EAPoe and Virginia

[Helga]

Today is the day Edgar Allan Poe married Virginia. Who was not just a 13 year old girl but also related to him. Like most of you probably know, some people think that his famous poem Annabel Lee is about her.
They were married in 1836 so today is their 170th anniversary... I think we should all remember them by reading the poem about the beautiful Annabel Lee.

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
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.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me -
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud one night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel 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 the sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

[mono]

How honorable of you to post this, dearest Helga. :)
If I remember correctly, I believe EA Poe and Virginia had familial relations as cousins, as you mentioned, and, I suppose, the times have certainly changed.
Nonetheless, I too must devote a happy anniversary to a brilliant mind, Poe, and a young woman who inspired him immensely to create such beauty.

[combdada]

To a brilliant mind whose works, though with such aesthetic value , had tortured me so much.
I too need to say
happy anniversary !
though over hundred years later
though you were not usually happy.

Still being tortured in contemplating how to present my understanding of your work in front of the cynical teacher.

How sincerely I wish you could be back and explain yourself.
And I believe you will be much happier if so.

anyway,
You are marvellous!

[Tis]

The inspiration or origin of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “Annabel Lee” is not known with any measurable degree of certainty. It is known to have been completed sometime around May of 1849 and was first published by the New York Tribune on October 9, 1849. This was two days after his death and on the same day he was being laid to rest in Baltimore. It was also the same day that the perfidious death notice written by Rufus W. Griswold appeared in the Tribune.

It has been suggested that Edgar knew that this would be his last poem and that this was the reason he had made several copies and distributed them to his friends. As I understand it, some copies were signed, others were not. Personally, I have serious doubts because this position presumes that Edgar was somehow consciously aware of his coming demise and known historical facts simply do not support this assertion. In fact, Poe was scheduled to be married to Sarah Elmira (Royster) Shelton, a childhood sweetheart, on October 17, 1849 and he was known to be lecturing and was feverishly working to get his dream magazine, The Stylus, established and off to a good start.

It is my firm position that the context of time relative to the completion and distribution of “Annabel Lee” is important to understanding just who the poem was intended to represent. The month of May was a short five months following the break off of his engagement to Sarah Helen Whitman and he was preparing to begin a lecture tour sometime in June 1849. It was also prior to his engagement to Sarah Elmira (Royster) Shelton of Richmond with whom he had become reacquainted while on tour in late July or early August in Richmond, Virginia. It is in this time frame; after his broken engagement to Whitman and prior to his engagement to Shelton, that he wrote this beautiful verse while in Fordham, New York, as he recalled the profound love and devotion he shared with his wife, Virginia.

Ironically, many women of the time professed to be the inspiration for the poem. Most scholars, and the one I tend to favor most, Arthur H. Quinn, states in his biography, “Edgar Allan Poe – A Critical Biography” that the poem was written in remembrance of his beloved Virginia. Poe’s close friend and admirer, Frances Sargent Osgood agreed and in a letter to Rufus W. Griswold, Poe’s first biographer, she made it clear that the inspiration for this poem was the love of his life, his wife Virginia. She is quoted as saying,

“… the exquisite pathos of the little poem lately written, of which she [Virginia] was the subject, and which is by far the most natural, simple, tender and touchingly beautiful of all his songs. I have heard it said that it was intended to illustrate a late love affair of the author; but they who believe this, have in their dullness, evidently misunderstood or missed the beautiful meaning latent in the most lovely of all its verses - where he says,

‘A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee,
So that her high-born kinsmen came,
And bore her away from me.’”

Given Poe’s well documented and unquestionable devotion to Virginia, I fully agree. Arthur H. Quinn makes some excellent points in his analysis of this poem regarding its construction and its implications regarding Poe himself. Most important of these is that it answers the question of Poe’s state of mind in early 1849. Any thoughts that Poe had succumbed to his depression and illness or was, in any way, mentally incapacitated is clearly refuted by this poem and his complete mastery of the sonnet form. Quinn points out that the poem is a blend of English and Italian forms and says, “Combining these two forms , he brings to both the climax of the octave and final climax of the Sonnet the undying love for his wife.” Quinn also points out Poe’s use of the word wife in the form of ‘bride’, which is traditionally avoided in poetry due to its “domestic flavor”, is used boldly in “Annabel Lee” and placed in the concluding couplet, the most conspicuous position of the poem. (Edgar Allan Poe – A Critical Biography”, John Hopkins Edition 1998 Pg. 606)

Regretfully, Poe’s own interpretation of the poem would have to be derived from contemporary testimony or his correspondence assuming it could be found at all. To my knowledge, Poe only read and discussed this poem in the context of its form in his lectures and it was first printed only after his death, leaving the interpretation to those who knew him. However, much has been made by others of the fact that Virginia had no “high born kinsman” and the fact that Poe and Virginia were thirteen years apart in their ages and were not children as inferred in the second stanza. These ‘inconsistencies’ were considered evidence that Poe wrote the poem for someone else. This is utter nonsense and I can imagine Edgar and Virginia laughing to this day. Symbolic or metaphorical interpretations must apply on the whole and not in piecemeal fashion. To accept one stanza as symbolically representative and then apply a literal interpretation to another is inconsistent, if not obtuse.

