WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.259 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Our mission is 00:00:02.259 --> 00:00:05.639 always the same, to take a colossal figure, strip 00:00:05.639 --> 00:00:07.860 away the pop culture myths, and see what the 00:00:07.860 --> 00:00:10.519 raw source material reveals. And today we are 00:00:10.519 --> 00:00:12.560 plumbing the depths of a writer whose very name 00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:16.920 conjures darkness, terror, and the relentless 00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:19.879 tapping of a beak on a chamber door, Edgar Allan 00:00:19.879 --> 00:00:23.000 Poe. That's right. Poe, who lived from 1809 to 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:25.699 1849, is instantly synonymous with the macabre. 00:00:25.839 --> 00:00:28.679 He is the central brooding architect of American 00:00:28.679 --> 00:00:31.769 Gothic. fiction and so critically the inventor 00:00:31.769 --> 00:00:34.109 of the detective story. He really is. But if 00:00:34.109 --> 00:00:36.490 you only know him as the mad genius who wrote 00:00:36.490 --> 00:00:38.409 The Raven, you are missing the most fascinating 00:00:38.409 --> 00:00:41.609 parts of his story. Our sources today take us 00:00:41.609 --> 00:00:44.149 far beyond the crypt, revealing a surprisingly 00:00:44.149 --> 00:00:48.469 modern, complex and intensely analytical mind. 00:00:48.710 --> 00:00:50.789 Yeah, analytical is the key word. So we're going 00:00:50.789 --> 00:00:52.909 on a deep dive to examine how this perpetually 00:00:52.909 --> 00:00:55.369 struggling writer managed not just to shape global 00:00:55.369 --> 00:00:57.570 literature, but also to function as a highly 00:00:57.570 --> 00:01:00.369 successful cryptologist. a caustic literary critic, 00:01:00.450 --> 00:01:03.369 and incredibly a cosmological theorist. And his 00:01:03.369 --> 00:01:05.670 work anticipated elements of the Big Bang Theory 00:01:05.670 --> 00:01:08.670 by nearly a century. It's wild. We're going to 00:01:08.670 --> 00:01:10.829 understand the calculation behind the chaos. 00:01:11.189 --> 00:01:13.769 And to understand the chaos, you really have 00:01:13.769 --> 00:01:16.329 to start with a perpetual struggle. It is the 00:01:16.329 --> 00:01:19.189 single most important lens through which to view 00:01:19.189 --> 00:01:22.189 his entire career. The money. Always the money. 00:01:22.650 --> 00:01:25.810 Yeah. Poe was, you could argue, the very first 00:01:25.810 --> 00:01:28.450 well -known American author who tried to sustain 00:01:28.450 --> 00:01:30.790 his life exclusively through his writing. And 00:01:30.790 --> 00:01:33.109 that was a bad idea back then. Oh, it was an 00:01:33.109 --> 00:01:35.650 act of financial self -destruction. In the mid 00:01:35.650 --> 00:01:37.750 -19th century American literary marketplace, 00:01:38.090 --> 00:01:40.530 it was basically impossible. We often talk about 00:01:40.530 --> 00:01:43.290 the starving artist, but why was the system so 00:01:43.290 --> 00:01:45.810 specifically rigged against him at that precise 00:01:45.810 --> 00:01:48.689 moment in American history? It boils down to 00:01:48.689 --> 00:01:52.560 a colossal legal loophole. The complete and utter 00:01:52.560 --> 00:01:55.739 lack of international copyright law. Ah, okay. 00:01:55.939 --> 00:01:58.299 So imagine trying to sell a product that a major 00:01:58.299 --> 00:02:00.980 competitor can just distribute globally for free. 00:02:01.099 --> 00:02:04.120 Right. American publishers, driven by pure economics, 00:02:04.459 --> 00:02:07.200 preferred to sell cheap, unauthorized copies 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:09.659 of popular British authors. We're talking figures 00:02:09.659 --> 00:02:12.280 like Charles Dickens or Sir Walter Scott. Because 00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:14.259 they didn't have to pay them. They didn't have 00:02:14.259 --> 00:02:16.539 to pay them a cent in royalties. So this meant 00:02:16.539 --> 00:02:19.199 Poe, trying to sell original American content, 00:02:19.419 --> 00:02:23.020 was competing directly with literally free content 00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:25.819 from world -class established talent. That's 00:02:25.819 --> 00:02:28.180 an impossible situation. It made his existence 00:02:28.180 --> 00:02:31.879 a brutal decade -long scramble for scraps. His 00:02:31.879 --> 00:02:34.560 groundbreaking work, regardless of its literary 00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:37.039 merit, was instantly hampered by market forces 00:02:37.039 --> 00:02:39.680 that preferred piracy over paying their own domestic 00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:43.110 talent. This desperation, it dictates every failed 00:02:43.110 --> 00:02:45.870 magazine launch and every abrupt relocation we 00:02:45.870 --> 00:02:48.650 see in his life. OK, so let's unpack the biographical 00:02:48.650 --> 00:02:51.150 foundations of all this turmoil. He was born 00:02:51.150 --> 00:02:55.069 Edgar Poe in Boston on January 19th, 1809. His 00:02:55.069 --> 00:02:57.250 parents were traveling actors and his early life. 00:02:57.289 --> 00:02:59.150 I mean, it really does read like the prologue 00:02:59.150 --> 00:03:01.780 to a gothic novel. It's pure melodrama. His father 00:03:01.780 --> 00:03:04.780 abandoned the family in 1810. Just gone. Vanished. 00:03:04.819 --> 00:03:06.939 And then his mother died of consumption pulmonary 00:03:06.939 --> 00:03:09.460 tuberculosis just a year later. He was an orphan 00:03:09.460 --> 00:03:12.180 before he was three. Wow. And that profound, 00:03:12.219 --> 00:03:15.419 repeated, early loss of a mother figure to disease. 00:03:16.300 --> 00:03:18.639 It's not just a personal tragedy, is it? It becomes 00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:21.259 this massive, defining shadow over his entire 00:03:21.259 --> 00:03:24.699 literary output. Absolutely. The two -year -old 00:03:24.699 --> 00:03:27.219 Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allen in 00:03:27.219 --> 00:03:29.740 Richmond, Virginia. They were a wealthy merchant 00:03:29.740 --> 00:03:32.199 family involved in everything from cloth and 00:03:32.199 --> 00:03:35.199 tobacco to, and this is notable, the slave trade. 00:03:35.360 --> 00:03:37.900 But they never formally adopted him. Never. He 00:03:37.900 --> 00:03:40.400 gained the name Edgar Allan Poe, but he was always 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:43.120 an outsider. And John Allen's role was intensely 00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:45.860 complicated, wasn't it? He wasn't exactly a stable 00:03:45.860 --> 00:03:48.240 parental figure. Far from it. The relationship 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:51.599 was volatile and just completely inconsistent. 00:03:52.600 --> 00:03:55.520 Allen would alternately spoil Poe with an expensive 00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:57.840 European education and these extravagant gifts, 00:03:57.979 --> 00:04:00.099 but then he would aggressively discipline him 00:04:00.099 --> 00:04:02.180 and withhold affection. That's a classic push 00:04:02.180 --> 00:04:05.199 -pull. It is. This pattern of lavish support 00:04:05.199 --> 00:04:07.900 followed by cruel abandonment, it created an 00:04:07.900 --> 00:04:10.860 enduring psychological template for Poe. It fed 00:04:10.860 --> 00:04:13.020 right into his lifelong issues with stability 00:04:13.020 --> 00:04:15.900 and authority. That initial spoiling did, however, 00:04:15.919 --> 00:04:18.540 afford him a superior early education, right? 