Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Happy Birthday to Poe - With a Beantown Touch (Boston Post #1)

Poe Statue - Boston - Jim Schmidt Photo
Happy 207th Birthday to Edgar Allan Poe, born on this day - in Boston - 1809!

This post includes photos from a statue of Poe recently (2014) dedicated in Boston which I saw when visiting there in August 2015.  It's also the first of several blog posts documenting that visit.

"Other cities have long claimed a piece of the itinerant Poe. Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Richmond, Va., all have Poe monuments or museums of one sort or another," an interesting New York Times article (link below) from October 2014 declared, adding "Boston never bothered. Not without reason. Poe sneered at the city’s luminaries. Riffing off the Frog Pond in the Boston Common, Poe called the local swells “Frogpondians,” their moralistic works sounding like the croaking of so many frogs. As for residents here, they “have no soul,” he said. “Bostonians are well bred — as very dull persons very generally are.”

Poe Statue - Boston - Jim Schmidt Photo

The Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston and the Boston Art Commission led the effort for the statue, which was crafted by sculptor Stefanie Rocknak.

Some additional interesting links regarding Poe and Boston are listed below:

New York Times - October 4, 2014 -  "Edgar Allan Poe’s Feud With Boston? Nevermore"

Boston Globe - October 5, 2014 - "Edgar Allan Poe immortalized in the city he loathed"

Poe Boston, Inc - "Edgar Allan Poe & the City of Boston"

Boston Public Library - "The Raven in the Frog Pond"

Boston.com - "Quoth the detective: Edgar Allan Poe’s case against the Boston literati"

Enjoy!

Poe Statue - Boston - Jim Schmidt Photo

Poe Statue - Boston - Jim Schmidt Photo
Poe Statue - Boston - Jim Schmidt Photo


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