EDGAR ALLAN POE: HIS LIFE AND LEGACY. By Jeffre
Meyers. Scribner's. 348 pages. $30.
JEFFREY Meyers' life and legacy of Edgar Allan Poe, the year'second biography of Poe (the first: Kenneth Silverman's "Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance") seems a little long on "legacy" and somewhat shorter on "life." That is not meant as a criticism. I might have preferred a more detailed account of Poe's life simply because the man fascinates me, but I recognize there is only so much new ground that can be plowed -- and previous biographers have plowed virtually every inch.
Mr. Meyers, whose biographies of Joseph Conrad, Katherine Mansfield, D.H. Lawrence, Wyndham Lewis and Ernest Hemingway were critical successes, wisely, I think, chooses to emphasize Poe's literary standing rather than delve at greater length into his life on the chance he might turn up something new.
As a result, it's a book heavy on analysis. Mr. Meyers not only dissects Poe's work, but also his reputation and influence on generations of European and American poets and writers, from Baudelaire, Dostoyevsky, Conrad and Joyce to Hawthorne, Melville and Fitzgerald.
Poe was born in Boston on Jan. 19, 1808, the third child of David Poe, a Baltimorean who quit law and became a mediocre actor, and Eliza Arnold Poe, a brilliant actress who in her brief career (she died when she was 24) played more than 300 roles. Poe was orphaned at 3 and died in Baltimore Oct. 7, 1849, after collapsing outside a saloon in Fells Point. He was 40 years old.
Mr. Meyers traces Poe's alcoholism to his infancy, when a nursemaid fed him bread soaked in gin to keep him quiet. He also establishes a destructive genetic link between Poe and his father, both of whom, he notes, were moody, hot-tempered, hard-drinking, financially irresponsible men who were inclined to blame others for their problems. Edgar's birth "sparked a financial crisis and emotional upheaval" in the Poe family, and David Poe turned to his cousin George for help.
Much of Poe's anger and finger-pointing were aimed at John Allan, his wealthy foster father (whose name Poe took as his middle name). Allan and especially his wife, Frances, were kind parents who indulged young Edgar, but Mr. Meyers suspects Allan was a "poor disciplinarian who confused the child by alternately spoiling and scolding him." Poe's rebellion surfaced as a teen-ager, and Allan increasingly criticized his character and condemned his lack of gratitude.
