The city that saw the birth of Edgar Allen Poe has had a bit of a grudge against the writer for a long time. However, last year, the efforts of professors and students at Boston College have helped to bring him back to his rightful place in the city’s heart, just in time for the Bicentennial Celebration of his birth.
The grudge has been a rather justifiable one. Poe spent his childhood here, but a good part of his life away, although in the final moments he wanted to be returned so he could be buried here. Instead, his body rests in Baltimore, but there’s a lot of his spirit left in the city he once scorned. He was none too fond of the people he grew up with, and famously fought with many of the other local writers, such as Longfellow and Henry David Thoreau. But those were different times, and the literary movements of his day would eventually come to bear the marks of his excellence. It’s difficult not to see how this hopelessly romantic author changed the way people think about books.
The people, too, are much different now, and time has brought in a very different feel to the place, where myriad cultures and traditions enter into the idyllic East Coast refuge for artists and poets. A Boston hotel is much different than it was 200 years ago, too, and now the decor and hospitality are the culmination of cosmopolitan charm. It’s a far cry from the provincialism that he once abhorred.
The corner of Boylston and Charles streets have been renamed in honor of him, to mark his birthplace, and public art projects are planned. It’s all part of the effort to welcome the icon of the macabre back home. It might have struck the writer as absurd, or ironic, but it’s more likely that he would have found it a touch sentimental, too. Although he was known for his horror writings, his first love was a deeply romantic poetry, and it’s hard not to hear some of it still resounding when people say his name with reverence.
