Talk:Edgar Allan Poe/Archive 10

Marriages
Poe’s Marriages - Requires correction from someone more knowledgeable.
 * Existing text: “In October 1830, Allan married his second wife Louisa Patterson.” There is no mention in the text of a wedding which preceded this (the Virginia Clemm marriage not occurring until 1836.) Can anyone find the missing marriage(s), or correct this passage if Louisa was in fact his first wife? Many thanks. Not Proven (talk) 16:13, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I think you might be misreading the text. Louisa Patterson is the second wife of John Allan, whose first wife, Frances Allan, is already mentioned. Virginia Clemm was married to Edgar Allan Poe, not John Allan. --Midnightdreary (talk) 18:10, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * My thanks and apologies; my clear mistake; I apologise for taking your time. What is the protocol - should I delete this all since it is of no use to anyone? Not Proven (talk) 18:52, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * There is no reason to delete this. You're fine. --Midnightdreary (talk) 01:23, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2019 and 6 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Karrieleduc.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:09, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Osgood/Ellet scandal?
Over in the article about Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe, there’s a four-paragraph section detailing the Osgood/Ellet scandal, in which Edgar Allan Poe flirted with a married poet and published love poems written to him by another poet. I was surprised to see that this material isn’t covered in the Edgar Allan Poe article at all, unless I missed it. I feel like most of that section is about E.A. Poe rather than about V.E.C. Poe, so it seems like it should be in this article rather than that one; I’m tempted to move that section here in its entirety, and link here from the other article. But I hesitate to make such a significant change without checking first. Any thoughts? —Elysdir (talk) 04:15, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * That would be a pretty significant change to a featured article. I am the author of all the articles and sections that you're writing about. My first instinct is that some representation would be appropriate for this article but WP:UNDUE makes me think that entire section moving here would be a terrible idea. And when you say "move", do you mean entirely removing it from the article on Mrs. Poe? That sounds even worse. Let me think on this a bit further? --Midnightdreary (talk) 14:34, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Possible bias in "Influence"
Stating that he "correctly" predicted Longfellow's decline seems biased to me. This seems to receive no mention in any page about Longfellow either. 2603:6010:11F0:3C0:534:9E16:C80F:A4FC (talk) 17:59, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello and thanks for your comment. The sentence in question is sourced to what I believe is a reliable source. Can you clarify what you mean that it "seems to receive no mention in any page about Longellow"? It seems that his article, for which (like this page) I was the main contributor, does clearly discuss his declining reputation. --Midnightdreary (talk) 00:37, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

When did he first reside in Baltimore?
The second paragraph under Military Career includes the phrase "he moved back to Baltimore for a time", but there is no mention of his ever having been to Baltimore prior to that time. Some mention of this prior residence in Baltimore needs to be put into the article before this section. MayerG (talk) 13:13, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Fixed, thank you. --Midnightdreary (talk) 14:09, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Attended
Attended - did not matriculate KPL1476 (talk) 04:52, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello, KPL. Can you clarify your comment? I'm having trouble understanding how you are suggesting to improve the article. --Midnightdreary (talk) 14:09, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Childhood home
The entry says that no childhood home of Poe's remains standing. In fact, there is one in Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland. I was in it a few years ago and I believe it is privately owned. 2A00:23C6:6D88:7901:1423:7DED:3F1B:D2B1 (talk) 11:16, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * That's fascinating considering he did not live in Scotland. There may be a relative or friend of the Allan family that he visited with but he never had a home in Scotland. --Midnightdreary (talk) 13:25, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Scientific method
"Poe eschewed the scientific method in Eureka and instead wrote from pure intuition." This sentence seems to contain an anachronism. Following the link to the article on the scientific method, and then to the article on the history of the scientific method, there doesn't seem to be any concept of THE scientific method in Poe's day. Proposed methods for reasoning and investigation existed, but a single accepted method, reached by consensus with a stamp of approval from any type of regulatory authority in scientific communities, does not seem to have existed. How do we rewrite this to remove the assertion that Poe was eschewing something which did not yet exist? If we have to remove the Meyers citation in the process, then that's what we should do. MorbidAnatomy (talk) 21:30, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Good catch on the anachronism. How about something like this: "Poe eschewed formal scientific proof and instead wrote from pure intuition." --Midnightdreary (talk) 20:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Probably better in as much as it avoids the anachronism, but as I've continued to think on this, I'm not sure Poe actually eschewed anything. It seems to me he merely used the tools available to him (his reading, observation, and reasoning). The more I try to improve the sentence, the more I feel the entire thing needs to go. But that doesn't seem right either, because it does attempt to communicate something valid about Eureka. And as I type this, maybe I hit on it accidentally. Perhaps something like: "Lacking formal scientific training, Poe relied on his reading, personal observations, and reasoning when writing Eureka." Thoughts on that?
 * MorbidAnatomy (talk) 18:45, 28 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I think we may be straying close to original research and should find a reliable source that says it best. --Midnightdreary (talk) 21:00, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I see your point. And if that's the case, I suggest we delete the current sentence entirely until we find a source to say it better, because the current sentence is quite problematic. MorbidAnatomy (talk) 23:48, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

