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Al Aaraaf and West Point
May 1829 - March 1831
Edgar left the army on April 15, 1829, with letters of
recommendation from Lieutenant Howard
and two other officers
where they promised that Edgar was a good man who was well
educated. He went back to Richmond and set to work at
becoming a cadet. John Allan
helped him in getting letters
of recommendations from people in high places and also
wrote one himself - he did, however, make it clear that Edgar was of
no relation to him whatsoever. In May, Edgar brought
his application to Washington and he was told that there
were forty-seven people ahead of him on the waiting list,
but drop-outs from the list was expected so Edgar still had
some hope of joining in September.
Instead of going back to Richmond, Edgar headed to
his father's
family in Baltimore. In July he walked the
thirty miles back to Washington and he learned that he still
had a chance of getting in by September but if he didn't, he
was promised to be first in line for admission in June the
following year. Considering a possible delay of one year he
returned to Baltimore.
As time went by without Edgar getting admitted, John
Allan grew impatient. John Allan found Edgar lazy and
accused him of having misled him. Edgar of course denied all
this and said that he had done all he could. The reviving
quarrel was later fed by Edgar's problem with money. In May
John Allan sent Edgar $100 but one month later Edgar wrote
back and asked from more since he had been robbed and
needed money to pay for his replacement in the Army.
Edgar got acquainted with a man named William Wirt
whom he asked for an opinion on a new poem entitled
"Al Aaraaf" which had already
been published partly under the
pseudonym "Marlow". Wirt was a celebrated author but had
not written any poetry and felt unqualified for judging
Edgar's poem and advised him to bring it to a literary
critic in Philadelphia. Edgar then went to Philadelphia,
not considering John Allan's advice to be careful with his
money, and showed the poem to the editor of American
Quarterly Review, Robert Walsh. Walsh told Edgar that
the chances of getting a poem published in America was very
small but he promised to notice "Al Aaraaf" if it appeared.
As Edgar came back to Baltimore he wrote to John Allan
asking for financial support to get his work published. It
was very common back then to cover the possible losses
yourself when publishing. John Allan was not totally
opposed to the idea of Edgar getting his poems published
and even asked to see the manuscript but in the reply to
the letter there was written: "strongly censuring his
conduct -- & refusing any aid". This answer was quite
predictable considering Edgar's frequent requests for
money. John Allan was on top of that also feeling ill and
nervous after Fanny's
death and he had also got involved
with a woman named Elizabeth Wills (it was known later that
she would be the mother of their illegimate twins). In
July, John Allan wrote Edgar explaining "I am not
particularly anxious to see you". Edgar replied and tried
to draw a good picture of himself but as so many times
before John Allan did not reply to his letters. In July
Allan sent some money, but he still said that Edgar
was not wanted at Moldavia.
John Allan also sent $80 in
November after numerous requests and Edgar was very
thankful but still asked for more.
While in Baltimore Edgar continued his work with his poetry
and he sent one of his poems to American Monthly
which published parts of it as a laughable example of its
"sickly rhymes". To Edgar's delight it was published again
by the editor of The Yankee and Boston Literary
Gazette, John Neal (sometimes nicknamed Jehu
O'Cataract). He described Edgar's efforts as "though
nonsense, rather exquisite nonsense" and he thought
good of Edgar's future as a poet. Edgar was very pleased to
read this and said that it was "the very first words of
encouragement I ever remembered to have heard" and he
began writing to Neal on a regular basis explaining what a
good poet he was etc.
Later on, in mid-November Edgar found a publisher for
his new volume of poems in a Baltimore firm called Hatch
and Dunning. It is not known whether they were supported
by John Allan financially but they offered to print 250
copies of it. The book finally appeared in December as
"Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane,
and Minor Poems". This time
the book was not published anonymously but it was signed
Edgar A. Poe, the middle initial acknowledging but disowning
John Allan's name. From this day this would be the way he
would sign all his works.
In this book Edgar had reproduced Tamerlane, made it
more easy to read and shortened it down by about 150 lines
and cutting down on the Byronic influences. Edgar told Neal
that most of the poems were written before Edgar was
fifteen, which was probably not true. However, these poems
showed of a wider range of skills than the first book and
showed of new poetic influences (e.g. John Milton's).
The major poem of the book, "Al Aaraaf", was inspired
by Tycho Brahe's discovery of a nova back in 1572 which was
visible for about sixteen months. This nova was merged with
Al Aaraaf which is the place between paradise and hell
where people who have not been neither markedly good nor
markedly bad had to stay until forgiven by God and let in
to Paradise, as depicted in the Koran. In part one God
commands the angel Nesace, "ruler" of Al Aaraaf, to convey
a message to "other worlds". In part two Nesace rouses the
angel Ligeia, and bids her to awaken the other thousand
seraphs to perform God's embassy. Two souls however, fail to
respond: the "maiden-angel" Ianthe and her "seraph-lover"
Angelo (Michelangelo), who describes his death on earth and
the flight of his spirit to Al Aaraaf.