00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:22.759 Oh, absolutely, yes. From 1815, the Allens took 00:04:22.759 --> 00:04:24.680 him to the United Kingdom, where he attended 00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:27.279 grammar school in Scotland, which was Allen's 00:04:27.279 --> 00:04:29.699 birthplace, and then a boarding school in London. 00:04:30.060 --> 00:04:33.040 He returned to Richmond in 1820. So he gets this 00:04:33.040 --> 00:04:36.620 deep classical education fluency in languages 00:04:36.620 --> 00:04:39.740 that would serve him well later. Yes. But the 00:04:39.740 --> 00:04:41.839 psychological instability was already baked in. 00:04:41.899 --> 00:04:43.779 You can see it a few years later. Right. When 00:04:43.779 --> 00:04:46.319 the relationship with Alan completely fractures 00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:48.540 once Poe enrolls at the University of Virginia. 00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:52.560 So tell us about that descent into academic chaos 00:04:52.560 --> 00:04:55.259 and financial desperation. The University of 00:04:55.259 --> 00:04:57.420 Virginia, which was founded on Thomas Jefferson's 00:04:57.420 --> 00:05:00.810 ideals of self -governance, was a... A hot mess 00:05:00.810 --> 00:05:03.990 in 1826. A hot mess how? Well, students were 00:05:03.990 --> 00:05:05.829 supposed to govern themselves, but the strict 00:05:05.829 --> 00:05:08.509 rules against gambling, alcohol, and guns were 00:05:08.509 --> 00:05:10.990 utterly disregarded. The atmosphere was just 00:05:10.990 --> 00:05:13.269 chaos, and the dropout rate was astronomical. 00:05:13.709 --> 00:05:16.329 And Poe gets caught up in it. He does. Trying 00:05:16.329 --> 00:05:18.350 to keep up appearances among the wealthier students, 00:05:18.509 --> 00:05:20.449 he accumulated heavy gambling debts during his 00:05:20.449 --> 00:05:22.689 single year there. He was completely out of his 00:05:22.689 --> 00:05:25.629 depth. And he immediately cast the blame on Allen. 00:05:26.129 --> 00:05:28.610 Now... Was that justified or was that just a 00:05:28.610 --> 00:05:30.930 convenient narrative for his own self -sabotage? 00:05:31.089 --> 00:05:34.029 I think it's a mix. Poe accused Allen of not 00:05:34.029 --> 00:05:36.769 providing sufficient funds for tuition, texts 00:05:36.769 --> 00:05:39.910 and living expenses, which that was partially 00:05:39.910 --> 00:05:43.009 true. Allen was famously tightfisted. But Poe 00:05:43.009 --> 00:05:45.470 didn't help his own case. No, he significantly 00:05:45.470 --> 00:05:48.389 worsened his own position through reckless gambling 00:05:48.389 --> 00:05:51.029 and spending. The estrangement was complete enough 00:05:51.029 --> 00:05:52.970 that when he left the university after only one 00:05:52.970 --> 00:05:55.449 year, he couldn't return to Richmond. And his 00:05:55.449 --> 00:05:58.509 childhood sweetheart had moved on? Exactly. Sarah 00:05:58.509 --> 00:06:00.550 Elmora Royster had married another man during 00:06:00.550 --> 00:06:03.430 his absence. So he's broke, he's heartbroken, 00:06:03.470 --> 00:06:05.189 and he's got nowhere to go. Unable to support 00:06:05.189 --> 00:06:07.610 himself in Boston, he took the most drastic step, 00:06:07.790 --> 00:06:10.370 which resulted in this truly spectacular confluence 00:06:10.370 --> 00:06:12.970 of identity deception. He was completely desperate. 00:06:13.209 --> 00:06:15.490 By April 1827, he's living hand -to -mouth in 00:06:15.490 --> 00:06:18.509 Boston, even using the pseudonym Henri Le René. 00:06:18.569 --> 00:06:21.410 Henri Le René. By May, he enlists in the U .S. 00:06:21.430 --> 00:06:24.209 Army as a private. And get this. He signs up 00:06:24.209 --> 00:06:27.310 under the assumed name Edgar A. Perry and claims 00:06:27.310 --> 00:06:30.329 to be 22 years old, who's only 18. So the eventual 00:06:30.329 --> 00:06:32.949 literary titan starts his public life with a 00:06:32.949 --> 00:06:35.350 total flop, published under a false identity, 00:06:35.610 --> 00:06:38.269 while he's serving in the military under another 00:06:38.269 --> 00:06:40.670 false identity. It is the definition of Poe drama. 00:06:41.069 --> 00:06:42.889 While he was stationed at Fort Independence, 00:06:43.329 --> 00:06:46.790 his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, was 00:06:46.790 --> 00:06:49.949 published that year. A slim 40 -page collection 00:06:49.949 --> 00:06:53.329 credited only to a Bostonian. It just vanished. 00:06:53.670 --> 00:06:56.129 Completely. Only 50 copies were printed and it 00:06:56.129 --> 00:06:58.879 just disappeared without a trace. But... Despite 00:06:58.879 --> 00:07:02.720 this quiet, unrecognized literary debut, Poe 00:07:02.720 --> 00:07:05.399 was actually a competent soldier. He rose quickly 00:07:05.399 --> 00:07:07.199 to the rank of sergeant major for artillery. 00:07:07.500 --> 00:07:09.740 He eventually revealed his true identity to get 00:07:09.740 --> 00:07:12.480 a discharge, and this led to a temporary reconciliation 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:15.480 with Allen. That reconciliation was primarily 00:07:15.480 --> 00:07:18.560 prompted by tragedy. Francis Allen, his foster 00:07:18.560 --> 00:07:21.920 mother, died in February 1829. The woman who'd 00:07:21.920 --> 00:07:25.019 been kind to him. Yes, John Allen. maybe softened 00:07:25.019 --> 00:07:27.779 by grief and recognizing Poe's potential, agreed 00:07:27.779 --> 00:07:29.920 to support Poe's application for an appointment 00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:31.860 to the United States Military Academy at West 00:07:31.860 --> 00:07:34.319 Point. So he's back on track, seemingly. For 00:07:34.319 --> 00:07:36.699 a moment. He was honorably discharged from the 00:07:36.699 --> 00:07:39.740 Army and entered West Point in July 1830. But 00:07:39.740 --> 00:07:42.579 that reconciliation was terminally fragile. It 00:07:42.579 --> 00:07:45.579 was doomed from the start. John Allen had remarried 00:07:45.579 --> 00:07:48.220 and bitter quarrels erupted, partly concerning 00:07:48.220 --> 00:07:50.839 children Allen had fathered outside of his marriage. 00:07:51.360 --> 00:07:53.980 Allen completely disowned him. Completely removed 00:07:53.980 --> 00:07:57.459 him from his will permanently. And Poe, recognizing 00:07:57.459 --> 00:07:59.759 that the military path was no longer a viable 00:07:59.759 --> 00:08:02.180 route to any kind of financial or social stability, 00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:05.079 intentionally got himself court -martialed. He 00:08:05.079 --> 00:08:07.740 engineered his own failure. He totally engineered 00:08:07.740 --> 00:08:10.300 his own academic and military failure. Exactly. 00:08:10.459 --> 00:08:13.600 He was found guilty in February 1831 of gross 00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:16.319 neglect of duty for refusing to attend classes, 00:08:16.420 --> 00:08:18.959 church, and formations. And what's wild is that 00:08:18.959 --> 00:08:21.079 he pleaded not guilty. Right, but that was just 00:08:21.079 --> 00:08:23.939 a tactic. It was to ensure the sentence was dismissal, 00:08:23.959 --> 00:08:26.759 which he achieved. This episode, it illustrates 00:08:26.759 --> 00:08:29.980 a crucial pattern. When Poe felt trapped or abandoned, 00:08:30.339 --> 00:08:33.159 he would ruthlessly self -sabotage to secure 00:08:33.159 --> 00:08:35.639 his freedom, regardless of the financial cost. 00:08:35.980 --> 00:08:38.480 So following this dramatic exit, he finds a new 00:08:38.480 --> 00:08:41.620 domestic nucleus in Baltimore with his widowed 00:08:41.620 --> 00:08:44.379 aunt, Maria Clem, and her daughter, Virginia, 00:08:44.659 --> 00:08:47.919 his cousin. And Maria Clem, whom he affectionately 00:08:47.919 --> 00:08:50.840 called Muddy, she really provided the emotional 00:08:50.840 --> 00:08:53.600 stability and domestic anchor that had been missing 00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:56.200 his entire life. But this stability was laced 00:08:56.200 --> 00:08:58.519 with unconventionality, to say the least. It 00:08:58.519 --> 00:09:03.419 was. In 1836, at age 27, Poe married Virginia 00:09:03.419 --> 00:09:05.990 Clem. The records show she was only 13 years 00:09:05.990 --> 00:09:08.929 old. Thirteen. Thirteen. And they had to get 00:09:08.929 --> 00:09:10.950 a witness to falsely attest that she was 21. 