Shaunyell Bobbitt
Cline
English 102
04 November 2011
Edgar Allen Poe: The Deaths That Shaped His Poetry
Edgar Allen Poe is one of the best known poets of the nineteenth century. Most of his poetry and stories have a dark beauty about them that captivates his readers, and inspires his fans to read more and more of his works. Though Poe had many different themes in his writing, the one that occurs most often is death. His obsession with death and dying was inspired by none other than his beloved wife and cousin, Virginia Clemm Poe.
Edgar Allen Poe had a hard life from toddlerhood. He had to watch his father abandon his family, watch his mother die when he was three, and subsequently be put into foster care to a family that could not readily accept him. After gaining his education, and a stint in the army, Edgar found the love of his life. Her name was Virginia Clemm, and she was his cousin. They fell in love while he had been living in her house with her mother, and were married when she was thirteen years of age (The Crystal Reference Encyclopedia). The love that they had for each other was passionate. So much so that in his poem “Eulalie”, it is easy to see that he was completely in love with Virginia.
I dwelt alone/In a world of moan/And my soul was a stagnant tide/Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride (Poe pg. 67-68).
With the intense love he had for his bride, it is only logical that he would be devastated by her untimely death. It was the grief that he endured in his wife’s death that inspired him to write such poems as “Annabel Lee”, and “Ulalume”.
“Annabel Lee”, describes the pain that a lover endures after the death of the one he loves. In the Poe encyclopedia written by Anthony Magestrale and Frederick Frank, says that even though other women that had been in Edgar’s life saw themselves as the subject of “Annabel Lee”, it was in fact written as a remembrance of the death of Virginia, and the love that they once had (Magestral and Frank pg. 21-22). In reading the poem it is apparent that the two subjects involved (the narrator and Annabel Lee), had a love that was intensely passionate and even coveted,
“But we loved with a love that was more than love/ I and my Annabel Lee/ With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven/ Coveted her and me” (Poe pg. 89-90).
In the last stanza of the poem, the Narrator expresses how grieved he feels over the loss of his lover,
“For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams/ of the beautiful Annabel Lee/ And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes/ of the beautiful Annabel Lee/ And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side/Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride/ In her sepulcher there by the sea/in her tomb by the side of the sea” (Poe pg. 90).
When keeping in mind that Poe had written “Annabel Lee” as remembrance to his wife, it is clear that he never truly got over her death, and had become even a bit obsessed with it. The reference to lying beside his lovers grave, and being constantly haunted by her eyes show how he truly felt about Virginia’s death.
Another poem written by Poe that was inspired by Virginia’s death is “Ulalume”. This poem had been written after Virginia’s death, and shows how after her death, Poe struggled with keeping faithful to his wife’s memory. In “Ulalume”, Poe describes how he had been walking with his new love “Psyche”, when they had discovered the entrance to a tomb. When he asks his new lover what was written there, she began to scream “Ulalume”. It is in the tenth stanza that Poe really gives a clear sense of how the discovery of his past lover’s tomb made him feel,
“And I cried: It was surely October/ On this very night of last year/ That I journeyed-I journeyed down here!/ That I brought a dread burden down here/ On this night of all nights in the year/ Ah what demon has tempted me here? (Poe pg. 77)”
The evidence that Poe was actively obsessed with Virginia’s death, and that she was the inspiration for “Ulalume”, is found in Tony Magestrale’s book “The student Companion to Edgar Allan Poe”. Magestrale describes how Poe’s life had been affected when he had decided to see other women after Virginia died. He goes on to explain that less than one year after his wife passed, Poe struggled with the idea of finding companionship in other woman, or to stay single and therefore not muddy the memory of his beloved wife (Magestrale pg.42).
My final example of Virginias inspiration in Poe’s writing comes from Poe’s very famous poem “The Raven”. In the second stanza Poe describes how the narrator had been morning the loss of his love “Lenore”. In the fourteenth stanza, the narrator thinks that he smells perfume likened to incense from a censer. He then begins to cry out from the pain of the memories of Lenore (Poe pg. 68-71). It would seem that “The Raven” was another of Poe’s writings that was inspired by Virginia’s death, and it was, but not in the same ways that “Annabel Lee” and “Ulalume” had. “Annabel Lee”, was not written after Virginia’s death, but was in fact written before her demise. Kevin Hayes, author of the “Cambridge companion to Edgar Allen Poe”, tells how Poe had anticipated his wife’s death, and as a result was inspired to pen “the Rave”. According to Hayes, Virginia Poe had come down with tuberculosis three years before “The Raven” was published. She had subsequently died two years after its publication (Hayes pg.194). If Poe had indeed been actively thinking about the death of his wife before it had even occurred, then it would seem that he was truly obsessed with her death. Personally, imagining the death of a spouse due to their illness years before their death occurs seems morbid and a bit obsessive. The social norm seems to point toward positive thinking when a loved one is ill, even in terminal cases.
In conclusion, the death of a loved one whether a spouse, friend or a family member can be traumatic and very difficult to handle. It is no wonder that Edgar Allen Poe had such a hard time dealing with the death of Virginia Clemm Poe. In his poetry Poe often describes how the death of a lover was unbearable, and how the narrator was haunted by their loves eyes or memories. Knowing how much he had loved Virginia while she was still alive would logically lead to the idea of how distraught he must have been after her death. Even after Virginia’s death he struggled with loneliness and wanting to be able to love another woman, this was made very apparent in both “Ulalume”, and “The Raven”. Perhaps Poe’s reason for wanting to love soon after Virginia’s death was because he wanted to cover his pain. No one can truly know his state of mind at the time. One thing that is clear is he loved his wife immensely, and grieved for her whole heartedly. For Poe, Virginia’s death was his inspiration, obsession, and in the end the one thing that may have kept him from a happy existence.
“Deep in Earth” by Edgar Allen Poe
Deep in earth my love is lying
And I must weep alone. (Poe pg. 72)
Works Cited
Hayes, Kevin. Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allen Poe. First. West Nyack, NY: Cambridge
University Press. 2002. 194. eBook.
Magestrale, Anthony, and Frederick, Frank. Poe Encyclopedia. First. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press.1997. 21-22. eBook.
Magestrale, Tony. Student Companion to Edgar Allen Poe. First. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press. 2001. 11,42,45. eBook.
Poe, Edgar Allen. The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe. First. New York, NY:
Barnes & Nobel Inc. 2006. 67, 68-70, 72, 75-78, 89-90 Print.
“Poe, Edgar Allen (19 Jan. 1809- Oct. 1849)”. The Crystal Reference Encyclopedia. West Chiltington: Crystal Semantics. 2005. Credo Reference. Web. 06 November 2011
