HOW DARK ARE WE

1
HOW DARK ARE WE?

• Edgar Allen Poe
• Herman Melville
• Nathaniel Hawthorne

2
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
3
Herman Melville (1832-1891)
4
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
5
Edgar Allen Poe

• Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809, his
  parents second child.
• His father deserted the family a year later.
• In December 1811, when Poe was only 3 years old
  his mother died at the age of twenty-four.
• Poe was taken in by John Frances Allan, a
  successful and stable Richmond merchant and his
  wife.

6

• Poe spent most of 1826 at the University of
  Virginia, doing well in his studies, but running
  up gambling debts and drinking.
• He was admitted to West Point in 1830, but got
  himself expelled by missing classes and roll
  calls.
• By 1831, Poe had already published three versions
  of his early poetry.

7
TB and Poe

• The last years of Poe's life were very tragic.
  Virginia, his wife, died of tuberculosis in 1847,
  after five years of suffering from the illness.
• Tuberculosis is caused by an infection with the
  germ Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This germ is a
  bacteria. TB primarily attacks the lungs, but may
  also affect the kidneys, bones, lymph nodes, and
  brain.

8
Poes Death

• During the last two years of his life, Poe was
  seriously ill--perhaps with a brain lesion--and
  drinking steadily.
• On Election Day, October 3, 1849, he was found
  senseless near a polling place.
• Taken to a hospital, he died on October 7, 1849.

9
Poe worked in a variety of genres (1827-1849)

• Criticism--he gained a national reputation as a
  virulently sarcastic critic, a literary
  hatchetman. The bulk of his writing consists of
  his criticism, and his most abiding ambition was
  to become a powerful critic.
• Poetry--He was an experimental poet.
• Psychological fiction--He wanted to produce the
  greatest possible horrific effects on the reader.
• Detective Story--Poe created this form when he
  was 32, will all its major conventions complete.

10
Herman Melville

• Melville was born August 1, 1819 in New York
  City. He was a third child. His name was spelled
  Melvill.
• Melvilles father was a merchant and his mother
  was from a socially prominent family. His father
  died when he was 11 years old.
• At age 19, he had no hope of attending college,
  he signed up as a cabin boy on a merchant ship
  crossing to Liverpool. This started his writing.

11
Melvilles Life

• He spent time in the Tahiti and other Pacific
  Islands.
• He was married to Elizabeth Shaw and they had
  four children.
• His two sons died at age 18 and 35.

12

• Melvilles book Moby-Dick (1851), is regarded as
  one of the great masterpieces of world
  literature.
• Melville became friends with Nathaniel
  Hawthorne. Their friendship lasted two years.

13

• Melvilles death on September 28, 1891 went
  virtually unnoticed. He died of a heart attack at
  his home. A heart attack (also called a
  myocardial infarction) is the death of part of
  the heart muscle due to its sudden loss of blood
  supply.
• He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery near the
  Yonkers, New York.

14
Nathaniel Hawthorne

• Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem,
  Massachusetts, a descendant of a judge of the
  Salem witch trials.
• Hawthornes father died when he was four and he
  spent a solitary childhood with his widowed and
  reclusive mother.
• Attended Bowdoin College in Maine. He graduated
  18th in a class of 38.

15

• He married Sophia Peabody in 1842 and had three
  children and lived in Concord, Massachusetts,
  where he met other writers.
• In 1850 he published The Scarlet Letter.
• Became a friend to Herman Melville. Two years
  later this friendship ended.

16
Hawthorne

• 1853-1857 Hawthorne served as United States
  Consul at Liverpool on appointment by President
  Pierce.
• 1857-1859 he lived in Rome and Florence. He
  returned to Concord.
• He published several more books after this.

17
Death

• May 19, 1864 Nathaniel Hawthorne died in his
  sleep on a trip with Franklin Pierce. They were
  in Plymouth, New Hampshire.

18
Hawthorne/Poe/MelvilleDiscussion

• Compare and contrast the life of each of these
  authors.

• Were there any tragic events that led to each
  writers style of writing?