00:09:11.450 --> 00:09:13.870 Regardless of the unusual age difference, though, 00:09:13.990 --> 00:09:16.250 the relationship seemed to be built on a deep 00:09:16.250 --> 00:09:18.669 mutual dependency, which makes the subsequent 00:09:18.669 --> 00:09:21.509 tragedy all the more acute. It was a complex, 00:09:21.570 --> 00:09:23.809 loving, and just deeply tragic relationship. 00:09:23.929 --> 00:09:27.629 And tragedy struck in January 1842. While Virginia 00:09:27.629 --> 00:09:29.850 was singing and playing piano, she showed the 00:09:29.850 --> 00:09:32.309 first signs of consumption tuberculosis imposed 00:09:32.309 --> 00:09:35.029 description of it is just wrenching he described 00:09:35.029 --> 00:09:37.169 it as the sudden breaking of a blood vessel in 00:09:37.169 --> 00:09:39.289 her throat that moment must have been devastating 00:09:39.289 --> 00:09:42.809 i mean an almost exact horrible echo of his mother's 00:09:42.809 --> 00:09:45.610 fate It was crushing. And biographers widely 00:09:45.610 --> 00:09:49.250 agree the psychological toll was immense. Virginia 00:09:49.250 --> 00:09:51.509 suffered from this chronic illness for five years, 00:09:51.690 --> 00:09:53.970 dying in their small cottage in Fordham, New 00:09:53.970 --> 00:09:57.129 York, in January 1847. And this is when he starts 00:09:57.129 --> 00:10:00.009 drinking heavily. Allegedly, yes. The stress 00:10:00.009 --> 00:10:01.710 of watching the woman he loved, who was also 00:10:01.710 --> 00:10:03.509 his family connection and his cousin, slowly 00:10:03.509 --> 00:10:06.190 waste away is what pushed him into heavy drinking. 00:10:06.350 --> 00:10:08.610 And this triple -loss mother, foster mother, 00:10:08.710 --> 00:10:11.779 and then his wife. It fuels his most persistent 00:10:11.779 --> 00:10:14.960 literary theme. Absolutely. The repeated death 00:10:14.960 --> 00:10:18.320 of vital women in his life is the direct psychological 00:10:18.320 --> 00:10:21.639 source for his recurring theme, the death of 00:10:21.639 --> 00:10:24.220 a beautiful woman. It is a motif that defines 00:10:24.220 --> 00:10:27.340 so many of his most famous works. And after Virginia's 00:10:27.340 --> 00:10:29.679 death, his search for stability just became desperate 00:10:29.679 --> 00:10:32.490 and erratic. Completely. He attempted to court 00:10:32.490 --> 00:10:34.970 the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, which resulted 00:10:34.970 --> 00:10:37.929 in a failed engagement, mostly due to his erratic 00:10:37.929 --> 00:10:40.029 behavior and heavy drinking. Yet in the final 00:10:40.029 --> 00:10:42.289 months of his life, he was back in Richmond, 00:10:42.450 --> 00:10:44.610 having resumed a relationship with his childhood 00:10:44.610 --> 00:10:47.409 sweetheart, Sarah O'Meara Royster. He's forever 00:10:47.409 --> 00:10:50.529 seeking to recapture an idealized, stable past. 00:10:50.769 --> 00:10:53.559 A past that never really existed. So despite 00:10:53.559 --> 00:10:56.399 this continuous personal turbulence and financial 00:10:56.399 --> 00:10:59.179 peril, Poe manages to achieve something monumental. 00:10:59.519 --> 00:11:02.679 He pivots from being a failing poet to a successful 00:11:02.679 --> 00:11:05.700 prose writer and editor. And in doing so, he 00:11:05.700 --> 00:11:08.340 engineers the foundation of modern genre literature. 00:11:08.679 --> 00:11:11.399 The shift was absolutely essential. After the 00:11:11.399 --> 00:11:14.559 early failures in poetry, Poe focused permanently 00:11:14.559 --> 00:11:17.919 on prose. He needed immediate, practical wins. 00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:21.480 And that win came in 1833. That's right. October 00:11:21.480 --> 00:11:25.179 1833, his short story, Emma's Script Found in 00:11:25.179 --> 00:11:27.600 a Bottle, won a prize sponsored by the Baltimore 00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:30.190 Saturday Visitor. And that single victory was 00:11:30.190 --> 00:11:32.669 his ticket into the editorial world, which gave 00:11:32.669 --> 00:11:35.429 him the consistent income he craved. Precisely. 00:11:35.429 --> 00:11:37.129 It brought him to the attention of influential 00:11:37.129 --> 00:11:39.929 figures like John P. Kennedy, who mentored him 00:11:39.929 --> 00:11:42.570 and introduced him to Thomas W. White, the editor 00:11:42.570 --> 00:11:44.529 of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. 00:11:44.830 --> 00:11:47.940 And this began the era of Poe. The tireless editorial 00:11:47.940 --> 00:11:50.460 entrepreneur. Mastering the system. Mastering 00:11:50.460 --> 00:11:52.740 the mechanics of the burgeoning American periodical 00:11:52.740 --> 00:11:54.879 system. He became assistant editor of the Southern 00:11:54.879 --> 00:11:57.779 Literary Messenger in 1835, but even this stability 00:11:57.779 --> 00:11:59.960 was immediately threatened. Oh, immediately. 00:12:00.779 --> 00:12:03.659 White discharged him within weeks, allegedly 00:12:03.659 --> 00:12:06.139 for drunkenness. And he came back. He came back. 00:12:06.279 --> 00:12:09.279 The undeniable quality of Poe's writing and his 00:12:09.279 --> 00:12:12.279 critical acumen meant White reinstated him after 00:12:12.279 --> 00:12:15.019 Poe promised to reform. He stayed there until 00:12:15.019 --> 00:12:18.679 1837. And during his tenure, he was a force multiplier. 00:12:18.899 --> 00:12:20.799 A force multiplier. He claimed the magazine's 00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:24.379 circulation shot up from 700 to 3 ,500. He wasn't 00:12:24.379 --> 00:12:26.440 just a writer. He was a circulation manager, 00:12:26.740 --> 00:12:29.740 a critic, and an ideas man all rolled into one. 00:12:29.860 --> 00:12:32.399 He continued this pattern, right? Moving through 00:12:32.399 --> 00:12:34.340 the centers of American publishing, Philadelphia, 00:12:34.440 --> 00:12:37.240 New York, working for Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, 00:12:37.320 --> 00:12:39.840 and later the highly successful Graham's Magazine. 00:12:40.120 --> 00:12:43.509 He did. But his true aspiration was always complete 00:12:43.509 --> 00:12:46.070 editorial control. That was the dream. That was 00:12:46.070 --> 00:12:48.230 the dream, the antidote to poverty and compromise. 00:12:48.549 --> 00:12:50.990 He yearned to produce his own journal, first 00:12:50.990 --> 00:12:53.889 called The Pen, and later rebranded as The Stylist. 00:12:54.129 --> 00:12:58.009 And he got so close. So close. He planned meticulously 00:12:58.009 --> 00:13:00.509 even buying advertising space in the Saturday 00:13:00.509 --> 00:13:03.830 Evening Post in 1840 to announce its prospectus. 