed Poe as “the jingle man” and D.H Lawrence teased Poe’s works as “the bad taste of sensationalism”. Those harsh comments, to some extent, led to the tragedy that Poe never got the recognition he should have deserved when he was alive. In 1849, Poe was found dead on the street because of congestion of brain. Poe’s genius in literature was only discovered half century after he was dead.