Edgar Allan Poe had an extremely interesting (and twisted) personal life. He was an alcoholic, never held a steady job, and married his 13-year old cousin, Virginia Clemm.
This brings up two questions. Feel free to respond to either: 1) How much should we care about an author’s personal life? Should we consider a person’s life when we read and analyze his or her writings? 2) Often writers are crazy, depressed, and have faced serious trauma. Do people need to have awful things happen to them to produce powerful literature?
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In my opinion, traumatic experiences greatly influence the ideas of powerful authors. Their emotions and experiences are conveyed through their story. In some cases, reading a story can tell you more about the inner feelings and thoughts of the author compared with meeting the author himself. Authors invest themselves in a work for so long that it becomes a part of them. Authors may not even realize how much of themselves is apparent in their work, it may be subconscious. In other cases, characters are significantly based off of themselves or their surrounding peers.
In contrast, admirable and genius works can come from a person whose past has not effected their story. Their inspirations may come from another source; they do not have to be depressed or disturbed or let alone feel the emotions that run through the story. An example of this idea is found within the works of Caroline B. Cooney. A mystery writer, her novels' cores are often a murder or kidnapping. Despite these frightening plot lines, Cooney had a wonderful childhood enjoying school as well as friends. She lead a very privileged life, in contrast to the unfortunate events that occur in her novels. In the end, although an author's past can be a valuable influence and resource in writing a work, I believe that inspiration can come from a multitude of different sources.
I think that we should care somewhat about an author's personal life, because then you see where they are coming from when they write the stories that they write. Each author has a different personlaity, and this shows through their writing. For example, Edgar Allan Poe wrote tales that were very creepy and violent. His writing style was most likely that way because of how he lived his life and all his past experiences. We can understand why his writing is so dull and deranged because his personal life was the same. If you were an extremely happy person that loved everyone and rarely did anything wrong, it would not be common to find your stories about people murdering others or someone walling up a friend in an underground cemetery and leaving them there to die.
On the other hand, peope do not need to have awful things happen to them in order to produce powerful literature. Fiction writers are known for using their imagination when they create their pieces. No matter what the topic they are writing about is, they do not need to be writing from a past experience. Imagination is key to being an author because to come up with interesting and appealing stories, you will not always be able to rely on things that have happened to you. It is not everyday that someone gets deserted on an island where the only other human there is one that wants to play a hunting game with you as the huntee. That tale was most likely made up, but it was still an outstanding piece that was very intriguing. This shows that you really don't need to have terrible things happen to you in order to come up with a brilliant and captivating story.
I think that an author's personal life matters greatly and that we should think about it while reading their writing. THis is so because it can give us insight intohidden meanings in the story. Also it can show why the writer is writing a tragedy, romance, or comedy. As we learn about the writer we learn about the writing.
To answer question 2, it hink that traumatizing things in one's life can help their writing greatly, but these horrible events don not need to happen for an author to be great. Great stories come from experience and/ or your imagination. If you have had wonderful experiences in your life or if your imagination is broad, your stories can be just as good and better than someone who had something horrible happen to them.
Many authors are not what you would call normal. Edgar Allen Poe is an example of this. He had a very harsh life and I'm sure that he had violent moments and times when he felt totally rejected. He show all of this in his work. He mastered taking his anger and turning it into a great piece of literature. However, unless you share his anger for the world and like his stories about people who are just plain crazy, then you will think that his stories are weird. Many people think this about his stories, and don't read them. I used to be one of them. I thought he was a crazy person that had nothing better to do, and just wrote about something that was crazy. However, as I read more of his stories and started understanding him, I realized how much I enjoy the stories. Not just the plot, but his style of writing. He uses so many metaphors and symbols, and is just a truely amazing writer!
Writers such as Edgar Allen Poe who had such a hard life are able to write some powerful pieces of literature. They use their experiences in life and take their feelings and turn it into a good story or book. I think that you have to either have experienced something or have someone close ot you experience something that you write about. If you don't, then how do you know how that person feels? You can't write about fear unless you have experienced it and know what was running throgh your mind. Poe has an advantage with his life, ao he can write about these frightful experiences and know what it's like to feel fear, and pain.