00:13:04.269 --> 00:13:07.110 This failed dream, the financial security and 00:13:07.110 --> 00:13:09.990 critical platform of The Stylist. It just represents 00:13:09.990 --> 00:13:12.350 the constant tension between his massive ambition 00:13:12.350 --> 00:13:15.470 and his brutal economic reality. And it's such 00:13:15.470 --> 00:13:17.669 a profound irony that this man who lived hand 00:13:17.669 --> 00:13:20.090 to mouth essentially invented two incredibly 00:13:20.090 --> 00:13:23.269 lucrative global genres, the formalized short 00:13:23.269 --> 00:13:26.350 story and, most notably, detective fiction. He 00:13:26.350 --> 00:13:28.309 was instrumental in shaping the modern short 00:13:28.309 --> 00:13:30.909 story, codifying it as a genre with structure 00:13:30.909 --> 00:13:34.320 and rules. His 1839 collection, Tales of the 00:13:34.320 --> 00:13:36.960 Grotesque and Arabesque, that cemented his reputation. 00:13:37.279 --> 00:13:39.779 But his creation of detective fiction is arguably 00:13:39.779 --> 00:13:42.159 his greatest structural legacy to world literature. 00:13:42.419 --> 00:13:44.659 We credit him as the inventor, based on his three 00:13:44.659 --> 00:13:47.519 tales featuring C. Auguste Dupin, The Murders 00:13:47.519 --> 00:13:50.059 in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, 00:13:50.120 --> 00:13:52.899 and The Purloined Letter. So what specifically 00:13:52.899 --> 00:13:54.940 did Poe invent that didn't exist before? Okay, 00:13:54.980 --> 00:13:56.860 so before Poe, you had mysteries, certainly, 00:13:56.960 --> 00:13:58.840 but you didn't have detective fiction. Poe invented 00:13:58.840 --> 00:14:00.899 the entire blueprint. The whole formula. The 00:14:00.899 --> 00:14:04.399 entire formula. The brilliant, eccentric, amateur 00:14:04.399 --> 00:14:07.799 consulting detective that's Dupin, who solves 00:14:07.799 --> 00:14:10.500 crimes through pure intellect. The relatively 00:14:10.500 --> 00:14:14.740 dull, loyal sidekick who is the narrator. The 00:14:14.740 --> 00:14:17.200 incompetent official police force. The bumbling 00:14:17.200 --> 00:14:20.320 cops. The bumbling cops. And the mechanism of 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:22.379 the locked room mystery. It's all there. And 00:14:22.379 --> 00:14:25.000 Dupin operates through a method Poe called ratiocination. 00:14:25.480 --> 00:14:28.600 Ratiocination. It's a cold, logical deduction 00:14:28.600 --> 00:14:31.360 that elevates reason above physical evidence. 00:14:31.980 --> 00:14:34.639 He doesn't rely on luck or brute force. He relies 00:14:34.639 --> 00:14:37.200 on analytical insight into the psychology of 00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:39.600 the criminal and the police alike. And that framework 00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:41.759 is the foundation for everything that comes after. 00:14:41.899 --> 00:14:44.080 It is the foundation upon which Sherlock Holmes 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:46.059 and every single subsequent detective has been 00:14:46.059 --> 00:14:48.700 built. The impact is just undeniable. Sir Arthur 00:14:48.700 --> 00:14:51.580 Conan Doyle credited Poe directly, saying, Each 00:14:51.580 --> 00:14:54.100 of Poe's detective stories is a right from which 00:14:54.100 --> 00:14:56.179 a whole literature has developed. And the mystery 00:14:56.179 --> 00:14:58.440 writers of America acknowledging this by naming 00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:02.100 their annual awards the Edgars. it's a genre 00:15:02.100 --> 00:15:04.299 so essential today that it's easy to forget it 00:15:04.299 --> 00:15:06.500 was codified by a struggling magazine editor 00:15:06.500 --> 00:15:09.639 in the 1840s shifting now to his most famous 00:15:09.639 --> 00:15:13.370 mode gothic horror Poe wasn't just telling scary 00:15:13.370 --> 00:15:16.429 stories. He was psychologically dissecting terror, 00:15:16.690 --> 00:15:19.629 a key characteristic of dark romanticism. Exactly. 00:15:19.649 --> 00:15:23.269 Dark romanticism, a subgenre of American romanticism, 00:15:23.269 --> 00:15:26.990 emerged as a direct reaction to what they saw 00:15:26.990 --> 00:15:29.730 as the naive optimism of transcendentalism. So 00:15:29.730 --> 00:15:31.789 while transcendentalists saw inherent goodness 00:15:31.789 --> 00:15:34.730 in nature and humanity, the dark romantics like 00:15:34.730 --> 00:15:37.250 Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville, they focused on 00:15:37.250 --> 00:15:40.639 human fallibility. Inherent evil, decay, madness, 00:15:40.840 --> 00:15:43.519 and melancholy. And Poe's fiction is preoccupied 00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:45.259 with the physics of death. That's a great way 00:15:45.259 --> 00:15:47.580 to put it. He explores the psychological terror 00:15:47.580 --> 00:15:50.460 of decomposition, the fear of premature burial, 00:15:50.679 --> 00:15:53.220 which is a huge societal fear at the time, and 00:15:53.220 --> 00:15:55.620 the reanimation of the dead. It's horror that 00:15:55.620 --> 00:15:58.299 is deeply internal, focusing on the deterioration 00:15:58.299 --> 00:16:00.179 of the mind as much as the body. And during his 00:16:00.179 --> 00:16:02.240 lifetime, he was perhaps most widely known not 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:05.019 as a fiction writer, but as a fiercely opinionated 00:16:05.019 --> 00:16:07.240 literary critic. That's a crucial point most 00:16:07.240 --> 00:16:10.120 people miss. The vast majority of his writings 00:16:10.120 --> 00:16:12.820 were actually non -fictional reviews and essays. 00:16:13.259 --> 00:16:17.000 He was revered, yet deeply feared, and critic 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:19.799 James Russell Lowell called him the most discriminating, 00:16:19.820 --> 00:16:22.779 philosophical, and fearless critic who has written 00:16:22.779 --> 00:16:25.250 in America. And the fearless part led directly 00:16:25.250 --> 00:16:27.809 to his nickname, the Tomahawk Man. The Tomahawk 00:16:27.809 --> 00:16:30.169 Man. He was brutal. And he saved his sharpest 00:16:30.169 --> 00:16:32.309 attacks for the biggest names in American letters. 00:16:33.210 --> 00:16:36.610 Tell us about the Longfellow War. Ah, yes. This 00:16:36.610 --> 00:16:40.129 was Poe's most famous critical battle. Henry 00:16:40.129 --> 00:16:43.230 Wilesworth Longfellow was, at the time, America's 00:16:43.230 --> 00:16:45.470 most beloved and commercially successful poet. 00:16:45.850 --> 00:16:48.169 An absolute giant. And Poe just went after him. 00:16:48.350 --> 00:16:51.029 Relentlessly. He attacked him, accusing him of 00:16:51.029 --> 00:16:53.090 the heresy of the didactic. Meaning? Meaning 00:16:53.090 --> 00:16:55.789 Longfellow wrote poetry that was overly preachy, 00:16:55.830 --> 00:16:58.610 tried too hard to teach a moral lesson, and often 00:16:58.610 --> 00:17:01.110 lacked originality. Sometimes, you know, bordering 00:17:01.110 --> 00:17:03.070 on plagiarism. So it's interesting that Poe, 00:17:03.070 --> 00:17:05.430 a writer who struggled for money, was essentially 00:17:05.430 --> 00:17:08.269 attacking a poet who is universally popular and 00:17:08.269 --> 00:17:11.269 financially secure. It speaks to Poe's deep -seated 00:17:11.269 --> 00:17:14.460 elitism about art. He correctly predicted that 00:17:14.460 --> 00:17:17.299 Longfellow's reputation, while huge in the moment, 00:17:17.480 --> 00:17:20.319 would decline because his style lacked the necessary 00:17:20.319 --> 00:17:24.220 originality and depth. For Poe, popularity was 00:17:24.220 --> 00:17:26.880 a suspicious indicator. He often equated commercial 00:17:26.880 --> 00:17:30.259 success with artistic compromise. And his disdain 00:17:30.259 --> 00:17:32.259 for the transcendentalists went beyond literary 00:17:32.259 --> 00:17:34.940 theory and became deeply personal. Oh, absolutely. 