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SUMMARY: Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849)

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Edgar Allan Poe was born as Edgar Poe on January 19, 1809 in Boston Massachusetts. His parents were actors Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins and David Poe; a brother Williams Henry and sister Rosalie. His mother died in 1811 and father in 1810. After the death of both his parents, Edgar was moved to the home of Frances and John Allan who were wealthy merchants that lived in Richmond, Virginia. While in school at the University of Virginia, Poe and his foster father John Allan became estranged because of a gambling debt that Poe had. John Allan cut off Poe from the finances that were supporting Poe.

Poe was unable to pay the debts that he had created and could no longer pay to attend the University of Virginia; he enlisted in the United States Army and served for two years. During the previous years and in the United States Army, Poe had written poetry and was able to publish his first book of poetry Tamerlane and Other Poems in 1827. Poe used his personal finances to publish his first book of poetry.

Two years passed before Poe reconciled with his foster father, John Allan. The reconciliation took place to honor Poe’s foster mother who died in 1829 and asked for the reconciliation on her deathbed. The reconciliation was brief, but would help Poe publish his second book in 1829 Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems and Poems. Shortly after Poe moved to Baltimore and moved in with his Aunt Maria Clemm. He would later marry his cousin Virginia Clemm at the age of fourteen. For the next few years, Poe placed his poems in different newspaper and magazine and became recognized by the community.

After Poe and Virginia were married, they moved to New York City. In 1838 Poe published the novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. This would be the only completed novel that was written and published by Poe. The novel was full of mystery, cannibalism and murder. After the novel was published, Poe directed his attention back to stories and poems for newspapers and magazines. He started to write his first detective story and it was published in 1841.

The Raven and Other Poems were written in 1845 and is what helped make Poe famous. The book included the poems,

“The Raven”

“Eulalie”

“To Helen”

In 1847, Poe lost his beloved wife Virginia to tuberculosis. She passed away at the age of 24. Devastated by the lost, Poe turned to alcohol and started to be looked down upon by society. A year after the death of Virginia, Poe became engaged to his teenage sweetheart Elmira Royster. In 1849, Poe began to tour and do poetry reading to raise funds to begin his own magazine that would later by called The Stylus.

The death of Edgar Allan Poe is a mystery. He died on October 7, 1949 and was buried at the Old Westminster Burying Ground of Baltimore in an unmarked grave. The unmarked grave was marked with a headstone that has the following inscription:

Ouoth the Raven, Nevermore

Original Burial Place of Edgar Allan Poe

From October 9, 1849 until November 17, 1875

Mrs. Marian Clemm, his Mother-in-Law lies upon his right and Virginia Poe, his wife upon his left. Under the monument erected to him in this cemetery.

The poems and stories that were written by Edgar Allan Poe are those of mystery and despair. The intense writings are what made him famous. He was able to publish his first book of poems at the age of 18. After many books of poems, newspapers and magazines his poems and stories will always be remembered.

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: T. S. Eliot (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) American poet, dramatist, literary critic.
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Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri, to an old and prominent New England family. His father, Henry Ware Eliot was a successful businessman, who was president and treasurer of the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company in St. Louis; his mother, who was born Charlotte Champe Stearns wrote poems and was also a social worker. Eliot was the last of his parents six surviving children; his parents were both 44 years old when he was born.

He went on to become a poet, dramist and literary critic. He was educated at Harvard and did graduate work in philosophy at the Sorbonne, Harvard, and Merton College, Oxford. It was during his years at Harvard that his poems were first published. He also spent an influential year in Paris at the Sorbonne and much of this time influenced his later writings. He went on to settle in England in 1914 at the age of 25. While there he was for a time a schoolmaster and a bank clerk, and eventually a literary editor for the publishing house Faber & Faber. He later became a director there. He founded Criterion which became an exclusive and influential literary journal during the seventeen years of its publication (1922-1939). In 1927, at the age of 39 Eliot decided to become a British citizen and about the same time he entered the Anglican Church. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948

While in England he was introduced to Cambridge governess Vivienne Haigh-Wood. Eliot was not happy studying at Merton and declined a second year there. Instead on June 26, 1915, he married Vivienne in a register office. After a short visit, without his new wife, to the U. S. to see his family, he returned to London and took a few teaching jobs such as lecturing at Birkbeck College, University of London. He continued to work on his dissertation and in 1916, sent it to Harvard, which accepted it. Yet because he did not appear in person to defend his dissertation, however, he was not awarded his PhD.

