Poe

I think it is interesting looking at an authors past because there are definitely moments and reasons that affect everyones writing.  I don't research authors usually but I think it is important to do so for Edgar Allen Poe.  And while reading his biography, I came to the conclusion that he had a pretty rough life.  He lost his parents, his foster mom, and his wife.  As well as his fiance left him, his foster dad excluded him, and he basically lived in poverty.
But what's cool is that Poe doesn't hide these things in his writing you can easily see the correlation of these events to what he writes about.  For example, there is his work of "Ligeria" which explains loosing someone that you love.  Which was probably based off of his experience with his wife.
And I think it was these losses he faced that maybe transformed him into a Romantic-style author.  I think because he faced so much misery that he didn’t feel guilty questioning his surroundings and what had happened to him.  From what we talked about in class, in The Raven he is questioning what really happens when we die.  If there is a underworld, a Heaven and Hell, or if there is simply nothing.  He definitely uses the 5 I’s in his writing.  And I think it is a combination of this and the somberness of his writing that make it so interesting.

What is an American?

            In some ways I’m not that strict in what I believe qualifies someone as being an American.  I feel that they probably should live/ or have lived here for some time.  But also going back to what we were talking about in class a few days ago, I think being an American means that you can decide where you are from.  Some people like to forget where they came from because it was such a horrible place or for other reasons.  Like how Crevecoeur (Letters from an American Farmer) illustrates how the early emigrants received no care or respect in their previous countries, so were they really their homes?  However, it is interesting that Crevecoeur writes this way since he was actually born into a wealthy French family.  This shows that many people said America was their home, even if they didn’t have a bad experience in their previous country.  But I also believe that it can be the other way as well.  I don’t think it is bad to say “I’m Russian, Polish, Irish etc.”  As an American you can make that decision.  And I feel people say these things because either they have strong connections/traditions with the place they are “from”, or because they are hoping that they will meet others like them.  I think it is no secret that people like to be around people who are like them.  Then you have things in common.  And lets not forget that many times in American history, people grouped (and still group) other people by where they are originally from.  For example during the late 1800s/early 1900s there were always the well known signs in shop windows saying “NO IRISH NEED APPLY”.  For so long people have been grouped by where they were originally from, and maybe that has just stuck.