5 Poe brought his aunt and cousin to Richmond where he worked with Thomas Willis White at the Southern Literary Messenger. He later married his cousin Virginia only thirteen years old.
             Most of Poe's works with the Messenger were of a critical nature. His work with the writing and the editorial departments of the Messenger increased the circulation of the magazine. But his drinking habits forced White to eventually let him go. He later moved with his family to New York and wrote for newspapers and worked as sub-editor in the Sunday Times. In 1845 his fame started to roll but when Virginia died 1847 it slowed the tempo. This was not his only misery as he was also drinking steadily. On the way to the hospital October 7, 1849 he died. The medical report said he died "of congestion of the brain" (Norton, 644)
             A brief survey of constructing a style
             "With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion," (Hoffman) wrote Edgar Allan Poe in the preface to his volume The Raven and Other Poems (1845). Many contemporary authors claimed that Poe had not the mind for poetry but the soul.
             In The Philosophy of Composition we can see why this rumour might have arisen. Poe describes the work of composing the poem as if it were a mathematical problem. This perspective might seem a little bit to radical to accept when many of us hope for a much more deeper interpretation. Later, in his essay Poe decided that a true poem must be readable at a single sitting and should not exceed the length of one hundred lines. The reason for limiting the poem to one hundred lines is that its aim is the excitation of the reader's soul, an effect that a longer poem can only occasionally achieve (Norton, 716). Everything in the poem must contribute to this effect such as rhythm, sound, rhyme, and especially subject. The best subject for producing this effect is the most melancholy, the emotion educe by the thought of the death of a be...