His marriage to Vivienne was not a happy one and by 1932, Eliot had been contemplating a separation from his wife for some time. When Harvard University offered him the Charles Eliot Norton professorship for the 1932-1933 academic year, he quickly accepted, leaving Vivien in England. When he returned in 1933, Eliot officially separated from Vivienne. He managed to avoid all but one meeting with his wife between his leaving for America in 1932 and her death in 1947. Vivienne died at Northumberland House, a mental hospital north of London, after she was committed in 1938.

Eliot’s second marriage was short but much happier. He married Esme Valerie Fletcher on January 10, 1957. In sharp contrast to his first marriage, Eliot knew Miss Fletcher well, as she had been his secretary since August 1949. The wedding was kept a secret to preserve his privacy. The ceremony was held in a church at 6:15 a.m. with virtually no one other than his wife’s parents in attendance. Valerie was 37 years younger than her famous husband. After Eliot’s death she dedicated her time to preserving his legacy.

Eliot is considered to be one of the most daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry. He followed his belief that poetry should aim at a representation of the complexities of modern civilization in language and that such a representation necessarily leads to difficult poetry. Despite this difficulty in his writing his influence on modern poetic diction has been immense.

T.S. Eliot died on January 4, 1965 of emphysema in London. He had suffered with health problems for many years owing to the combination of London air and his heavy smoking, and was often being laid low with bronchitis or tachycardia. His body was then cremated and, according to Eliot’s wishes, the ashes were then taken to St Michael’s Church in East Coker, the village from which Eliot’s ancestors emigrated to America. There only a simple plaque commemorates him.

A list of T.S. Eliot works include:

• Prufrock and Other Observations (1917)
• Preludes (1917)
• The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
• Poems (1920)
• Gerontion
• Sweeney Among the Nightingales
• The Waste Land (1922)
• The Hollow Men (1925)
• Ariel Poems (1927-1954)
• The Journey of the Magi (1927)
• Ash Wednesday (1930)
• Coriolan (1931)
• Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939)

Plays
• Sweeney Agonistes (published in 1926, first performed in 1934)
• The Rock (1934)
• Murder in the Cathedral (1935)
• The Family Reunion (1939)
• The Cocktail Party (1949)
• The Confidential Clerk (1953)
• The Elder Statesman (first performed in 1958, published in 1959)

Nonfiction
• The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (1920)
• The Second-Order Mind (1920)
• “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1920)
• Homage to John Dryden (1924)
• Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca (1928)
• For Lancelot Andrewes (1928)
• Dante (1929)
• Selected Essays, 1917–1932 (1932)
• The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933)
• After Strange Gods (1934)
• Elizabethan Essays (1934)
• Essays Ancient and Modern (1936)
• The Idea of a Christian Society (1940)
• Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948)
• Poetry and Drama (1951)
• The Three Voices of Poetry (1954)
• “The Frontiers of Criticism” (1956)
• On Poetry and Poets (1957)

Posthumous publications
• To Criticize the Critic (1965)
• The Waste Land: Facsimile Edition (1974)
• Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917 1996

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: Shel Silverstein (September 25, 1930 – May 10, 1999) American poet, songwriter, musician, composer, cartoonist, screenwriter and author of children’s books.
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Many children and adults alike are familiar with the works of Shel Silverstein. This popular American poet wrote a number of books of poetry for children, which is what he is best known for. In fact, Shel Silverstein’s famous books of poetry, A light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends, are often classroom staples, required school reading, and a child’s first taste of poetry. While he was an excellent and well-known poet, Shel Silverstein has written much more than just children’s works.

