Edgar Allan Poe is a man constantly searching for beauty to depart from the mental and moral ugliness in his life. This reflects in his the poetry and short stories. Poe sees evil as a major threat to himself and to man due to the fact that he lives in its presence. It is easy to establish this fact when looking at the tragedies in his own life relating to the deaths of his young mother, wife, and others he loved. It is no wonder that he sees the absence of beauty as evil, because he felt the terror and tragedy of the loss of his own life. In Poe's literature it seems that beauty, or the absence of beauty, determines the true value of life. Did Poe actually experience true beauty and feel the pain of its death, or was it something he never truly found? Never the less, it is obviously a major cause of his pain, and his literature is a reflection of this absence.
             Edgar Allan Poe was perhaps one of the most widely read and controversial writers in America's narrative history. He was born in Boston in 1809 to a family of traveling actors. His name at birth was simply Edgar Poe, but after the early death of both of his parents, he was taken in by the Allans. Thus he obtained the adopted name of Allan which he used as a middle name. He met his first and last love, Elmira Royster, while he was studying at the University of Virginia. He asked her to marry him twice, and even though he was accepted both times he never married her. His stay at the University of Virginia was cut short by his wild lifestyle, which involved a great amount of gambling and drinking. He married his 13-year-old cousin just to have her eventually die. He lost many that were close to him, and his personal life was many times a never-ending battle. There are many disputes on what Poe's life was really like. He has been called everything from "a perverse neurotic, a drunkard and drug addict 'who walked the streets, in madness o...