Edgar Allan Poe Poe was kind of a hot mess: He was an orphan, had a gambling problem, had a problem with the drink and married his 14 yr. old cousin, Virginia. His wife, Virginia, died at the age of twenty-four. Poe was devastated and was unable to write for months. Poe only lived another two years. Poe died on October 7, 1849 at the age of forty. The exact cause of Poe’s death remains a mystery. Days after Poe’s death, his literary rival Rufus Griswold wrote a slanderous obituary of the author in an attempt at revenge for some of the offensive things Poe had said and written about him. In addition to his achievement as creator of the modern horror tale, Poe is also credited with parenting two other popular genres: science fiction and the detective story.

Literary Terms Alliteration-the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. "Hearken! And observe how healthily, how..." Anaphora-the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses. “They heard!–they suspected!–they KNEW!–they were making a mockery of my horror!”  Diction-choice of words especially with regard to correctness, clearness, or effectiveness “Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me” (It’s like the beating of a heart…so creepy!) Gothic (genre)-fiction which emphasizes the following: the grotesque, gloomy settings, mystery, violence, and supernatural occurrences Personification-attributing a human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form. “Death in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim” Simile-Comparison of two unlike objects using “like” or “as” a single dim ray like the thread of the spider shot out from the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye.