Poe...was perhaps the first great nonstop literary drinker of the American nineteenth century. He made the indulgences of Coleridge and De Quincy seem like a bit of mischief in the kitchen with the cooking sherry.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- A commentary notes Poe's extreme drinking habits compared to peers like Coleridge.
- In plain terms
- Poe drank more than any other American writer of his time.
- What can you take from it?
- Poe was a heavy drinker.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How did drinking affect Poe?
- What defines a writer?
Another view
It focuses on vice rather than literary merit.
More from Edgar Allan Poe
Poe is a kind of Hawthorne and delirium tremens.
Permalink to quote #102 There comes Poe, with his Raven, like Barnaby Rudge, Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge.
Permalink to quote #101 He was an adventurer into the vaults and cellars and horrible underground passages of the human soul. He sounded the horror and the warning of his own doom.
Permalink to quote #100
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