00:17:35.200 --> 00:17:38.500 He ridiculed them as frog pondians, a reference 00:17:38.500 --> 00:17:41.440 to the Boston Common Pond, and mocked their style 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:44.559 as metaphor run mad and lapsing into obscurity 00:17:44.559 --> 00:17:47.460 for obscurity's sake. Poe, the analytical engineer, 00:17:47.700 --> 00:17:49.599 couldn't tolerate what he perceived as their 00:17:49.599 --> 00:17:52.039 mystical vagueness and intellectual laziness. 00:17:52.299 --> 00:17:54.240 This brings us to his philosophy of art. How 00:17:54.240 --> 00:17:56.359 did his pursuit of of beauty reconcile with his 00:17:56.359 --> 00:18:00.099 frequently brutal critical style. For Poe, beauty 00:18:00.099 --> 00:18:02.480 was the critical standard. It was the only standard. 00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:04.819 In essays like The Poetic Principle, he argued 00:18:04.819 --> 00:18:06.819 that the ultimate goal of art is the attainment 00:18:06.819 --> 00:18:09.420 of beauty, not truth, not morals, and certainly 00:18:09.420 --> 00:18:12.420 not political messaging. And he emphasized originality. 00:18:12.480 --> 00:18:15.420 And the importance of achieving a single specific 00:18:15.420 --> 00:18:18.579 effect where every element of work, every word, 00:18:18.680 --> 00:18:22.089 every image. contributes meticulously to a preconceived 00:18:22.089 --> 00:18:24.630 emotional or psychological result, and everything 00:18:24.630 --> 00:18:27.640 extraneous is removed. This concept of the single 00:18:27.640 --> 00:18:30.319 specific effect feels incredibly modern. It's 00:18:30.319 --> 00:18:32.140 almost like he was pioneering user experience 00:18:32.140 --> 00:18:35.180 design. Exactly. Poe wasn't just influencing 00:18:35.180 --> 00:18:37.839 literature. He was essentially writing the rules 00:18:37.839 --> 00:18:40.720 for modern high impact content creation. If you 00:18:40.720 --> 00:18:43.420 think about a perfectly crafted short film or 00:18:43.420 --> 00:18:46.140 a tightly edited suspense trailer. Or even a 00:18:46.140 --> 00:18:49.240 viral video. That is Poe's unity of effect in 00:18:49.240 --> 00:18:51.940 action. He demanded ruthless efficiency in storytelling. 00:18:52.410 --> 00:18:54.410 He then formalized this concept of calculation 00:18:54.410 --> 00:18:57.289 in his controversial essay, The Philosophy of 00:18:57.289 --> 00:19:00.589 Composition. Ah, yes. That essay is legendary 00:19:00.589 --> 00:19:02.750 because Poe claimed to describe, in reverse, 00:19:03.009 --> 00:19:05.690 the precise, calculated, step -by -step, logical 00:19:05.690 --> 00:19:07.910 method he used to write his most famous poem, 00:19:08.210 --> 00:19:10.549 The Raven. He deconstructed his own creative 00:19:10.549 --> 00:19:13.529 process. It's an almost scientific deconstruction 00:19:13.529 --> 00:19:16.089 of creativity, arguing that no part of the poem 00:19:16.089 --> 00:19:18.369 was accidental. He claimed he chose the length, 00:19:18.470 --> 00:19:21.390 the meter, the central theme melancholy, and 00:19:21.390 --> 00:19:27.079 the refrain. But critics suspect this was perhaps 00:19:27.079 --> 00:19:31.099 Poe's greatest fictional work. Many do. Critics 00:19:31.099 --> 00:19:33.400 like Joseph Woodcrush suggest the essay was less 00:19:33.400 --> 00:19:37.039 a truthful memoir and more an ingenious exercise 00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:39.960 in the art of rationalization. So he wrote the 00:19:39.960 --> 00:19:42.099 poem first and then came up with the theory after. 00:19:42.460 --> 00:19:44.900 That's the idea. He wrote the poem organically. 00:19:45.210 --> 00:19:47.730 experienced its massive success, and then reverse 00:19:47.730 --> 00:19:50.009 engineered a perfect logical theory to prove 00:19:50.009 --> 00:19:52.589 his artistic genius was entirely premeditated. 00:19:52.990 --> 00:19:55.549 Either way, it underscores that his mind operated 00:19:55.549 --> 00:19:58.089 like an analytical engine, applying cold logic 00:19:58.089 --> 00:20:00.349 whether he was creating a terrifying poem or 00:20:00.349 --> 00:20:02.710 dissecting the literary failures of his peers. 00:20:02.890 --> 00:20:04.630 And whether it was calculated or spontaneous, 00:20:05.009 --> 00:20:07.410 the result was shattering. When The Raven was 00:20:07.410 --> 00:20:09.930 published in the Evening Mirror in January 1845, 00:20:10.349 --> 00:20:13.250 it made Poe an instant household name. Instant, 00:20:13.410 --> 00:20:16.990 vast, popular fame. Yet here's the ultimate punchline 00:20:16.990 --> 00:20:19.950 of his financial life. Despite achieving unprecedented 00:20:19.950 --> 00:20:22.809 notoriety that reached across the country, he 00:20:22.809 --> 00:20:25.710 was paid... Only $9 for its original publication. 00:20:25.950 --> 00:20:30.190 $9? $9. His fame was boundless, but his profit 00:20:30.190 --> 00:20:32.690 was microscopic. It's a perfect encapsulation 00:20:32.690 --> 00:20:34.910 of the market forces that were always working 00:20:34.910 --> 00:20:36.769 against him. Okay, here's where it gets really 00:20:36.769 --> 00:20:40.230 interesting. We transition from Poe, the literary 00:20:40.230 --> 00:20:43.410 engineer, to Poe, the scientific visionary. The 00:20:43.410 --> 00:20:46.009 ruthless calculation he applied to poetry and 00:20:46.009 --> 00:20:48.950 criticism, he also applied to the physical universe. 00:20:49.500 --> 00:20:51.539 This is the most surprising layer of his genius, 00:20:51.740 --> 00:20:54.819 his fierce analytical interest in hard science. 00:20:55.140 --> 00:20:57.779 We're talking specifically about his 1848 essay, 00:20:57.900 --> 00:21:01.359 Eureka, a prose poem. A prose poem? He intentionally 00:21:01.359 --> 00:21:03.539 called it that because he insisted it was a work 00:21:03.539 --> 00:21:06.380 of profound truth derived from pure intuition, 00:21:06.500 --> 00:21:08.839 which he considered superior to the laborious 00:21:08.839 --> 00:21:10.740 scientific method. He thought he could intuit 00:21:10.740 --> 00:21:13.980 his way to cosmic truth. He did. And this intuition 00:21:13.980 --> 00:21:16.980 led him to two extraordinary scientific anticipations. 00:21:17.720 --> 00:21:19.960 Let's start with Olber's Paradox. Okay, remind 00:21:19.960 --> 00:21:22.519 us what that is. Right, so Olber's Paradox asks 00:21:22.519 --> 00:21:25.500 a fundamental question. Why is the night sky 00:21:25.500 --> 00:21:28.000 dark if the universe contains an infinite number 00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:30.420 of stars? Right, if it's infinite, shouldn't 00:21:30.420 --> 00:21:32.920 we see a star in every direction? Exactly. If 00:21:32.920 --> 00:21:35.059 the universe were infinite and static, every 00:21:35.059 --> 00:21:37.299 line of sight from Earth should eventually terminate 00:21:37.299 --> 00:21:39.339 on the surface of a star, meaning the entire 00:21:39.339 --> 00:21:42.099 night sky should be blindingly bright. So how 00:21:42.099 --> 00:21:44.539 did Poe, the writer of horror, plausibly solve 00:21:44.539 --> 00:21:48.450 this paradox in 1848? Poe proposed the correct 00:21:48.450 --> 00:21:52.970 modern day solution. The night sky is dark because 00:21:52.970 --> 00:21:55.769 the universe is finite in age, not necessarily 00:21:55.769 --> 00:21:58.609 finite in size. Okay. There's a horizon of light 00:21:58.609 --> 00:22:00.890 determined by how far light has been able to 00:22:00.890 --> 00:22:03.670 travel since the universe began. So distant stars 00:22:03.670 --> 00:22:05.970 whose light hasn't reached us yet simply cannot 00:22:05.970 --> 00:22:08.940 illuminate our sky. That's a profound, simple 00:22:08.940 --> 00:22:12.259 insight that predated formal cosmology. It's 00:22:12.259 --> 00:22:14.339 an incredible leap of intuition. But the truly 00:22:14.339 --> 00:22:16.720 mind -bending prediction is his anticipation 00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:19.700 of the Big Bang theory. How did his theory in 00:22:19.700 --> 00:22:22.759 Eureka map onto that concept? Poe postulated 00:22:22.759 --> 00:22:25.420 that the universe originated from a single primordial 00:22:25.420 --> 00:22:27.859 particle, which he termed the original unity. 