Who's Afraid of Edgar Allan Poe?

There are many famous authors but only one can claim to have an NFL team named after one of his works. Over 150 years after his untimely death, Edgar Allan Poe remains one of the most wildly popular writers to ever pick up a pen. Sadly, however, he also remains one of the most infamous. That's unfortunate.

It may come as a surprise, but Poe was definitely not a shadowy, reclusive, frightening figure straight out of one of his own stories. He was an enormously consequential literary critic, as well as an editor and magazine writer. Charles Dickens himself tried to get Poe's work published in England. Baudelaire, the French poet, saw Poe as an inspiration. In short, Poe was a celebrity, not the kind of individual the public has been trained to believe he was.

Of course, the man was not without blemish. His drinking and gambling appear to have been real problems and his work as a literary critic was not the stuff of which friendships are borne. As for his poems and stories...let's just say it's only natural to wonder what sort of imagination could possibly produce such material.

Still, people are sum totals of their parts, all their parts, not just the unsavory ones. Poe may have had his odd and unsavory qualities, but were they any worse than those of a great number of today's celebrities? Why, then, is Poe viewed, even now, in such an unflattering light?

The truth is, it all may be the work of one man. Rufus Wilmot Griswold was an anthologist who Poe had criticized, perhaps unfairly. After Poe's death, Griswold wrote an extraordinarily damning obituary. This was followed by an equally damning memoir. Poe's personal reputation has seemingly remained smeared to this day.

We are about to enter into an election year, which gives Poe's story particular relevance. Smear campaigns can be waged by people of all ideologies. These attacks victimize the individual and cloud the judgment of the public at large.

In an age ripe with character assassination and one-sided bias, it's good to be mindful (not cynical, mindful) of how people are being presented to the public and why. Let Poe's story serve as our warning.