Video Guide—Edgar Allan Poe
Biographical Info
(notes for paper)
1. Legend describes as a tormented _________________ & drug addict.
2. Poe was a man both blessed & cursed by ________________.
3. Poe saw women as ________________ figures.
4. His mother was an _________________.
5. Poe’s father, David Poe, Jr., abandoned the family when Edgar was only ___ year old.
6. What happened to Poe’s mother before his 3rd birthday? _________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
7. Jane Steiner was the mother of a boyhood friend & was Poe’s first crush. How did she die?
_____________________________________________________________________________
8. John Allan sent Poe off to the ___________________________________________________.
9. Poe tried to make money by _____________________ & found himself in quite a bit of debt.
10. Poe ran away from the university to join the ______________ under another name as
____________________________.
11. He moved in with Aunt _____________ _____________ where he found a loving home.
12. John Allan left ____________________ to Poe in his will when he died.
13. Poe was head strong, ____________________ and almost always ended up in ___________________ with his bosses.
14. When he criticized someone, he was _________________.
15. Nicknames = The ______________________ Man & The Comanche of ___________________ because of his brutal slashing reviews.
16. He accused Henry Wadsworth __________________________ of being a plagiarist which made everyone in America mad at him.
17. Poe had a _______________________ personality.
18. He may have had a need to prove himself or exact some kind of _____________________.
19. Crisis: He was in love with Virginia who was his __________________, & Maria Clemm was going to send her to live with other
family members.
20. He married Virginia when he was _______ and she was not yet _______. The marriage document was falsified to record her age
as _______ to avoid scandal.
21. Poe used his imagination as a _______________ against a pitiless world. He created works that revealed morbid ____________ and
unspeakable _________________ of Poe.
22. The _____________ of his stories are firmly rooted in the grim _________________ of his life.
23. Poe, like his characters, was always caught in a struggle between _______________ and ____________.
24. His mom, foster mom and wife died of what horrible disease? _____________________________
25. What work brought Poe his greatest public fame? ______________________________________
26. Poe earned $________ for “The Raven.”
27. He projected his own loss of Virginia when he wrote of ________________ in The Raven.
28. Poe said, “Women have been angels of _____________to me tenderly leading me from the verge of ____________ while men stood
aloof and __________________.”
29. Poe proposed marriage to Helen Whitman in a ______________________.
30. Toward the end, Poe had bouts of ___________________ during which he thought people were after him to _____________________
him.
31. He disappeared for several days, but then was found lying semi-conscious on a ________________ Street. He was found in a
delirious condition wearing someone else’s _________________ that didn’t fit him.
32. A theory regarding his death: ____________________________________________________
33. What did Poe say when he regained consciousness? “God, help ________ _________ ________.”
34. He constructs a world of _____________________.