Edgar Allan Poe was first and foremost a poet. It was his passion and of all his works, poetry was his greater love, his life’s ambition and his God given genius. Poe felt that prose should be written to stimulate the mind and stir heart and serve to excite the intellect. But in poetry, Poe believed that poetry should stir the soul and that it have for its object, the stimulation of pleasure and that it serve beauty above all else. Another critical literary principle was his firm belief in unity of effect. This being that the author must predetermine the intent or the idea he wishes to convey in the work and that each and every element of the story/poem be subservient to that singular effect.

Continued in next thread....

[Tis]

Continued from last thread...

He also believed that poetry need not demand truth as a component of creation. That is to say ‘literal truth’ as it relates to factual or literal representation. Poe found “factual truth” to be much to confining and limiting. He further believed that beauty was best served through melancholy although he did part from this principle from time to time. In effect, what could be more elegantly stirring and enduring to man than the loss of a beautiful and beloved woman. Few poems do this better than “Annabel Lee”. In Poe’s essay “The Philosophy of Composition”, an itemized description of how he constructed “The Raven”, Poe details these views very well. Some scholars believe this essay is a fictional account of Poe’s creation of “The Raven”, and perhaps it is, but I believe the references to his poetic principles are factual because he repeated them often and refined them throughout his life.

Realistically, in my view, “Annabel Lee” is a much less complex poem than many of his others. It is a beautiful simplistic sonnet that merely tells the story of love and devotion so profoundly deep, so richly pure and enduring that even the “… angels, not half so happy in heaven, went envying her and me”. In the fifth stanza, he tells us of the enduring bond that had forever linked these two lovers, that no power in Heaven or Hell could ever separate their immortal souls, that they are spiritually and eternally bound. In fact, there is some evidence that Poe believed that the physical intimacy between lovers in life was not as pleasurable, nor as possibly intimate as the spiritual unity of the souls of the lovers after death. It is my interpretation that this is what he intended to convey in the final stanza.

The beginning of the poem establishes and then reinforces a “fairy tale” quality existence on the shores of a remote “kingdom by the sea.” It is important to understand that Poe’s intent here is to convey a depth of innocence, purity and virtue and his use of the term “maiden” continues to reinforce this thought. In fact, so profoundly pure is their innocence that it makes it easier for us to judge the angels of heaven as corruptible and envious of the lovers.

According to some, the rhythm of the poem is established with a blend of iambic and anapestic feet and alternates between tetrameter and trimeter. Periodically, Poe intentionally uses terms that provoke an effect of alarm in the reader. This can be seen in the alliterative value of his use of the words “chilling and killing”. The startling effect of the stressed “ch” and “k” sounds demands the readers attention and provokes a conclusion of injustice done to this loving couple that had no other thoughts than “... to love and be loved...”

In the final stanza of the poem we find that his love and devotion to her is so profoundly enduring and so complete, that he longs to sleep so that in his dreams he may join her, soul to soul, for eternity. For me, at least, his use of the term “night-tide” in the poem suggests the coming of or the yearning for deep sleep when his dreams are most filled with wonderful memories of Annabel Lee. I would also suggest that the name Annabel Lee was selected and used for its youthful tone, its musical quality and the rhythmic support it lends to the poem.

In his book “Edgar Allan Poe – Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance” (HarperPerenial Edition 1992, pg. 401-402), Kenneth Silverman states that the poem expresses his feelings or represents the inspiration of all the women in Poe’s life that he had “loved and lost.” He even goes on to say that the name Allan, his foster family name, was subconsciously and anagrammatically embodied within the poem’s title. Frankly, I see this as a stretch of psycho-babble inappropriately applied to a simple and beautiful expression of enduring love and devotion and wholly inconsistent with the intended effect and common sense.

“Annabel Lee” does not lend itself well to deep analysis because the fundamental meaning is so clearly spelled out in its verses. It is one of his few poems that is laid bare almost from beginning to end. Comparatively speaking, I think it is much less complex than “The Raven” with much less allegory. “Annabel Lee” has much of the music quality somewhat lacking in “The Raven” but, while the theme is similar in both (the loss of a beautiful woman), the intent of these two poems were vastly different and yet each are incredibly effective to his principle of “unity of effect”.

From a human perspective, I think there are very few people that have ever occupied this planet that have not, at one time or another, wished with all their heart to share a love so profound and so exquisitely perfect as that love shared between Annabel Lee and her lover. It is no mere accident of coincidence that Edgar Poe wrote this beautiful poem. It is my opinion that he wrote from experience.