first American being able to live on income generated by writing
The current lead contains the follwing sourced but imho nevertheless somewhat misleading/factually wrong line:
 * He is the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

The section Publishing career contains similar sourced statements as well. However other sources/scholarly publications do make similar claims for other American authors. To my knowledge such claims have also been made for Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and Charles Brockden Brown. Hence is might be better to choose more "defensive" formulation, which would not potentially contradict other scholarly publications, such as:
 * He is one of the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:14, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the important context here is that each of those provided examples either had another source of income and/or does not remain a well-known American writer. --Midnightdreary (talk) 03:08, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Well then the formulation imho should make that more clear (to avoid people misreading that). However i'm not quite convinced by that reading either. You can probably argue Brockden Brown is not a well-known writer (anymore) and the Irving washington might have had other means of income due to his family business. But in the case of Cooper I don't quite see that. He inherited some property from his father (Otsego Hall) at some point, but afaik that didn't really generate any income and some time after leaving the navy his income was exclusively generated by writing. Though due to having success already earlier during his life time, he did not struggle financially like Poe. The way I see it, is that Washington and Cooper lived of their writing but contrary to Poe didn't struggle, whereas Brockden Brown lived of his writing and struggled like Poe but is not well-known anymore.


 * In any case the line should not leave the reader with the impression that Poe was the first well-known American writer that lived of his writing as that seems factually wrong (or at best a matter of dispute).--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:21, 13 February 2023 (UTC)


 * (Minor correction, I do believe you reference Washington Irving, not Irving Washington.) Independently wealthy seems to qualify as another source of income. I stand by these sources and the statement they are making seem accurate. I'd love to hear from others, however. --Midnightdreary (talk) 21:31, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, Washington Irving i fixed the link above now (thanks for pointing it out). In his WP entry you have btw. the following line
 * Irving is largely credited as the first American Man of Letters and the first to earn his living solely by his pen.
 * Which imho directly contradicts the line in the Poe article. For Cooper similar claims can be found, for instance here:
 * Cooper was the first American author to earn a living writing fiction
 * To be clear I'm not disputing that the description in the Poe article is reflecting the cited source accurately. Nor do I claim the source is necessarily incorrect. What i'm saying is, that different scholarly sources claim somewhat different things on that topic and that Wikipedia (ideally) shouldn't just follow the take of only one of those sources/scholarly opinions.--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:12, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 April 2023
Wife’s death is shown as 1847, underneath in the paragraph it states that his wife died in 1829. 174.86.201.199 (talk) 04:40, 18 April 2023 (UTC)


 * The 1829 date refers to the death of his foster father's wife, not Poe's wife. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 08:01, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Father's Nationality
His father could not have been American as he was born before the colonists started their treasonous war. Therefore his father was Irish or British but not American. At most he would be a British American. 162.120.145.71 (talk) 13:49, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Your judgment of American independence aside, David Poe was born in 1784, well after independence and the "treasonous war" was declared. --Midnightdreary (talk) 14:56, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose merging The Imp of the Perverse into this article. The Imp article has a great deal of OR and it appears that the concept is not only mostly associated w/ Poe, but also coined by him. I would argue that since notability is mostly conferred by association w/ Poe, that the article would be most effective as a section within this article. Just Another Cringy Username (talk) 02:29, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * It seems significantly more logical to merge the concept into the article on the thing that coined it. Why not merge with The Imp of the Perverse (short story)? --Midnightdreary (talk) 12:21, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Because I didn't know there was a separate article for the story! Looking it over, it appears that the the "concept article" is a WP:REDUNDANTFORK, so a straight redirect is probably preferable. Thoughts? Just Another Cringy Username (talk) 16:50, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I would support that. --User:Midnightdreary 19:30, 25 September 2023 (UTC)