Edgar Allan Poe's Life and Death

Pass out the Edgar Allan Poe packet

Annotate the essays.

Annotating means to underline important ideas, write comments, or definitions.

Edgar Allan Poe:

Heroin: is a drug, an opiate

Heroine: is a female hero

Poe set off for Baltimore on the four a.m. steamer on Thursday, September 27^th.

There is no reliable witness or evidence regarding Poe’s whereabouts or activities between September 27^th and October 3^rd, when he is found sitting in a stupor at Gunnar’s Hall, a Baltimore tavern, strangely dressed and semi-conscious.

Tavern: a bar with a restaurant. In the 19^th century, many taverns also had rooms to rent.

Watering Hole: a slang term for a bar where many people, particularly locals, go to drink, socialize, and find out the latest gossip. 

Polling Place: where one votes

Dire: serious, urgent, darkly urgent

Onlookers: people who are standing around looking at or watching the event that is taking place.

Vacant stupidity: when one is not feeling well and is sitting staring, unfocused.

Dingy: dirty

Cast off clothing: Snodgrass thought that Poe had been robbed, robbed of his clothes, and that Poe was wearing  the clothes that had been “cast off” or thrown away by  someone else.

Muddy was Poe’s mother-in-law

Why did Herring refuse to take care of Poe?

 He was ungrateful, and when drunk he was abusive to Herring.

In what state was Poe in when he was carried into the carriage?

Insensible means not aware of your surroundings.  Poe was insensible and muttering when he was put into the carriage.

To Adorn means to decorate or to make more beautiful.

Stupor: Unaware of his surroundings, semi-conscious.

Tremor: a trembling or a shaking of the limbs

Delirium: a feverish hallucination

Spectral: ghostly

Why does Poe not like his cousin, Neilson?

 Poe believed Neilson was jealous of Poe’s literary reputation.

 Neilson offered a home just for Poe’s wife and mother-in-law, so they could get away from Poe.

 Poe thought Neilson was bitter.

Incoherent: unintelligible; not making any sense; crazy

Degradation: decline

Rouse: to raise up; to cheer up; to uplift someone’s spirits;

Feeble: weak

Exertions: extreme physical efforts

Euphemism: a phrase used to hide the unpleasant nature of something. An example would be using the term “cerebral inflammation” to hide the fact that the cause of death was alcoholism. We use euphemisms every day. We say,” I have to go powder my nose” or “I have to see a man about a horse” when we have to leave to go to the restroom. Even the word “restroom” is a euphemism for it disguises what we are actually doing there. We don’t “rest” in the restroom.

Cerebral: having to do with the brain

Inflammation: swelling

Cerebral inflammation: swelling of the brain.

What are the three explanations given for Poe’s death?

Create a time line from September 27^th to October 7^th detailing what we know about Poe’s life.

TIME LINE of the LAST TEN DAYS of EDGAR ALLAN POE'S LIFE: 

After his engagement was broken off with Elmira Shelton, Poe left Richmond, Virginia,  for Baltimore on the four a.m. steamer on Thursday, September 27^th.

There is no reliable witness or evidence regarding Poe’s whereabouts or activities between September 27^th and October 3^rd, where he is found sitting in a stupor at Gunnar’s Hall, a Baltimore tavern, strangely dressed and semi-conscious.

Poe was admitted into the hospital at five in the afternoon of Thursday, October 3^rd.

Poe arrived at the hospital in a stupor. He remained unconscious until three a.m. the next morning, Friday, October 4^th, when he developed tremors and became violently delirious, resisting the efforts of two nurses to keep him in bed.

Poe violently raved from 3 a.m. Friday, to Saturday evening – approximately, thirty hours.

Saturday evening he began to call out someone’s name until three o’clock Sunday morning, when he expired or died. He was deliriously calling out someone’s name for nine hours.

Poe raved a full day or more, through Saturday evening, October 6^th, when he started deliriously calling out someone’s name until three o’clock, Sunday morning, October 7^th.