To answer question 1, I believe we should care about an author's personal life to, like Evan Crespo said, understand why he/she is writing about what they are writing. Knowing the personal life of authors unlocks a hidden part of the analytical side of every story that you can't see any other way.
To answer question 2, I believe that when authors have bad things happen to them, it helps them write more convincing and life-like stories about tradgedies similar to the one or ones that happened to them. It also works with happy things. If a writer gets married and has a happy marrige, it would be easier to write about it from expirience.
Well, first off, in my opinion we should care about an author's personal life as much as they want us to. If they put it out there for us to see and read about, then maybe that means they want us to care and sympathize for them. However; absolutely we should consider a person's life when we read and analyze their writings because it gives us more background on what they have to say in their pieces. Thinking about a person's life when we analyze their work really helps us understand their style of writing and maybe why they chose the words and phrases they do.
As for the the second question, people most certainly do not have to have awful things happened to them to produce powerful literature. You can fall in love and write such a powerful piece about it and that's something very enjoyable and happy, not awful. You can experience something majestic and amazing that can lead to a great piece of literature. You can have anything happen to you, awful, enjoyable, happy, or fantastic and still write a powerful story about it. Of course we all have our ups and downs in live, but good things don't always come out of bad things as people say.
There are many famous writers that have had a good life and written great and popular pieces about it.
I believe that we should care about the author's personal life because it helps us think about their point of view when they wrote the story. If someone lived a very happy life, there stories would be usually all happy. If a very dark person wrote a story normally it would be also dark, and it would show us how that person's mind works. When some people are upset in life, they like to write stories to help get their emotions out. Like Michelle said most very good writers have experienced hard times in their life, so they would be able to use their hardships to create very good literature. Writting expresses the author's feelings in some way or another so if you know about the author you could learn about how they were feeling when they wrote the story.
While I believe that traumatic experiences are not needed, they do influence a writer and turn their style of writing into something unique. A writer does not need such tragedy as Poe did to become a great writer. They may experience no problems in their life at all. But the fact that Poe could use the influences from his life and turn them into stories that are now popular and interesting reads makes him extraordinary. A writes life affects his writing and shapes their work in certain and wonderful ways.
A writer's life does not always affect his writing. A writer could have a wonderful life and write the most horrible, terrifying story you have ever read. Or it could be the other way around. They could have a wonderful life and write a story about how the world will become a perfect Utopia. But it all based on perspective. A writer’s perspective on life can affect their writing, or maybe they will have an idea that does not at all have anything to do with their life. Traumatic experiences may not always influence their work, but I'm sure it probably helps write a gripping story.
I think that knowing about an author's personal life, helps the reader have a better understanding on the material they are reading. For instance with Edgar Allan Poe, because we knew he had an interesting and twisted life, we could try to understand the deeper meaning of his stories that weren't clear cut and easy to understand. Like what ctino said, in certain literary works, authors convey their emotions and experiences through their stories. By knowing about their personal life, the reader can make connections to the story they are reading.
I don't think that writers have to have something awful happen to them to produce powerful literature. In some cases I believe that a traumatic experience can make their writing better but in other cases that doesn't have to happen. Some writers who haven't had anything bad happen to them have the ability to write something deep and meaningful. I really think it all depends on the style and technique of the writer.
Traumatized authors are often some of the best, but is there a reason for it? I think that because of the hard lives they had at home and in their childhood, it definitely helped them become better writers. For me, I know it is a lot easier to write about things that are bothering me or that upset me, then to write about things that make me happy or excite me. I don’t know why that is, but it is easier for me to create poems or stories about these problems in my own life. I’m not sure if authors want their own stories to be judged on the lives they have had, but rather just by the content of the story itself. When we read a story, I think it is better to know nothing about the author, because it is almost irrelevant. I do not think we should consider a person’s life when we read and analyze his or her writings, I think we should base our opinions primarily on the writings themselves.
I don’t know if it is a necessity to have had a traumatizing life to be a good writer, but I think it definitely could help. This could be because of how they can use their own personal lives, and put them into stories. They can make the emotion much more real if it is about them, or if they have felt those same emotions before. If an author is writing a story about someone who was depressed, or an alcoholic, it is much easier if that person knows what it is like to be in their characters position, rather if the author has never felt anything close to what their character feels. To me, I believe it can most definitely help the author, but there are many extremely talented authors that have had decent lives and have not been traumatized.
Edgar Allen Poe Has had a very hard and strange life, but he still some how was able write amazing stories. John Updike had a calm and normal life but he also wrote amazing stories. This proves that an author doesn't need to have awful things happen to them to write a powerful piece of literature.Authors don't just write about sad and depressing things that have happened to them. They can write about their true love, happiness, and anything good that has happened to them. A lot of these kinds of stories are also very powerful pieces of literature just like Edgar Allen Poe's. People don't have to tell a sad story for it to be good. A lot of people, including myself, like to read happy and enjoyable stories.
obbinesA writer's personal life can change the way you interpret a story, especially if it is some sort of allegory. You may not know whether the allegory you find is what the writer intended. A veiw into the writer's life may give clues. For example Animal Farm, if you did not know what time period the author was writing in and what was going on in the world the allegory of The U.S.S.R. may go right over your head.
As for the traumatic experiences, it makes the emotion of the story so much more real in most casses. It is not necissary at all to produce extremely powerful literature ,but at times, it may help. The only thing you need to write strong literature is a strong mind and a beleif in what you are writing.
this is a response to the second part of the question.
Of corse we don't want to live a crazy depressed life such as Poe, but often times the only things to write about are the negative things in your life. by describing the horrific events that happened in someone life, it make a more meaningfull story. but often times there is a poem or pice of literature that describes the happiness in peoples lives. i feel like writing should be a balance between the too. because if there is no balance, then one gets a reputation for being a negative writer. but maybe if some people want that, i really dont know how to become a successful author.
When we read an author's writings, I believe we should take in mind the authors personal life, but not base how we view the story around it. Usually I try not to think about it too much, because I do not enjoy the writing as well. However, to know a little may make the writing more interesting. For example, when you read Edgar Allen Poe works, you are usually disgusted, and maybe to the point of fear, but in a good way. If you knew nothing about the author, you would probably think it was the most random story you have read. It may be, but if you knew a little about the author, you would know he wrote it like that because he had a twisted mind and was an alcoholic. When analyzing a story, it might help to know a little about the author so you are able to make connections between the author and the story itself.
Being a writer-in-the-making myself, I would want people to know who's words it is that they are reading. I have a lot of my own flaws, and I accept that, so I wouldn't want other people to hold it against me. On the other hand, I would want people to know what brought me to sitting down and writing a story in my own words and with my own mind.
You could also look at it in a way that you can read a piece of writing and be enchanted by it without even knowing the author's name. If you really want an understanding of the words though, I believe you have to have some kind of understanding of the person writing them as well.
Some may hold things against the author, but others do the opposite. People get a biased idea on a story or author just because of what they hear about it, and sometimes though the writing has no symbolic meaning and was written as only a shallow interpretation of human thought and action, they believe the books to be something epic. Just because other people like a book doesn't necessarily mean it's good in your opinion. It works the other way around. Opinions can only be found by looking at your own thoughts, and not others. I wouldn't want someone to hate my writing just because I might have done something others find immoral. We are only human, after all.
Often, an author's personal life greatly influences their style of writing. This is probably because in order to write extremely well, you need to write from experiance. An example of this would definately be Poe. Most people would describe his life as twisted, and his writing the same way. Although you do not need to have had a difficult personal life in order to produce powerful literature, I'm sure that it certainly helps. If you are going to write light and happy literature, than you are probably a light, happy person. Same goes with dark, mysterious stories.
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