Considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterised as part of the Romantic movement and "Pre-Romantic", for its large appearance in the 18th century. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England – indeed, to all forms of organised religion – Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions, as well as by such thinkers as Jakob Böhme and Emanuel Swedenborg. Despite these known influences, the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify. The 19th-century scholar William Rossetti characterised him as a "glorious luminary," and "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors".
Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. One of the most popular and critically respected American poets of his generation, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.
Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 –
October 7, 1849) was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic,
considered part of the American Romantic
Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest
American practitioners of the short story and is generally considered the
inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with
contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American
writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a
financially difficult life and career.
He
was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; he was orphaned young when his
mother died shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by
John and Frances Allan, of Richmond,
Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. He attended the University of
Virginia for one semester but
left due to lack of money. After enlisting in the Army and later failing as an
officer's cadet at West Point, Poe parted ways with the Allans. His publishing
career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane
and Other Poems (1827),
credited only to "a Bostonian".
Poe
switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for
literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary
criticism. His work forced him to move among several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In
Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia
Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845 Poe published his poem, "The
Raven", to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years after its publication. He
began planning to produce his own journal, The Penn (later renamed The
Stylus), though he died before it could be produced. On October 7, 1849,
at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has
been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and
other agents.
Poe
and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world,
as well as in specialized fields, such as cosmology
and cryptography. Poe and his
work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and
television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today. The Mystery Writers of America present an annual award known as the Edgar Award for distinguished work in the mystery
genre.
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