I, like most people, read Edgar Allan Poe in High School. Before then, my only real exposure to him was from the Simpsons, which featured a parody of “The Raven” in the first “Treehouse of Horror” and had Lisa’s rival building a diorama based on “The Tell Tale Heart” in the episode “Lisa’s Rival”. I knew little about him, other that he wrote some pretty creepy stuff.  The stories we read in high school supported my idea of Poe as a guy who wrote really unsettling horror. That was my idea of Poe, until one day I was watching Drunk History.

https://youtu.be/75cWpzc8Uv8

If you are unfamiliar with the show, Drunk History started as a web series but is now a show on Comedy Central. The premise is that someone gets really drunk and recounts a moment in history. Intercut with them sitting down telling the story are recreations, usually staring well known guest stars, who lip synch along to the narrator’s version of history. It might sound a little confusing on paper, but it only takes a few seconds to get accustomed to the style when you’re actually watching it.

On the episode “Baltimore”, Duncan Trussell narrates the segment on Rufus Griswold and Edgar Allan Poe.  Jason Ritter plays Rufus Griswold and Jesse Plemons from Breaking Bad plays Edgar Allan Poe. The short segments talks about the rivalry between the two. Obviously, it’s not meant to be a 100% historical recounting of the two men’s relationship, but it does a good job of showing Edgar Allan Poe as a critic and not just a man who writes poems and horror stories. It gives a glimpse at how ruthless he could be in his reviews, something that I got a glimpse of at the Edgar Allan Poe Nation Historic Site.

So while it may not be the most historically accurate account of Edgar Allan Poe, it is a funny way of showing Poe as someone other than what he is commonly known as. It got me much more interested in hearing about his relationships with his contemporaries and his thoughts on their work.