00:22:28.140 --> 00:22:31.200 The original unity. This particle, via divine 00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:34.039 volition, expanded outward due to a repulsive 00:22:34.039 --> 00:22:36.859 force, dispersing matter evenly across space. 00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:39.619 He further proposed that this expansion would 00:22:39.619 --> 00:22:42.559 eventually stop and reverse, contracting back 00:22:42.559 --> 00:22:45.440 into the single particle in an event we now know 00:22:45.440 --> 00:22:48.319 as the Big Crunch. So the universe starting from 00:22:48.319 --> 00:22:51.000 a single point and expanding. A pulsating universe 00:22:51.000 --> 00:22:53.559 model. It's remarkably close to modern Big Bang 00:22:53.559 --> 00:22:56.259 theory. He anticipated it by roughly 80 years. 00:22:56.640 --> 00:22:58.599 That is just extraordinary, especially since 00:22:58.599 --> 00:23:00.359 he threw out the scientific method entirely. 00:23:00.720 --> 00:23:02.920 You mentioned it wasn't perfect, though. No, 00:23:02.940 --> 00:23:05.240 not at all. While the intuition was powerful, 00:23:05.819 --> 00:23:08.319 Poe ignored established laws in favor of his 00:23:08.319 --> 00:23:10.900 unified theory. For instance, he disregarded 00:23:10.900 --> 00:23:13.160 Newtonian principles, specifically concerning 00:23:13.160 --> 00:23:15.880 the conservation of angular momentum, which led 00:23:15.880 --> 00:23:18.599 to inaccuracies about planetary density and rotation. 00:23:18.940 --> 00:23:21.359 But he believed in it. Oh, he was so convinced 00:23:21.359 --> 00:23:23.900 of its truth that he insisted Eureka was his 00:23:23.900 --> 00:23:26.369 masterpiece, a work of art that was also scientifically 00:23:26.369 --> 00:23:29.430 true okay so moving from the universe to secret 00:23:29.430 --> 00:23:32.829 communication the same analytical mind that created 00:23:32.829 --> 00:23:35.890 dupin was obsessed with cracking ciphers turning 00:23:35.890 --> 00:23:39.049 code breaking into a public sensation this was 00:23:39.049 --> 00:23:42.210 a magnificent promotional stunt that simultaneously 00:23:42.210 --> 00:23:44.910 highlighted his genius he publicly challenged 00:23:44.910 --> 00:23:47.549 readers of the philadelphia paper alexander's 00:23:47.549 --> 00:23:50.569 weekly express messenger to submit ciphers promising 00:23:50.569 --> 00:23:52.609 to solve them all and people sent them in they 00:23:52.609 --> 00:23:55.640 did and he solved them He then published the 00:23:55.640 --> 00:23:58.740 essay A Few Words on Secret Writing in 1841 and 00:23:58.740 --> 00:24:01.839 made ciphers a central, essential plot device 00:24:01.839 --> 00:24:05.140 in the gold bug. So was Poe actually a master 00:24:05.140 --> 00:24:07.259 cryptographer or was he just an acute observer 00:24:07.259 --> 00:24:09.519 of human ignorance? He was definitely the latter, 00:24:09.720 --> 00:24:12.579 utilizing his analytical edge. Poe's method was 00:24:12.579 --> 00:24:14.680 mostly limited to solving simple substitution 00:24:14.680 --> 00:24:17.119 ciphers, where one letter is consistently replaced 00:24:17.119 --> 00:24:19.539 by another. He wasn't solving the truly complex 00:24:19.539 --> 00:24:22.240 codes of the age. His brilliance lay in something 00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:24.619 else. His brilliance lay in realizing the general 00:24:24.619 --> 00:24:26.799 public was completely ignorant of frequency analysis. 00:24:27.220 --> 00:24:30.220 Explain frequency analysis for us. Sure. If you 00:24:30.220 --> 00:24:32.319 look at the English language, certain letters 00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:34.339 appear with far greater frequency than others. 00:24:34.779 --> 00:24:38.480 E is the most common, followed by T, A, O, and 00:24:38.480 --> 00:24:42.099 so on. So in a simple substitution cipher, the 00:24:42.099 --> 00:24:44.339 most frequently used symbol in the coded message 00:24:44.339 --> 00:24:48.049 must correspond to E. Poe used this analytical 00:24:48.049 --> 00:24:50.869 insight, the same kind Dupin uses in the Detectives 00:24:50.869 --> 00:24:53.470 stories, to quickly break ciphers that seemed 00:24:53.470 --> 00:24:55.950 impossibly complex to the average reader. The 00:24:55.950 --> 00:24:59.109 public was so easily fooled, and Poe just capitalized 00:24:59.109 --> 00:25:01.430 on that analytical edge. But the impact of this 00:25:01.430 --> 00:25:03.950 stunt was far -reaching. It truly was. Poe's 00:25:03.950 --> 00:25:06.250 theatrical code -breaking played a major role 00:25:06.250 --> 00:25:08.789 in popularizing cryptograms in American media. 00:25:09.029 --> 00:25:11.950 But more profoundly, America's foremost cryptologist 00:25:11.950 --> 00:25:14.569 of the 20th century, William Friedman. The guy 00:25:14.569 --> 00:25:16.650 who cracked the Perpetua Code. The very same. 00:25:16.990 --> 00:25:19.430 Friedman credited reading The Gold Bug as a child 00:25:19.430 --> 00:25:22.130 with inspiring his entire career. He later led 00:25:22.130 --> 00:25:24.089 the team that deciphered Japan's critical military 00:25:24.089 --> 00:25:26.730 and diplomatic Perpetua Code during World War 00:25:26.730 --> 00:25:29.869 II. An 1840 short story fueled a critical real 00:25:29.869 --> 00:25:32.269 -world intelligence victory. That's incredible. 00:25:32.509 --> 00:25:35.269 And just to add a fun footnote to his cryptographic 00:25:35.269 --> 00:25:39.190 expertise, two ciphers he published in 1841 under 00:25:39.190 --> 00:25:42.430 the pseudonym W .B. Tyler proved so challenging 00:25:42.430 --> 00:25:44.950 they defied professional efforts. And they weren't 00:25:44.950 --> 00:25:48.690 fully cracked until 1992 and 2000. So even when 00:25:48.690 --> 00:25:51.029 he tried to be simple, he could still hide complex 00:25:51.029 --> 00:25:53.630 secrets. He was a fascinating mixture of showmanship 00:25:53.630 --> 00:25:57.500 and profound insight. And speaking of defiance, 00:25:57.640 --> 00:25:59.400 we have to integrate his political opinions, 00:25:59.720 --> 00:26:02.579 which were as caustic as his literary criticism. 00:26:02.880 --> 00:26:05.140 They absolutely were. Poe was highly critical 00:26:05.140 --> 00:26:07.500 of the American political system, which he often 00:26:07.500 --> 00:26:11.339 labeled a mobocracy. How did this political elitism 00:26:11.339 --> 00:26:14.500 manifest? It's crucial to connect his political 00:26:14.500 --> 00:26:17.900 views back to his artistic ones. Just as he distrusted 00:26:17.900 --> 00:26:20.700 popular taste, like with Longfellow, he distrusted 00:26:20.700 --> 00:26:23.079 the masses politically. He viewed the government 00:26:23.079 --> 00:26:25.619 as being led by an ignorant, easily - manipulated 00:26:25.619 --> 00:26:28.119 electorate. Which got him labeled anti -American. 00:26:28.359 --> 00:26:31.059 Yes, and bitterly hostile by some contemporaries. 00:26:31.119 --> 00:26:33.140 But he didn't shy away from controversy, even 00:26:33.140 --> 00:26:35.640 speaking out against specific societal evils. 00:26:35.799 --> 00:26:38.579 No, he didn't. In the Southern Literary Messenger, 00:26:38.859 --> 00:26:41.180 he explicitly critiqued the practice of lynching, 00:26:41.259 --> 00:26:44.319 calling its proponents a trained band of villains 00:26:44.319 --> 00:26:47.700 and unlawful and abandoned wretches. This was 00:26:47.700 --> 00:26:51.079 a rare, unambiguous moral stance against a horrific 00:26:51.079 --> 00:26:53.210 practice of the time. And his critique extended 00:26:53.210 --> 00:26:55.269 to the point of proposing a political secession. 