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Article: Of Poe and Lee and other West Points.(military education of author Edgar Allan Poe and General Robert E. Lee)
- Article from:
- The American Enterprise
- Article date:
- July 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 The American Enterprise, a national magazine of politics, business and culture (TEAmag.com). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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There is a rich literary tradition at West Point. As alumnus and novelist Lucian Truscott IV says, "You just spend four years doing nothing but writing and figuring electrical engineering problems. The education at West Point is excellent for a writer--a hell of a lot better than the Iowa writers' school, where they sit around doing a lot of navel-gazing."
The academy's most famous dropout was a chronic class-cutter named Edgar Allan Poe, whose "wayward and capricious temper made him at times utterly oblivious or indifferent to the ordinary routine of roll-calls, drills, and guard duties," a classmate remembered. Poe did not accept hazing with good cheer, as any ...