What Do Edgar Allan Poe and Jorge Luis Borges Have in Common?

What Do Edgar Allan Poe and Jorge Luis Borges Have in Common?

Edgar Allan Poe and Jorge Luis Borges are two great figures in our world of literature. Poe was an Argentinean writer, Poe was in North-America. Butler was born fifty years after Poe's death. But still, they have a lot of things in common. They both had a similar style, as Borges was greatly influenced by Poe. But firstly to understand their differences and similarities, I will talk more closely about the two writers.

Edgar Allan Poe was born in 1809 in Boston, to a family of actors, but his parents both died only few years after his birth, so Poe was taken in by a merchant in Richmond John Allan, his brother and sister were taken care by others. His brother died very young and his sister later went insane. But he had a good life in Richmond, and his teachers have said that he was a born poet, he could recite passages of English poetry at the age of five and wrote genuine poetry at a very young age. He also lived in England for five years when he was young, which inspired him to write "William Wilson", and went to the University of Virginia, but was expelled due to not paying his gambling debts and also Allan disowned him due to this, and although Poe was never formally adopted, he took Allan as his middle name. After that, he joined the army under a false name and served in South Carolina as a common solider, about which he wrote "The Gold Bug" and "The Balloon Hoax". In 1827 he released his first book "Timberlane and Other Poems" on his own expenses, put it sold very poorly. Also in 1830 he was released from the army, due to his own determination to be released. Then Poe moved to Baltimore and worked in severos magazines, and during this time he also wrote some of his best work, but also turned to alcoholism. In 1836 Poe married his 13 year old cousin Virginia, but she got sick in 1942, which made her an invalid and she died five years later. Virginia inspired him to write his famous poem "Annabel Lee" and the death of a beautiful woman became a usual theme in his poems. After this, Poe started to lose his fight to drugs and alcohol and also had various lave affairs with different women. He died in 1849, when he was found on the streets of Baltimore in someone elses clothes and he could not explain how he got to this stage, the actual cause of his death is unknown, as the hospital records went missing.

Poe's works were mainly quite dark themed, but he used a lot of themes that were meant to attract the interest of mass audiences. He mainly wrote short stories and poems. His best known fiction works are in gothic theme, which appeals to public, reoccurring themes are death – physical signs, decomposition, premature burial, reanimation of death and mourning. He also wrote satires and humour tales. He used irony and extravagance to liberate the reader from cultural conformity and some of his works were also science fiction and a lot of detective stories.

Jorge Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1899, exactly fifty years after Poe's death. Soon after his birth his family moved to a lower class suburb called Palermo, which was greatly influenced by Italy and had a lot of Italian immigrants. The neighbourhood had a lot of colourful characters, who told stories to Borges, which much influenced his earlier works. He also spoke English, as his grandfather married an Englishwoman, so he learned a lot about the English culture from her. He felt very much like an outsider during his childhood, being from a middle class family living in Palermo, he only had one friend during his young years – his sister, so he spent a lot of time reading English literature. His dream to become a writer came from his father, who always wanted to be a writer, but lost his sight, so he put his hopes on his son. Butler's first accomplishment was at the age of nine, when he translated Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince" into Spanish. In 1908 Borges went to school, but was only taught Argentinean nationalism, and as he was different, he was picked on constantly and got to fights often, but always got defeated, so he became to loathe school. In 1914, his family moved to Europe and settled down in Geneva. The children also went to school again and got accepted there by others and Borges learned a lot about literature and got really passionate about it. Then his family moved to Spain, where he decided to become a serious writer and started writing surrealist literature in Spanish. In 1921 Borges' family returned to Buenos Aires, where he published his first book "Fervor de Buenos Aires" financed by his father and it was almost entirely given out freely. After this, the family moved back to Geneva, to treat his fathers blindness, but he still went blind. Borges also started to go blind, he tried to cure it by operations in 1927, but non succeeded, so he also lost his sight completely. After this, his father