The Religion and Political Views of Edgar Allan Poe

[cbayer]

This site is really fun to look around. Might be fun to pick individuals to highlight. I've spent some time on it and I can't find a political agenda, but would love to know if anyone else sees one. We are pattern recognition beings, but I'm having trouble seeing a pattern.

http://hollowverse.com/edgar-allan-poe/

Religion
Poe was Christian, but sometimes sounded like a deist or a pantheist.

Political Views
He was a non-political antebellum Southerner.



Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and London, England. He died at the age of 40 of unknown causes after being discovered delirious on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland.

First of all, if you heard Poe was an atheist, you heard wrong. Maybe you saw this quote on a meme:

All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.1

I hate to break it to you atheist Poe fans but, according to scholars, he didn’t say it.2 It turns out religion was a big part of Poe’s life and philosophy.

Poe’s foster mother–his father disappeared and his mother died when he was very young–had him baptized when he was nearly three-years-old by the Episcopal church, and he continued to go to church throughout his youth. It also appears that he went at least occasionally in adulthood.3 This religious background is revealed in his poems and short stories, which often allude to and quote the bible.4

more at link

[bvf]

1. Didn't Poe die a raging alcoholic?

[cbayer]

3. Quite possibly, and I wouldn't doubt it.

He was a dark and tortured individual.

Do you have more information?

[okasha]

6. Several years ago,

Discovery Magazine had a regular column dealing with the causes of death of historical figures. One of them was about Poe. The conclusion, based on what we know of his presenting symptoms, was that he died of rabies, not alcohol poisoning.

[bvf]

8. Did the article mention if there was an autopsy?

[cbayer]

11. Rabies - what a terrible way to go.

[Android3.14]

2. Atheist Poe fans

Are they falling out of trees these days? I was unaware APFs were a thing.

[cbayer]

4. I was not aware of them either.

Perhaps there is a fan club that we could send a query?

[braddy]

5. He was a soldier

"Poe had enlisted in the Army in 1827, rising to the rank of sergeant major. In order to attend West Point, he hired a soldier named Samuel Graves to finish his term. But Poe never paid Graves, claiming in a letter that Allan “was probably drunk and had forgotten to send the money,” Semtner said.

Graves sent Poe’s note to Allan, who then sent Poe a letter saying their relationship was over. Poe responded by saying he intended to resign from West Point.

But that didn’t deter Poe from trying to pursue a military career. A month after leaving West Point, he asked the school’s superintendent for a letter of recommendation so he could join the Polish army. There’s no evidence he got a reply."

http://www.stripes.com/blogs/the-rumor-doctor/the-rumor-doctor-1.104348/why-was-edgar-allan-poe-kicked-out-of-west-point-1.133805

[Cartoonist]

7. Poe fan here

I never considered his religious views. He didn't put them in his work, so It didn't matter to me. I read the brief article at that site. It only had a few quotes. I didn't come to the same conclusion. Probably a Pantheist, and I don't consider that a belief in God as a sentient omnipotent being.

He led a hard life with little joy. Probably his own fault, or probably poor mental health.

About that site: WTF? Influentials? I looked at Doris Day's file. I love Doris. She was done wrong by her men. To understand her and her religious views, you need more than a few snippets.

[icymist]

9. Thank you for that link.

I'm finding lots of great reading on that site!

[edhopper]

10. I have never seen Poe referred to

in terms of religion. Never seen that quote.
He was one of America's great writers and the father of detective fiction. His death remains a mystery with no definitive resolution.

Now if you want to talk about the beliefs of Author Conan Doyle.....

[cbayer]

14. Unfortunately, Conan Doyle is not included in this site.

What can you tell me about him?

[edhopper]

15. It seems later in life

he lost his Holmesian perceptions and started believing in things like seances.
He was a major advocate for the Cottingley Fairy photos being real.

[cbayer]

16. Had no idea. Perhaps a bit too much cocaine.

[Jim__]

12. At age 26, Poe married his 13 year old cousin.

His poem, Annabel Lee, is considered to be a possible inspiration for Nabokov's Lolita. Humbert Humbert, the pedophile protagonist, attributes his pedophilia to the death of his childhood girlfriend Annabel Leigh.

[center]Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

...[/center]

[cbayer]

13. I once knew that but had forgotten.

This is the very first poem I ever memorized and it still brings back pretty intense memories.

[Warren Stupidity]

17. Alrighty, not an atheist.

I guess he goes over in the theist camp then. The article goes on to point out that he was an unabashed racist as well. Perhaps you want to give him back to us?