Edgar Allan Poe Vs. Herman Melville
Sunday, December 03, 2000 Period 6 English Ms. Lynn Melville vs. Poe I chose
to write about the similarities and differences between Herman Melville and
Edgar Allan Poe. Both authors/ poets lived a life you could write a book on.
They began with similarities from birth till death. Weird and strange events
took place throughout their stay on Earth. Both authors time of birth was within
a decade apart, and both were born on the East Coast, Melville born in Boston
and Poe born in New York. They each were born into poverty and had troubles to
worry about. Poe’s parents died when he was at a young age, and Melville’s
parents were failures in business, which led to the death of his father at the
age when Melville was twelve. Poes education came from West Point Academy, but
not by choice. His foster father paid for Poe to attend, and eventually Poe
dropped out. He moved with his Aunt Maria in Baltimore. Melville received his
education from school, and sailing the oceans with sailors at a young age.
Melville never looked back after sailing out on adventures. He stayed and lived
for a period of time on one of the islands called Nuku Hiva. At this time in
their lives is when everything became twisted in my opinion. To start off when
Poe moves to Baltimore with his aunt, he then marries his cousin Virginia. How
in the world could you tell people, ”Yeah, this is my fourteen year old cousin/
wife.”? Does not sound to good if you ask me! On the other hand you could be on
an island where people believed in canabalism.
That is where Melville ended up
while at his stay at Nuku Hiva. I am not sure if Melville took part in eating
humans, but either way you would not catch me around these two weirdoes. The
climax of Melvillles career came in 1850, when he published Moby Dick. The book
is still a favorite today. He made money off of the book, but would it be enough
to continue publishing books? The climax of Poes carrer came when he published
The Raven in 1845. The book is still read in and out of the classrooms today.
The Raven is better than Moby Dick in my opinion. Both books are still sold in
stores to this day. One word to summarize both authors’ careers is DEBT. They
did not have enough money to come out with more poems or stories. When they did
come out they did not do so well as their previous masterpieces. That’s when
drinking took over Poes life. It is said that his drinking was exaggerated that
he did not drink that much. As well as alcohol there was opium and that was not
better for Poe either. Then you have Melville and his troubles. He is quoted
saying; “ Dollars Damn me”. (English book) No money no publications. Melville
did however publish a collection of poems when he was older and then retired.
Poe died in 1849, and Melville in 1891. I picked these two authors/ poets to
write about because their masterpieces of writings are still cherished to this
very day. They each lived in the same time frame, and their best works were with
in five years of each other. Their styles of writing are different, but still
their work is like no other.
Words: 568