The poem is a heavy mix of historical facts, pure
imagination and religious mythology. Edgar was perhaps too
ambitious to get it all in there since it made a complex
mixture that was hard to grasp. The poem is also
syntactically complex and it can be hard to find a rhythm
when reading it. Considering all this it was not surprising
that Edgar left it unfinished. To summarize it can be said
that it is mainly about the afterlife, Ideal Love, and Ideal
Beauty to passion. A Baltimore reviewer wrote: "all our
brain-cudgelling could not compel us to understand it".
This book however, unlike Tamerlane, brought Edgar some
small public attention, it was reviewed in at least four
different publications and some of the criticism was good,
and the work was even described as "highly creditable to
the Country".
West Point
In the Spring of 1830 Edgar gained admission to West Point.
He was appointed to a cadetship beginning in June. He
signed on for five years of duty to the United States
unless sooner discharged. Before entering West Point he
spent some time in Moldavia and living this close to John
Allan was asking for trouble, they were quarelling as
usual. Before Edgar left, John Allan bought Edgar four
blankets and saw him to the steamer which might show of a
sign of good will from the two but as soon as Edgar got to
West Point in mid-June Allan wrote him and accused him for
stealing some of Allan's books. Edgar denied of course.
The barracks were located on the highlands looking down
onto the Hudson River about fifty miles from New York City.
The new cadets were sent out in the field, and they were
trained in using arms and field work. At the end of August
Edgar and the corps moved to the barracks to begin their
academic education. They were adviced to gain expertise in
few subjects rather than skimming the surface of several,
so Edgar took only French and Mathematics. In October he
was ranked as one of the "Best" in French and in November
also in Maths. In the general examination in January he
distinguished himself again - he placed himself as seventeenth in
Maths and third in French. After these examinations the
class had diminished from originally 130 cadets to 87 (of
which 24 would finally graduate)
By his classmates Edgar was considered interesting
and amusing. He drew a picture of himself as adventurous
and cursed from birth and exaggerated heavily. He amused
the cadets by performing acts of horror and making fun of
their instructors - among others, Lieutenant Joseph Locke
whose duty was to report cadet's violations of regulations:
John Locke was a notable name;
Joe Locke is a greater; in short,
The former was well known to fame,
But the latter's well known "to report."
Edgar was doing fine at West Point, as he had in the
Army, but the news that John Allan had remarried a twenty
year younger woman named Louisa Gabriella Patterson upset
him. He felt as if he would be kept out of John Allan's
life and wrote to him in a friendly manner asking for some
books and, of course, some money. His fears was confirmed at
the end of the year when Allan sent what he called his
final letter stating that he desired "no further
communication with yourself on my part". On January the
third Edgar replied with the longest letter he had ever
written. Four pages with a sarcastic and furious tone where
he accused John Allan for not keeping his promises and
blaming him for his debts at the University since he did
not provide well enough, "it was my crime to have no one on
Earth who cared for me, or loved me". Edgar also expressed
that he felt that John Allan had taken him away from a
better life which he could have had with his grandfather if
Allan had not adopted him. He wrote that he thought that
John Allan had not cared for him after Fanny's death but
had sent him to West Point a beggar - once again to drive
him into debts.
"If she had not have died while I was away there would
have been nothing for me to regret -- Your love I never
valued -- but she I believe loved me as her own child."
Edgar wanted out of West Point but for this he needed
Allan's written permission and he later said that if John
Allan would not reply to his letters he would neglect his
studies until he did. John Allan did not reply to his
letter but he wrote on the backside of it that is was
"the most barefaced one-sided statement". Edgar did
as he promised and in September he appeared on a list of
cadets who had committed most offenses that month. He
rapidly dropped in his class and became the 74th out of 86
students. In January 1831 he had 66 offenses compared to the
second on the list who had 21 (!).
On January 28, a court-martial convened at the academy
and Edgar faced two charges, each with several
specifications. Edgar pleaded guilty to all but the first
specification of the first charge. The court found him
guilty on all charges and that meant "that the cadet EA
Poe be dismissed from the service of the United
States". Edgar remained for a while and he managed to
get 131 out of 232 cadets to put up $1.25 to cover the cost
of printing a new edition of his poems.
Edgar left West Point on the 19th of February and
headed for New York City. He was thinly clad and soon
became ill and said to John Allan; "I hardly know what I
am writing". Somehow he managed to make a living and it is
not known where he stayed during these months but
eventually he returned to Baltimore to settle among his
father's family.
"Mr. Allan has married again and I no longer look upon
Richmond as my place of residence"
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