Anyone visiting Charlottesville, Virginia, soon realizes that Edgar Allan Poe is box office boffo at UVA — students and faculty alike walk around wearing T-shirts imprinted with either Poe’s mustached likeness or the star of his most famous poem, a talking Raven. To mark the 189th anniversary of Poe’s UVA matriculation, "Poe-llitically Incorrect" dedicates the following to one of America’s most celebrated writers. The italicized paragraph below is a fanciful tale of Poe’s time at UVA. Facts follow.
Riding horseback 60 miles from Richmond to Charlottesville, Edgar Allan Poe arrived at UVA on a cool February morning in 1826. On an introductory tour of the Grounds, the sixteen-year-old became immediately smitten with fellow first-year student Annabel Lee. That afternoon, he penned, “And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me.” Inspired by passion, Poe proclaimed to all that love deserved a day dedicated to love alone; hence, Valentine’s Day was reborn.
Assigned to room 13 West Range, Poe studied all things “13”; he was fascinated especially by those who harbored an irrational fear of the number (triskaidekaphobia). He took notes, filing away observations he would use in later terror tales.
Poe went Greek, joining the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, Phi Pi Theta. On one Friday night, the Society called on young Poe to act as secretary; and between speakers, he started his famous poem “The Parrot.”
To stay in shape, he joined the swim team. His exploits in the pool led the Virginia team to be nicknamed the Wahoos after a fish found in tropical waters. To improve his communication skills, Poe also joined the College Whigs. After a challenging semester, Poe relaxed on the Lawn and spent an evening gazing at the stars, contemplating the origins of the universe.
The following fall, Poe returned to UVA, but his guardian provided insufficient funds. The young writer turned to gambling and poker, and one night he “pushed all his chips” in a hand of Texas Hold’em. He held two pairs, aces and eights, but he lost. Taking poems he’d drafted at UVA, Poe left the university to become one of America’s most celebrated writers. Poe died young, leaving his estate to his aunt with instructions to find a good director-actor combination to perform his works.
13. Poe did arrive at UVA on February 14, 1826, but it had nothing to do with creating a special day for relationships; the fourteenth-century English author Geoffrey Chaucer is credited with linking love to Valentine’s Day. Poe did write a Valentine’s Day note to a married woman, which caused a stir in prim and proper 1840's New York City.
12. Women didn’t attend UVA as undergraduate students until 1970, and Poe’s inspiration for his poem Annabel Lee remains a mystery.
11. Poe did live in 13 West Range. However, fear of “13” is mostly a product of the twentieth century. Some trace the unlucky nature of “13” to the Last Supper.
10. For one night, Poe served as secretary pro tem for the Jefferson Society. His written minutes disappeared. An unknown person cut his signature out of the minutes and that signature eventually found its way to UVA’s Alderman Library by way of nuns in Oregon.
9. Poe originally cast a Parrot as his winged protagonist in his most famous poem, but he decided that “Raven” had a better ring to it. Consequently, NFL fans have been saved evermore from the team name "the Baltimore Parrots.”
8. Intercollegiate sports began three years after Poe’s 1849 death, when Harvard challenged Yale to a rowing competition. Standing at six feet, Poe was athletic in his youth. He held the unofficial record for swimming six miles upstream on a stretch of the James River. (An aside—the UVA diving and swimming team has won every ACC title but one since 1999. Go Hoos.) No one is quite sure about the origins of UVA’s “Wahoos” nickname. Washington and Lee students apparently used it when referring to their in-state rivals, and UVA students adopted the unofficial nickname. And a wahoo is a game fish found off the Florida coast.
7. Poe did run out of money at UVA and did turn to gambling to rebuild his fortunes. He lost.
6. "Tamerlane and Other Poems" was published only months after Poe left UVA. Literary historians speculate he wrote several of these poems while at UVA. Tamerlane is a very rare American book. No one knows for sure how many were published; estimates range from 20 to 200. Only 12 copies remain. At an auction several years ago, a copy of "Tamerlane" sold for $662,000, the highest price ever paid for a U.S.–published book. In 1974, an unknown thief stole the UVA Alderman Library copy.
5. In his 40,000-word prose poem "Eureka," Poe hypothesized the universe alternated expanding and contracting, which may have anticipated the Big Bang Theory by almost 100 years. The book was a failure, selling only 500 copies; however, leading European intellectuals, including Albert Einstein, read this book.
4. Although celebrated in his lifetime, Poe died penniless. Known best for "The Raven," Poe is also credited with inventing detective fiction, advancing science fiction, and perfecting the short-story genre.
3. Poe was nonpolitical, though politics may have played a role in his death. In 1840's Baltimore, unscrupulous political activists engaged in “cooping,” a practice of kidnapping people, filling them full of alcohol, and taking them to multiple polling places to “vote early and vote often.” There was an election in Baltimore in early October 1849. Poe died several days later, and historians still have not determined the facts surrounding his death.
2. Horror and terror genres have had a field day with Poe’s works. For example, director Roger Corman and actor Vincent Price teamed up in the 1960s to make seven Poe masterpieces into movies.
1. Poe’s aunt took possession of Poe’s work after he died. However, a fierce critic, Rufus Griswold, claimed literary conservatorship. Griswold spread scandalous lies about Poe, but the dead poet’s fame has continued to grow—evermore.
