Poe Gets a Proper Burial

2009 has been the time for respectful commemorations of Edgar Allan Poe's dreary life. What better way to see the year out, then, by commemorating his death? By a quirk of time (or fate), this year is not just the bicentennial of Poe's birth, but the 160th anniversary of his death on October 7, 1849. Earlier this month, Poe historians and admirers gave him a second funeral, one much more appropriate than the nearly unnoticed affair attended by a handful of friends and relatives after he died.

Poe's second funeral featured some interesting hosts--including the actor John Astin from The Addams Family--and was well attended by thousands who sought to catch a sight of the funeral procession, or just mill about in the graveyard. But the star of the event had to be a replica of the weird writer himself, laying as pale and inert as he did over a century ago, with a black-ribboned wreath perched upon his casket (or was it a raven)?

The sorry state of Poe's original burial and the burst of attention he's gotten lately is well deserved, and far better than what many other weird fiction writers have received. Poe has gotten his due in large part because he is the one American writer of strangeness who "made it big"--or at least bigger than the others--becoming a posthumous imprint in the historical consciousness of early US literature. Still, one wonders how long it will be before a similarly devoted group attempts to stage the same sort of ritual for H.P. Lovecraft and other macabre wordsmiths?

-Grim Blogger