Tamerlane and Other Poems - Background

Background

Edgar Poe was unable to complete studies at the University of Virginia due to gambling debts. He left the university in March 1827 and the already-strained relationship with his foster father, John Allan, grew worse. Poe determined to go to Boston, where he was born. When Poe's biological mother Eliza Poe died, the only object she left him was a watercolor painting of the city, on the back of which she had written, "For my little son Edgar, who should ever love Boston, the place of his birth, and where his mother found her best and most sympathetic friends." John Allan, a merchant in Richmond, Virginia, refused to give his foster son the $12 for the trip, though it is likely Poe got the money from his foster mother Frances Allan. John Allan was not aware of Poe's decision or whereabouts and, not concerned, wrote "I'm thinking Edgar has gone to Sea to seek his own fortunes". After arriving in Boston in April 1827, Poe served briefly as clerk for a wholesale merchandise warehouse on the waterfront, then as an office clerk and reporter for an obscure newspaper, the Weekly Report. After several weeks, in desperation, he enlisted in the United States Army for a five-year term under the pseudonym "Edgar A. Perry"; he gave his age as 22, though he was only 18, likely because he would have needed parental consent if under 21. He was assigned to the First Regiment of Artillery and stationed at Boston Harbor's Fort Independence.

Up to this point, Poe had not written much poetry. His earliest lines of verse were a couplet labeled "Poetry", presumably written sometime in 1824 in the ledger book of Allan & Ellis, his foster father's mercantile company. The lines read: "Last night with many cares & toils oppress'd / Weary, I laid me on a couch to rest—". The earliest known full-length poem by Poe, "O, Tempora! O, Mores!", is a satirical poem whose authorship is the subject of some dispute. Nevertheless, calling himself "irrecoverably a poet", he had been working on a few longer poems at the University of Virginia, whose manuscripts he brought with him to Boston.