00:26:55.490 --> 00:26:58.950 He did in Graham's magazine in 1846. He proposed 00:26:58.950 --> 00:27:01.650 a geographical and political split. He suggested 00:27:01.650 --> 00:27:04.130 separating the Appalachian South from the existing 00:27:04.130 --> 00:27:07.250 United States and naming this new nation the 00:27:07.250 --> 00:27:11.500 United States of Alleghenia. This highly provocative 00:27:11.500 --> 00:27:14.319 thought just underscores his profound dissatisfaction 00:27:14.319 --> 00:27:16.240 with the structural flaws he perceived in the 00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:18.500 American experiment. So this intensely analytical, 00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:21.720 genre -inventing, politically defiant writer 00:27:21.720 --> 00:27:24.180 meets his end in what is arguably the most dramatic 00:27:24.180 --> 00:27:27.240 and confusing death in literary history. Let's 00:27:27.240 --> 00:27:29.519 talk about the final strange days of Edgar Allan 00:27:29.519 --> 00:27:32.500 Poe. The mystery of Poe's death is perfect material 00:27:32.500 --> 00:27:35.880 for one of his own stories. On October 3, 1849, 00:27:36.160 --> 00:27:38.900 he was found semi -conscious in Baltimore. by 00:27:38.900 --> 00:27:41.420 a man named Joseph W. Walker. And the details 00:27:41.420 --> 00:27:44.500 are just bizarre. Bizarre is the word. Crucially, 00:27:44.640 --> 00:27:47.480 he was found lying outside a polling place, described 00:27:47.480 --> 00:27:50.640 as being in great distress and wearing clothes 00:27:50.640 --> 00:27:53.740 that were conspicuously not his own, ill -fitting, 00:27:53.839 --> 00:27:57.240 dirty and cheap. He was completely incoherent. 00:27:57.299 --> 00:27:59.539 Unable to explain his condition. Not at all. 00:27:59.819 --> 00:28:01.839 And that detail about the clothes, the bizarre 00:28:01.839 --> 00:28:04.400 disguise, that is the key to some of the most 00:28:04.400 --> 00:28:06.839 sensational theories, isn't it? It is the most 00:28:06.839 --> 00:28:09.039 compelling detail. He was taken to Washington 00:28:09.039 --> 00:28:11.079 Medical College, where he remained confused, 00:28:11.500 --> 00:28:14.619 hallucinating, unable to endure light or sound. 00:28:15.230 --> 00:28:18.190 He repeatedly called out the name Reynolds before 00:28:18.190 --> 00:28:21.529 his death four days later on October 7th, 1849. 00:28:21.869 --> 00:28:25.049 He was 40 years old. And his final recorded words. 00:28:25.369 --> 00:28:27.890 Lord help my poor soul. And the mystery only 00:28:27.890 --> 00:28:30.170 deepened because the crucial evidence was immediately 00:28:30.170 --> 00:28:33.589 lost. Vanished. All relevant medical records, 00:28:33.730 --> 00:28:35.829 including his death certificate, have disappeared. 00:28:36.430 --> 00:28:38.650 Contemporary papers listed the vague cause as 00:28:38.650 --> 00:28:41.329 congestion of the brain or cerebral inflammation. 00:28:41.710 --> 00:28:44.150 Which were just euphemisms. Exactly. Euphemisms 00:28:44.150 --> 00:28:46.130 often used for deaths linked to intoxication 00:28:46.130 --> 00:28:48.490 or public scandal, usually to protect the reputation 00:28:48.490 --> 00:28:51.150 of the deceased's family. But modern medical 00:28:51.150 --> 00:28:53.970 speculation ranges wildly. It covers almost every 00:28:53.970 --> 00:28:57.099 severe ailment. Delirium tremens from alcoholism, 00:28:57.200 --> 00:29:00.960 epilepsy, syphilis, brain tumors, even rabies, 00:29:00.980 --> 00:29:04.380 a theory proposed in 1996 based on the description 00:29:04.380 --> 00:29:06.740 of his final symptoms. But the most compelling 00:29:06.740 --> 00:29:09.180 specific historical theory that accounts for 00:29:09.180 --> 00:29:12.259 the strange close is cooping. That's the one. 00:29:12.380 --> 00:29:15.539 We need to unpack cooping for the listener. What 00:29:15.539 --> 00:29:17.920 was this specific electoral fraud that might 00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:21.180 have killed him? Cooping was a horrific, violent 00:29:21.180 --> 00:29:23.599 form of voter fraud common in Baltimore in the 00:29:23.599 --> 00:29:27.319 19th century, especially around elections. Gangs 00:29:27.319 --> 00:29:29.559 working for political campaigns would kidnap 00:29:29.559 --> 00:29:32.059 vulnerable men off the street. Often homeless 00:29:32.059 --> 00:29:34.200 or drunk individuals. Right. They'd take them 00:29:34.200 --> 00:29:36.660 to a secluded room, the coop, give them heavy 00:29:36.660 --> 00:29:39.039 drugs or alcohol to ensure compliance, and often 00:29:39.039 --> 00:29:41.630 beat them. And then what? They would then forcibly 00:29:41.630 --> 00:29:43.549 disguise the victim in different sets of cheap 00:29:43.549 --> 00:29:45.890 clothes and parade them to multiple polling places, 00:29:46.150 --> 00:29:48.549 forcing them to vote repeatedly for the specific 00:29:48.549 --> 00:29:51.809 candidate. So Poe being found semi -conscious 00:29:51.809 --> 00:29:54.529 in strange, ill -fitting clothes near a polling 00:29:54.529 --> 00:29:57.150 place. The cooping theory provides a rational, 00:29:57.269 --> 00:30:00.369 historically specific explanation for the bizarreness 00:30:00.369 --> 00:30:03.130 of his final state. He was simply discarded once 00:30:03.130 --> 00:30:05.589 he was no longer useful, likely suffering from 00:30:05.589 --> 00:30:08.329 the drugs and trauma. It's a tragic, violent 00:30:08.329 --> 00:30:10.930 end for a man who often wrote about victims abandoned 00:30:10.930 --> 00:30:14.349 in bizarre, inexplicable circumstances. But the 00:30:14.349 --> 00:30:17.150 story doesn't end with his death. It ends with 00:30:17.150 --> 00:30:19.829 a literary smear campaign orchestrated by his 00:30:19.829 --> 00:30:22.410 rival. Tragically, Poe's final narrative was 00:30:22.410 --> 00:30:25.869 hijacked by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, a minor writer 00:30:25.869 --> 00:30:28.509 and editor whom Poe had mercilessly savaged in 00:30:28.509 --> 00:30:31.569 his criticism. Griswold held a deep, profound, 00:30:31.769 --> 00:30:34.549 years -long grudge. And Griswold struck immediately, 00:30:34.930 --> 00:30:37.349 starting a smear campaign on the very day Poe 00:30:37.349 --> 00:30:39.589 was buried. He did. He wrote a high -profile, 00:30:39.589 --> 00:30:42.369 vicious obituary under the pseudonym Ludwig that 00:30:42.369 --> 00:30:44.549 appeared in the New York Tribune. The opening 00:30:44.549 --> 00:30:47.680 line set the tone. Edgar Allan Poe is dead. This 00:30:47.680 --> 00:30:49.640 announcement will startle many, but few will 00:30:49.640 --> 00:30:52.220 be grieved by it. And then Griswold secured a 00:30:52.220 --> 00:30:53.900 position that allowed him to control the historical 00:30:53.900 --> 00:30:56.779 record. He somehow convinced Poe's aunt, Marie 00:30:56.779 --> 00:30:59.500 Clem, and others to appoint him Poe's literary 00:30:59.500 --> 00:31:03.460 executor. Griswold used this position to systematically 00:31:03.460 --> 00:31:07.299 attempt to destroy Poe's reputation. In the 1850 00:31:07.299 --> 00:31:09.900 collected edition of Poe's works, Griswold included 00:31:09.900 --> 00:31:12.940 a biographical article titled Memoir of the Author, 00:31:13.079 --> 00:31:16.450 where he depicted Poe as a depraved drunken drug 00:31:16.450 --> 00:31:19.349 addled madman but this depiction was built on 00:31:19.349 --> 00:31:22.849 massive distortion and outright falsehoods entirely 00:31:22.849 --> 00:31:25.670 for instance the claims that poe was a habitual 00:31:25.670 --> 00:31:28.539 drug