he second floor. He was now sixteen, and preparing for University.The Time at the University In February 1826 Edgar enrolled at the University of Virginia. The university had opened the year before, after, what was said, forty years of planning, and now had one hundred seventy seven students. Edgar was proud to attend the university and he had high ambitions in language. He took ancient languages taught by George Long, and modern languages taught by George Blaettermann. Edgar was an excellent student and his translations were remembered as “precisely correct.” He studied French, Italian, and probably some Spanish. He also joined the Jefferson Society, a debating club, and grew popular as a debater. He was also remembered as an outstanding athlete, an artist, (he sketched in charcoal), and he also continued to develop as a writer. Edgar was, during his university year, described as moody and gloomy. This might be because of his first romantic failure with a Miss Elmira Royster. Also, this is said to be the inspiration for the poem “Tamerlane.” Edgar was very young to be attending a university. The average age for attending a university in 1830 was about nineteen, while Edgar had only been seventeen for about a month. Life at the university was very chaotic for Edgar, even dangerous at times. During a riot in the school’s first year, masked students threw broken bottles and bricks at the professors. During Edgar’s year, seven students were expelled or suspended for high stakes gambling. The violence and chaos took up much room in the surviving letters Edgar sent to John Allan. In the letters it could be read, that one time a student was hit in the head with a large stone and he pulled a pistol-which apparently was not uncommon. The students misfired but would have otherwise have killed the attacker. At another occasion, a student was bit in his arm. Edgar wrote in a lett...
