Edgar Alllan Poe - Help please

[86 911]

In English we are discussing the American author Edgar Allan Poe. Basically his Dad abandoned him and his mom, and then his mom died when he was 3 and he had to live with a "foster" like family. After he gets out of school he marries his aunt Maria Chlemm's daugher (thus, his 1st cousin) when she was like 13 and he was about 20-something. My question:

Was Edgar Allan Poe's wife his first cousin by blood relations or his first cousin through his adopted family?

I brought up this question to my English teacher and he told me he was interested and asked me to research it. I can't find the answer yet. Anyone know the answer?

Thanks!

[stevepaa]

http://www.eapoe.org/geninfo/poegnlgy.htm#david1742
http://www.poeforward.com/virginiawomb/eliza/eliza.htm

I would say through his adopted family. But see what you can find.

[86 911]

Thank you very much Steve. It reads: "Virginia Eliza Clemm was born on August 22, 1822 to Maria Poe (sister of Edgar's father David) and her husband William Clemm, Jr. (1779-1826)."

So that must mean he had a blood relation to her. I was hoping it was the other was around!

[rrpjr]

Matt: I recall from a biography of Poe I read a few years ago, his 13-year-old wife was the daughter of his father's sister, therefore a first cousin. He was very much in love with her, and her death inspired one of his last and finest poems, "Annabel Lee."

[86 911]

Thanks Rip. We just watched a movie on Poe today, and one of the reanactors read the "Annabel Lee" poem. It had a nice rhyme to it. I just finished reading "The Raven" out of the text book last night. Poe's a creative guy writing during the Romantic period in America, but some of his poems are really deep, which set him apart from other writers like Washington Irving. I read "The Devil and Tom Walker" by Irving a week ago, and that story was definatley not as "melodramatic" as Poe's work (of that time period). Interesting guy...

[dd74]

Studying Poe's psyche was probably one of the most frightening insights I remember as a Lit. major. I can't remember if it was The Raven, but after reading my first Poe stanza, I recall how I thought this man, as intense as his work is, would not live long within his own boundaries. "Crushing" was how I described Poe in one paper...

[rrpjr]

Matt: One of his most fun poems, especially to read aloud, is "Bells." It is entirely whimsical, "un-Poe-like." Check it out if you can. Poe for all his reputation as a brooding and reckless character was an incredibly hard-working and precise writer. He simultaneously wrote prose, poems, journalism, criticisms and essays on life and literature. He took himself very seriously (some say that was his problem). But there is no more musical poet, I think.

[dtw]

Originally posted by rrpjr
Matt: One of his most fun poems, especially to read aloud, is "Bells."

George W. Bush hates tintinnabulation.