addict are largely fabricated Those who 00:31:28.539 --> 00:31:31.240 knew Poe well, like his friend John Neal, immediately 00:31:31.240 --> 00:31:33.960 denounced Griswold in print, pointing out the 00:31:33.960 --> 00:31:36.559 gross exaggerations and lies. The letters. The 00:31:36.559 --> 00:31:38.960 most damning pieces of evidence, Poe's personal 00:31:38.960 --> 00:31:41.440 letters that Griswold presented, were later revealed 00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:43.660 to be outright forgeries. But the damage was 00:31:43.660 --> 00:31:46.690 already irreparable. Absolutely. Griswold's biography, 00:31:47.029 --> 00:31:49.569 though poisoned by malice, was the only comprehensive 00:31:49.569 --> 00:31:52.630 account available and was widely reprinted. It 00:31:52.630 --> 00:31:55.009 ensured the public consumed Poe's thrilling dark 00:31:55.009 --> 00:31:57.410 works through the sensationalized lens of an 00:31:57.410 --> 00:32:00.170 evil and tormented genius. In a perverse twist 00:32:00.170 --> 00:32:03.430 of fate, the man who tried to destroy him guaranteed 00:32:03.430 --> 00:32:06.849 his lasting popular notoriety. He did. He made 00:32:06.849 --> 00:32:09.250 Poe's biography as thrilling as his darkest fiction. 00:32:09.640 --> 00:32:12.640 the story of poe's life is just defined by mystery 00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:16.420 tragedy and relentless analytical genius his 00:32:16.420 --> 00:32:19.099 literary legacy is one of explosive enduring 00:32:19.099 --> 00:32:22.700 influence particularly across the atlantic Poe 00:32:22.700 --> 00:32:25.000 was one of the first 19th century American authors 00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:27.220 to become profoundly more popular in Europe, 00:32:27.339 --> 00:32:29.759 particularly France, than in his native United 00:32:29.759 --> 00:32:32.480 States. Why France specifically? This overseas 00:32:32.480 --> 00:32:35.180 fame was largely cemented by the early and deeply 00:32:35.180 --> 00:32:37.740 sympathetic French translations by the great 00:32:37.740 --> 00:32:41.140 poet Charles Baudelaire, who saw Poe as a kindred 00:32:41.140 --> 00:32:43.480 spirit. His renditions became the definitive 00:32:43.480 --> 00:32:45.819 versions of Poe's work in continental Europe. 00:32:45.960 --> 00:32:48.259 And that influence just rippled through major 00:32:48.259 --> 00:32:50.940 literary and cinematic figures for generations. 00:32:51.339 --> 00:32:53.779 Oh, for sure. It impacted the pioneering science 00:32:53.779 --> 00:32:56.160 fiction writer Jules Verne, who was so taken 00:32:56.160 --> 00:32:58.619 with Poe's only complete novel, The Narrative 00:32:58.619 --> 00:33:00.839 of Arthur Gordon Pym, that he wrote a sequel 00:33:00.839 --> 00:33:03.319 to it. And horror writers. American horror masters, 00:33:03.579 --> 00:33:06.559 most notably H .P. Lovecraft, called Poe his 00:33:06.559 --> 00:33:10.099 god of fiction. and directly utilize Poe's concept 00:33:10.099 --> 00:33:13.460 of the unity of effect in creating cosmic terror. 00:33:13.700 --> 00:33:16.700 And the thread extends directly to film. Directly. 00:33:16.700 --> 00:33:18.779 The famed director Alfred Hitchcock acknowledged, 00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:21.339 It's because I liked Edgar Allan Poe's story 00:33:21.339 --> 00:33:23.440 so much that I began to make suspense films. 00:33:23.559 --> 00:33:25.660 However, not all of his peers appreciated the 00:33:25.660 --> 00:33:28.619 calculation or the darkness. Far from it. As 00:33:28.619 --> 00:33:31.180 we noted, Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson 00:33:31.609 --> 00:33:34.869 a man Poe despised, derisively referred to Poe 00:33:34.869 --> 00:33:37.750 as the Jingle Man in reaction to the rhythmic, 00:33:37.849 --> 00:33:40.529 calculated nature of poems like The Raven. The 00:33:40.529 --> 00:33:42.849 Jingle Man. And Aldous Huxley, decades later, 00:33:42.970 --> 00:33:45.670 dismissed Poe's writing as vulgar, suggesting 00:33:45.670 --> 00:33:48.609 it was too poetical, equating his style to wearing 00:33:48.609 --> 00:33:51.069 a diamond ring on every finger gaudy and excessive. 00:33:51.430 --> 00:33:53.690 Despite the controversy and the criticism, Poe's 00:33:53.690 --> 00:33:56.529 physical legacy remains robust, immortalized 00:33:56.529 --> 00:33:58.849 in the mysterious narrative he left behind. You 00:33:58.849 --> 00:34:01.390 can trace his life through commemorations. The 00:34:01.390 --> 00:34:03.289 Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia, 00:34:03.609 --> 00:34:05.690 the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage in the Bronx where 00:34:05.690 --> 00:34:07.950 Virginia died, and the Poe Museum in Richmond. 00:34:08.210 --> 00:34:10.309 Though he never lived there. Right. Ironically, 00:34:10.329 --> 00:34:12.369 he never lived in that specific oldest standing 00:34:12.369 --> 00:34:15.130 house in the city. More recently, the memorial 00:34:15.130 --> 00:34:17.869 sculpture, Poe Returning to Boston, unveiled 00:34:17.869 --> 00:34:21.409 in his birthplace in 2014, captures this persistent 00:34:21.409 --> 00:34:24.789 sense of a solitary figure striding against the 00:34:24.789 --> 00:34:27.679 wind, his life's work trailing behind him. And 00:34:27.679 --> 00:34:30.260 nothing captures the enduring mystery more perfectly 00:34:30.260 --> 00:34:32.780 than the Poe toaster tradition. The toaster is 00:34:32.780 --> 00:34:35.500 perhaps the ultimate piece of anonymous, spontaneous 00:34:35.500 --> 00:34:39.019 mythology built around Poe. For exactly 60 years, 00:34:39.159 --> 00:34:43.199 between 1949 and 2009, an unknown visitor left 00:34:43.199 --> 00:34:46.139 a bottle of French cognac and three roses at 00:34:46.139 --> 00:34:49.199 Poe's original grave marker every January 19th, 00:34:49.199 --> 00:34:51.280 his birthday. A private ritual that became a 00:34:51.280 --> 00:34:53.579 public legend. It was a beautiful, deeply private 00:34:53.579 --> 00:34:55.880 ritual that added immensely to his cult status. 00:34:56.159 --> 00:34:58.239 And the anonymity, the fact that the tradition 00:34:58.239 --> 00:35:00.760 ended as mysteriously as it began on his bicentennial 00:35:00.760 --> 00:35:04.079 in 2009, ensures that Poe, the master of the 00:35:04.079 --> 00:35:06.440 macabre, continues to be defined by a permanent... 00:35:06.699 --> 00:35:08.840 unsolvable enigma. Which brings us back to that 00:35:08.840 --> 00:35:11.360 essential, brutal irony of his life that we began 00:35:11.360 --> 00:35:13.559 with. The man who tried to destroy his reputation, 00:35:13.940 --> 00:35:17.179 Rufus Wilmot Griswold, inadvertently guaranteed 00:35:17.179 --> 00:35:20.179 Poe's lasting popular appeal by sensationalizing 00:35:20.179 --> 00:35:22.760 his life and cementing the enduring myth of the 00:35:22.760 --> 00:35:25.880 tormented, depraved artist. So our final thought 00:35:25.880 --> 00:35:29.000 for you to explore is this. What if Poe had actually 00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:30.900 lived long enough to stabilize his finances, 00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:34.280 launch the stylus, and realize his dream of becoming 00:35:34.280 --> 00:35:36.900 America's ultimate literary gatekeeper? Could 00:35:36.900 --> 00:35:38.679 he have maintained a successful journal with 00:35:38.679 --> 00:35:41.159 his analytical demand for beauty and his caustic 00:35:41.159 --> 00:35:43.699 tomahawk man style? Or would his controversial 00:35:43.699 --> 00:35:45.820 political views and relentless critical attacks 00:35:45.820 --> 00:35:48.099 on the establishment have inevitably doomed that 00:35:48.099 --> 00:35:48.619 effort regardless?