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The scandalous life, mysterious death and the Cult of Edgar Poe
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There is an old cemetery “Old Western Burial Ground”in Baltimore.
From the point of view of American historians, it is considered one of the most interesting cemeteries located on the east coast of the United States.
The remains of many famous Americans are buried in his land: generals of the American Revolution and the Civil War; the grandfather of one of the US presidents – James Buchanan; five mayors of the city of Baltimore.
Edgar Allan Poe is buried in the same cemetery.
Not all burials are easy to find in the old cemetery, since the Presbyterian Church “Westminster Presbyterian Church "(now "Westminster Hall") was built a century after the first burials began on this land.
Grave grave is located in the churchyard, while the oldest graves are located in the labyrinths of the underground catacombs, the corridors of which circle under the church building.
Most of the territory of the cemetery is the one on which the grave is located, among other things, is located in the churchyard, while the oldest graves are in the labyrinths of underground catacombs, the corridors of which circle under the church building.
This is the territory of spirits and ghosts.
Strange things are happening here — in the realm of otherworldly forces that keep the peace and secrets of the”Old Western Churchyard".
The most famous and still unsolved mystery of these places is connected with the appearance — 50 years ago — of a strange man in the cemetery.
Everyone who has seen a stranger describes his appearance in the same way.
In black clothes, with a scarf wrapped around his face, leaning on a cane, he has been appearing at the cemetery every year for several decades on the same day — January 19 – the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe.
Each time a man leaves an open bottle of cognac and three red roses on the tombstone of the poet's grave.
Taking off his bowler hat, he stands by the grave for a few minutes and walks away.
There is a legend that it is the spirit of Edgar Poe who appears on his grave and disappears into the church catacombs.
However, those who have seen the man claim that he is quite real.
Many people are trying to understand what the ritual objects that a strange guest leaves on the poet's grave mean since January 1949, after the funeral, and still no one has a clue: who was the first “decorator” of Poe's grave who appeared at the cemetery 50 years ago?
The figure of this man has been an intriguing mystery for many years.
Many people, including the curator of the Edgar Poe House Museum, Jeff Jerome, believe that the mysterious "decorator" is not one, but several people.
Jerome had personally seen a man whose hair was as white as snow.
While other witnesses claim that the "decorator"is a brunette.
It is possible that the second person is the son of the person who founded this annual ritual.
Interestingly, no one has ever tried to establish some kind of contact with the mysterious “decorator”.
For some time, there were rumors that the mysterious man in black was Jerome himself.
Therefore, in 1983, Jerome specially invited 70 people to gather at midnight on January 19 at the cemetery and see for themselves the mysterious stranger.
An hour after midnight, the observers saw a mysterious figure wrapped in black clothes walking through the cemetery, leaning on a cane.
At the eastern wall of the cemetery, the figure disappeared.
And on Po's grave, as usual on this day, there were already roses and cognac.
Driven by no desire to solve the mystery, but only to increase interest in it, Jerome invited a photographer from the famous magazine “LIFE” to try to capture a portrait of a stranger on film.
The photographer, equipped with special photographic equipment for night shooting, arrived at the appointed time.
And in the July issue of “LIFE” for 1990, a photo of a kneeling man at the grave of Edgar Poe appeared.
The stranger's face was not visible, because the shadow of the hat fell on it.
Since then, no one has been able to photograph this mysterious man again…
One of the most amazing facts in the history of American literature is an amazing, all encompassing hobby that can be called the "Cult of Poe".
The cult of the singer of "black romance”, a brilliant symbolist, a pioneer of the literary genre “mystical detective" - the American poet, writer, critic Edgar Poe began to progress rapidly after the poet's death.
Edgar Allan Poe, born on January 19, 1809, died on October 7, 1849, at the age of 40.
During Poe's lifetime, his contemporaries were unfair to his genius.
However, this is not surprising.
The world is cruel and envious, jealous of someone else's talent, and fame usually comes to poets only after death.
Something else is interesting: the rapid pace at which the society was seized by passion and even, in a sense, a morbid interest in the literature of Po.
Curiosity was fueled by the fact that during his lifetime the poet enjoyed a bad reputation in society, and Edgar's death occurred under equally gloomy and mysterious circumstances, the moods of which are filled with his poems and stories.
Poe lived in Baltimore for several years, but in those tragic days preceding his death, he found himself in this city — passing through.