Personal life
Shel Silverstein’s full name was Sheldon Allan Silverstein, and he was born in Chicago in 1930. His biographical information is difficult to come by, as he was a private man who shunned interviews and publicity tours and told his publisher not to give out any information about him. He was married and divorced and was the father of a daughter. Shel Silverstein died of a heart attack in 1999 in his home in Key West

Artwork and songwriting
Although Shel Silverstein is best known for his children’s works, interestingly enough, writing for children was never his first intention. According to Silverstein, his career in writing and drawing began at an early age, when he said that because he wasn’t athletic, he instead took up writing and drawing.

Silverstein was a talented artist on many levels. As a songwriter, he wrote the songs “A Boy Named Sue” for Johnny Cash as well as “The Cover of the Rolling Stone” for Dr. Hook. In addition to these hits, he also wrote the popular “Unicorn Song” for the Irish Rovers as well as “I’m Checking Out” for the movie Postcards from the Edge, which he also received an Oscar nomination as a songwriter for.

Silverstein was also a cartoonist, which he started while serving in the Army in Japan and Korea, when he was a cartoonist for Stars & Stripes, the US Army publication. After he was released from the Army, he began to draw cartoons for such magazines as Sports Illustrated, This Week, Look, and Playboy. Silverstein’s cartoons appeared in every issue in Playboy from 1957 to the mid-70’s.

Poetry
Despite his successful career as a songwriter, Silverstein is best known for his children’s poetry and stories, which were eventually translated into over 30 different languages. He first began writing for children after a friend introduced him to his Editor at Harper Collins. From there, his first book for children, The Giving Tree, was published in 1964. While it was not a big success at first, it eventually went on to be a bestseller and continues to be, with over 5 million copies sold.

In 1974, Shel Silverstein published his first book of poems, Where the Sidewalk Ends. It became an immediate success and is still a staple in many elementary school libraries. In 1981, A Light in the Attic was published, spending 182 weeks atop the New York Times bestseller list, surpassing sales of Where the Sidewalk Ends. Fifteen years later, Falling Up, another book of children’s poetry, was published. Silverstein also illustrated his own work, drawing from his success as a cartoonist.

Shel Silverstein was a man of many talents, including writing, art, and music. He is well-known and respected in a number of industries, and people continue to enjoy his poems and his music today.

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: Robert Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) American poet
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One of the best known poets of all time, Robert Frost is studied in classrooms across the world for his poignant poetry, often involving nature. The following is information about Robert Frost’s life and poetry.

Life and education
Robert Lee Frost, who was named after the Civil War general Robert E. Lee, was born March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, California. Both parents were teachers, exposing him from an early age to literature and famous poets such as Shakespeare and Wordsworth.

His poetry career started at a young age as well, publishing poems in his school paper as young as 16. He graduated at the top of his class and went on to begin his college career at Dartmouth in 1892. However, he decided college life wasn’t for him and took odd jobs, from teaching to laboring, while writing poetry.

At the height of his career, Frost experienced a great deal of loss. His four children were married and he spent a great deal of time with his children and grandchildren within a period of a few years. His daughter Marjorie died in 1934 after the birth of her first child. In 1938, his wife died of a heart attack. Two years later, in 1940, his son Carol committed suicide.

Robert Frost died January 29, 1963, in Boston. He was buried in his family’s plot in Vermont.

Poetry career
Although he began writing poems from a young age, he got his break when, in 1894, Independent, a magazine based in New York, published his poem, “My Butterfly: An Elegy,” for which he was paid $15.

In 1911, Frost, his wife Elinor, and their four children moved to England. In 1913, Frost got his big break when his first collection of poetry, A Boy’s Will, was published. Two years later in 1915, it was printed in America. The collection was a great success, in part from the promotion and support of other famous poets of the time, including Henry Holt and Ezra Pound.

