The Passer By

[Nu Lang]

Well, I read a biography of his life and in it are letters he wrote, and in those letters its revealed he had to deal with the people in his life and I think in the end he released himself from their "demands" that weighed heavily upon him in his early life. Like for example, getting his foster father's approval. I think he finally let that go. And he also accepted from that that he would never 'be' anybody of renown. See, he tried for years to impress his foster father becasue the father wanted Poe to take over the family business and Poe instead wanted to be a writer, so he pursued writing in the end and I think for many years he wanted to get famous so his father would be proud and see Poe made the right choice. Towards the end of his life, reading his letters and such, I see a more mature Poe, one who sees its the folly of other people who cling to this reality of "being somebody" here and that its not his burden and he let his art soar then and didn't care about fame and the people who looked for 'whos who' in society, those who would just see him as a passer by. He was ok with that and pitied them for being so caught up.



One thing that occurred around that time is a very elite social class sort of dictated tastes in literature and art and so Poe was always subject to their scrutinizing eye. To be a 'nobody' was frowned upon, but to Poe, the 'nobody' was the metaphysical seeker's aim.



Poe only became famous in death.