Poe was on his way to New York to meet his mother in law.
The poet wanted to invite her to the state of Virginia — the city of Richmond, where he lived at that time – for a wedding with his childhood friend.
His first wife died of tuberculosis a few years before this event.
The journey ended tragically.
They say that Poe, who was taken to the hospital, was dressed in a suit “from someone else's shoulder”, looked dirty and beaten, raved and shouted the name “Reynolds!".
Someone says that Po died of drunkenness, others tend to believe that the cause of his death is related to mental insanity.
There are authors who claim that someone deliberately pumped him with a lethal dose of drugs.
Of the many versions about the mysterious circumstances of the poet's death, none, however, is supported by 100% evidence.
The mysterious, tragic death of the poet caused rumors about the appearance of the spirit of Edgar Poe at the Old Western Burial Ground cemetery.
By a strange irony, Poe died in Baltimore — the city where his literary career began in 1829.
This year, he settled in a house on North Amity Street with his aunt and cousin Virginia Klemm – a young girl whom, six years later, he married.
Poe's years in Baltimore were a time when he was extremely poor, borrowing money from friends and looked like the last poor man.
He lived in a narrow room in the attic, to which a spiral staircase leads.
The door to his room is so small that even people of average height are forced to bend down when entering.
Those who have been in this house now a museum say that there is always an inexplicable cold in Po's room.
People believe that it is here that the spirit of Edgar Poe dwells.
However, many eyewitnesses say that they saw the ghost of a large, gray haired woman dressed in a dress of the early 19th century in the Po house.
From 1922 to 1949, this house was empty until the Edgar Poe Historical House Museum was organized in it.
Since the beginning of the 60s, people began to say that evil spirits live in this house.
Many visitors and employees of the museum heard strange, muffled voices, felt the touch of invisible hands on their skin, saw how the windows and doors of the house opened themselves.
"Po speaks from the grave” - this was the title of the message in the May 1853 issue of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.
In this provocative note, it was said that during a spiritual session, the medium made contact with the dead poet Mr. Poe, who dictated his new poem to the medium.
The newspaper wrote: "We regret to admit that Edgar A. Poe, the author of The Raven” is still able to bring his ideas to society — in a spiritualistic way.
His gloomy poems are still the fruit of a sick imagination.
Mrs. Lydia Tenney from Georgetown (Massachusetts) came into spiritual contact with the deceased poet and he dictated his new poem to her.
It's quite difficult to decide whether he smells of brandy, or something else ... ”
And further, the lines allegedly transmitted to the medium by the dead poet are quoted.
Moreover, it should be noted that they quite well reflect the style and mood of Poe's poetry.
In any case, it is impossible not to admit that these lines were written by a rather talented person who skillfully imitated Poe: "Listen to me, I will tell you about the beautiful things — calmness and rage are intertwined in these thoughts, truth and passion that live in the human heart are in them.
The question is – what drives the minds of millions?
What is the end and purpose of imagination?
And why did it enter into a person?
And what was MINE?
But the whirlwind of our self consciousness is so rapidly circling, on the shore of which I, apparently, stood and could see: what was absorbed by it, and what was born again – and thorns, and jagged rocks, beautiful flowers – everything constantly disappeared in that whirlpool” (1)
The author who created the world famous poem "The Raven" was a victim of a fate even more strange and romantic, more gloomy and mysterious than his poetic imagination could create.
“A person who carried such a sharpness and complexity in his heart, inevitably had to suffer deeply and die tragically, as it really happened” " (K. Balmont) The life of Edgar Poe is a song about grief and suffering.
His death – the death of an unfortunate man who ended his days in a charitable public hospital was not lamented, inglorious,not sung by his fellow writers.
His funeral was extremely modest.
The funeral procession consisted of only eight people, who buried the one whose name is immortal.
During that humiliating funeral ceremony on October 8, 1849, no one could have imagined that only 25 years would pass and Edgar Poe would be known all over the world, calling this man one of the unique poets — a genius not only of American, but also of world literature. ”
Columbus of new areas in the human soul, he was the first to consciously set out with the idea of introducing ugliness into the realm of beauty and, with the cunning of a wise magician, created the poetry of horror, "Konstantin Balmont said of Poe:" His poetry, which stands closest to our complex and sick soul, is the embodiment of a royal consciousness that looks with horror at the inevitability of wild chaos that surrounds it from all sides."
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