Such evidence as there is can be taken up at a later time. But of one thing we can be sure. If Virginia was the prototype of Eleonora she was not the model for Morella or Berenice or Ligeia."(Quinn, 255)
These feelings can also be inferred from Poe's letters to Mrs. Clemm, Virginia's mother:
I am blinded with tears while writing this letter-- I have no wish to live another hour. Amid sorrow, and the deepest anxiety your letter reached -- and you well know how little I am able to bear up under the pressure of grief -- My bitterest enemy would pity me could he now read my heart -- My last my only hold on life is cruelly torn away -- I have no desire to live and will not but let my duty be done. I love, you know I love Virginia passionately devotedly. I cannot express in words the fervent devotion I feel towards my dear little cousin -- my own darling. But what can [I] say. Oh think for me for I am incapable of thinking. Al [l my] thoughts are occupied with the supposition that both you & she will prefer to go with N. Poe.[...]"(Hart, 9)
Hayes documents on the great number of losses in Poe's life, from his natural mother, to his foster one, and to Virginia, each of these increasing his pain and his obsession:
And there were losses of other women whom Poe had loved, as well: the death of surrogate mother Jane Stith Stanard in 1824, the termination of his romance with young Elmira Royster in 1826, the death of foster mother Frances Allan in 1829. Moreover, as he worked on "The Raven, " he may well have anticipated the death of his "young, gentle, and idolized wife" Virginia: the onset of her tuberculosis occurred three years before the poem was published (and she died two years after it appeared). Finally, there was another critical loss for Poe - the death of his brother Henry, which recalled the death of his mother. In 1829, Poe wrote of the connection, asserting that "there can be no tie more strong than that of brother for brother - it is not so much that they love one another as that they both love the same parent. " (Hayes, 194)
Poe idealized the image of the lost women in his writing, and they became a symbol of beauty that passes away, as it is expressed in his most important poems like, the Raven, the Sleeper, Annabel Lee and Ulalume. In the Raven, for example Poe's emphasis on the word "nevermore" is a token of his obsession with death and the impossibility of resurrection or return:
Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil- prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'"(Poe, 217)
His other poems, like Ulalume evoke the same feeling of absence and desolation. The dialogue between the poet and his psyche in this poem is very significant: the writer seems to be driven by a strange force to the place of burial of his beloved, while he is holing a dialogue with his conscious self. The duality between the unconscious drive that brings his steps to the tomb and the conscious attempt to persuade himself that all is well, is dramatic. The direct dialogue with his psyche, with his unconsciousness is very telling: the poet cannot dominate his obsession with the death of his lover, that attracts him over and over again.
The third major influence on his work was that of his own path or career as an editor. In spite of his success and popularity...
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