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  • OK so there is a better angle to look at all this, there really is:

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357868645_Edgar_All...

    by polotics
  • This is really interesting and a fun read, but the way they mix in dated psychology around this historical figure in a serious way without much reference to subsequent work adds up to pretension.
    by ilaksh
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe_Toaster
    by aag
  • Poe's life had many complications due to poverty and jealousy that made his being a literary genius almost irrelevant. Researching his death produces even more questions than answers, as a strong case could be made that he was made to appear to have died of a morphine overdose in a ditch.
    by thataccount
  • A little tangent, but

    > With a peak circulation of forty thousand—enormous for its time

    How was it possible to make a living - I imagine a full editorial team, writers, printers, office workers - with this volume of sales, while today, magazines with zero distribution cost, and with millions of subscribers are going under. Were magazines insanely more expensive at the time? What gives?

    by ricardobeat
  • The author of this article needs to hit the books--yesterday.

    The conditions she describes as 'perversity' is just the heightened response of an over-stressed brain.

    The suicidal thoughts (that still horrify the person thinking them) aren't due to a so-called Freudian perversity as the author implies, but are a first step towards total mental breakdown (which actually ends up in suicide, due to to the struggle with such thoughts--which is a form of depression).

    When I was extremely stressed for long periods of time, with no solution in sight, I did enter this stage. Photos I took for a mugshot in this period show a slight shine in my eyes that I hadn't before (that's another sign the brain is disintegrating). I'd stand over overpasses and watch cars drive by, and then a little voice would tell me: jump! jump! while another thought which felt more stronger, would consider this horrifying and made me reflect on why I was thinking such thoughts.

    It wasn't limited to the visible possibilities, either. Frequently when the stress would become unbearable, a little strange thought would make me think of tall buildings and let me imagine that by jumping from one, my problems would cease.

    I've recovered from those thoughts now -- because luckily my stressors were eliminated -- and I no longer experience such thoughts or voices. I mention all this to help others realize that they need to seek help and solve their stressors instead of falling back on the quack-doctor Freud's ideas that "oh it's in our nature to be perverse!".

    by jan_m_savage

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