In 1915, Frost and his family moved back to the United States to a farm in New Hampshire. Not long after, Frost published a book of poetry called Mountain Interval and began touring for his fans.

Many of Frost’s poems were written in nature and about nature on the various farms he lived in throughout his life. In 1920 he purchased Stone House in Vermont and continued writing successful poetry. It was here where he wrote most of the poems published in his fourth collection of poetry, which won him the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923. Included in this collection was perhaps his most famous poem, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Frost won numerous awards for his collections of poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1923, as well as again in 1931 for Collected Poems, in 1937 for A Further Range, as well as in 1943 for A Witness Tree. He also spoke at the inauguration of President John F Kennedy on January 20, 1961, where he recited his poem The Gift Outright.

Frost’s collections of poetry are numerous and include West Running Brook (1928), Collected Poems (1930), A Further Range (1936), Collected Poems (1939, again) A Witness Tree (1942), A Masque of Reason (play, 1945), Steeple Bush (1947), A Masque of Mercy (another play, 1947), Complete Poems (1949), and In the Clearing (1962).

Robert Frost was an American poet who wrote many well-known poems that are still revered today.

Filed Under: Biography

SUMMARY: Robert Browning (May 7, 1812–December 12, 1889) British poet, playwright
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When studying famous poets, the name of British poet Robert Browning is sure to be mentioned. He wrote a number of famous works throughout his life.

Life and poetry of Robert Browning

Born May 7,1812, in Camberwall, England (close to London), Robert Browning was the son of an accomplished pianist and a clerk at the Bank of England. From an early age, Robert Browning was exposed to literature and poetry. His father was an avid reader and very well read, and had a library of over 6000 books and volumes.

Robert Browning himself was also well-read and very educated, mostly as a result of his family. An avid reader as well, Robert was also gifted in his studies and learned Latin, Greek, French, and Italian by the time he was fourteen years old. In 1828, at the age of 16, he attended the University of London but dropped out soon after to study what he wanted at his own pace.

As a writer, Browning began with writing verses for stage after meeting William Macready, an actor on British stage. Browning began writing dramatic monologues. He received good reviews of his monologue Paracelsus, written in 1935, and much poorer reviews for Sordello, written in 1840. Many critics complained that his references and meanings were much too obscure to be understood and enjoyed.

Browning married fellow British poet Elizabeth Barrett after reading some of her poems and sending her a letter declaring his love for her and desire to meet her in 1844. They courted via letters until they eventually married in 1846, when she was 38 years old and he was 34, and later eloped to Italy. Together, they had a son, named Robert and nicknamed Pen, in 1849.

Their union and love for each other was the inspiration for a number of both of their poems, although Elizabeth was the more popular of the two poets at the time. He dedicated his collection of works Men and Women, which is said to hold his best works, to her in She also wrote a number of poems to him in her famous Sonnets from the Portuguese.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in 1861, and it wasn’t until a few years after that that Robert’s work became much more well-known and successful and he became more widely known as a poet. Some of the works he wrote around this time included Dramatis Personae (1864), The Ring and the Book, a poem consisting of 21,000 lines, Balaustion’s Adventure (1871), Fifine At The Fair (1872), Red Cotton Night-Cap Country (1873), including The Inn Album (1875) and Pacchiarotto and How He Worked in Distemper (1876), Certain People of Importance in Their Day (1887), and the anthology The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (1877). Asolando: Fancies and Facts (1889) was actually published the same day he died.

Browning’s popularity as a poet was evident with the 1881 founding of the Robert Browning Society, developed by fans in England and the US.

Robert Browning died on December 12, 1889, in Italy in his son’s house. He wanted to be buried by Elizabeth in Florence, but the cemetery wasn’t taking new burials at the time. Instead, he is buried in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, London, England, not far from Lord Alfred Tennyson.

Robert Browning was a famous British poet known for his dramatic monologues and his love for his wife, fellow poet Emily Barrett Browning.

Filed Under: Biography

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