none is greater than this uncloseting of thought into the worldâs brilliant, perilous present. I think of him whenever I set to work on something worthy. And there he is also, avuncular and sweet, but firm and corrective, when I am below the mark. What we bring forth, he has taught me as deeply as any writer could, is predictable.
But let him have the last word. In his journal he wrote:
I have confidence in the laws of morals as of botany. I have planted maize in my field every June for seventeen years and I never knew it come up strychnine. My parsley, beet, turnip, carrot, buck-thorn, chestnut, acorn, are as sure. I believe that justice produces justice, and injustice injustice.
The Bright Eyes of Eleonora: Poeâs Dream of Recapturing the Impossible
1.
In Poeâs stories and poems we hear continually about compulsion, terrors loosed by the powerful upon the weak (or the powerful components of the mind upon the weak components of the mind); we hear about plague, and tortures, and revenge. But none of these elements does more than forward the real subject of Poeâs work, which is the anguish of knowing nothing for sure about the construct of the universe, or about the existence of a moral order within itâanything that would clarify its seemingly total and imperial indifference toward individual destiny.
Poe is no different from any of usâwe all choke insuch vapors, somewhat, sometimes. A normal life includes the occasional black mood. But most of us have had some real enough experience with certainty, which helps us to sustain ourselves through passages of metaphysical gloom. While Poe had none. Not little, but none.
This lack disordered him. It is not a spiritual lack, but rather a lack of emotional organization, of confidence. And not self-confidence, which is already a complicated asset, but a lack of confidence in the world entire, and its benevolent as well as malevolent possibilities. In the deepest sense, Poe was without confidence in a future that might be different from the past. He was, forever, reliving an inescapable, original woe.
At the same time he was both a powerful constructor of narrative and a perfect acrobat of language. He was also a man of enormous courage. With almost superhuman will he wrote his poems and his storiesâI almost want to say
he wrote and rewrote his story and his poem
âtrying to solve the unsolvable and move on. But he never moved on. He never solved anything.
2.
His mother, Eliza Poe, an actress, died when Edgar was two years old. She was twenty-four. It was a pitiful finishto a miserable story: Eliza Poe was penniless, consumptive, and abandoned by Edgarâs father, whose occasional and itinerant occupation was also acting.
In Richmond, Virginia, where Eliza died, Poe was taken to live with the John Allan family, perhaps by the whim of Frances Allan, who had no children and had witnessed the death of Eliza. The relationship between Poe and John Allan, a successful merchant, was perpetually and mutually difficult. Though he took the familyâs name, Poe was never legally adopted.
Poe became friends with a woman named Jane Stanard, the mother of a schoolboy friend. She was a strange, closeted, not too steady figure. Even as their friendship deepened, Jane Stanard sickened, was declared insane, and died. Frances Allan also had never been robust. When Poe was twenty years old, and away from home, Frances Allan died. It was a separation without closure, since John Allan chose not to summon Poe home in time for a last meeting before the final and implacable silence of death.
In 1834, when he was twenty-five, Poe married his cousin Virginia Clemm; she was thirteen years old. Does the future seem ensured? Eight years later, while Virginia was singing, blood began to run from her mouth. It was, it is fair to say, consumption. In 1847 Virginia died. She was twenty-five.
Poe had two years to live. With terrifying gusto, he drank his way through
But let him have the last word. In his journal he wrote:
I have confidence in the laws of morals as of botany. I have planted maize in my field every June for seventeen years and I never knew it come up strychnine. My parsley, beet, turnip, carrot, buck-thorn, chestnut, acorn, are as sure. I believe that justice produces justice, and injustice injustice.
The Bright Eyes of Eleonora: Poeâs Dream of Recapturing the Impossible
1.
In Poeâs stories and poems we hear continually about compulsion, terrors loosed by the powerful upon the weak (or the powerful components of the mind upon the weak components of the mind); we hear about plague, and tortures, and revenge. But none of these elements does more than forward the real subject of Poeâs work, which is the anguish of knowing nothing for sure about the construct of the universe, or about the existence of a moral order within itâanything that would clarify its seemingly total and imperial indifference toward individual destiny.
Poe is no different from any of usâwe all choke insuch vapors, somewhat, sometimes. A normal life includes the occasional black mood. But most of us have had some real enough experience with certainty, which helps us to sustain ourselves through passages of metaphysical gloom. While Poe had none. Not little, but none.
This lack disordered him. It is not a spiritual lack, but rather a lack of emotional organization, of confidence. And not self-confidence, which is already a complicated asset, but a lack of confidence in the world entire, and its benevolent as well as malevolent possibilities. In the deepest sense, Poe was without confidence in a future that might be different from the past. He was, forever, reliving an inescapable, original woe.
At the same time he was both a powerful constructor of narrative and a perfect acrobat of language. He was also a man of enormous courage. With almost superhuman will he wrote his poems and his storiesâI almost want to say
he wrote and rewrote his story and his poem
âtrying to solve the unsolvable and move on. But he never moved on. He never solved anything.
2.
His mother, Eliza Poe, an actress, died when Edgar was two years old. She was twenty-four. It was a pitiful finishto a miserable story: Eliza Poe was penniless, consumptive, and abandoned by Edgarâs father, whose occasional and itinerant occupation was also acting.
In Richmond, Virginia, where Eliza died, Poe was taken to live with the John Allan family, perhaps by the whim of Frances Allan, who had no children and had witnessed the death of Eliza. The relationship between Poe and John Allan, a successful merchant, was perpetually and mutually difficult. Though he took the familyâs name, Poe was never legally adopted.
Poe became friends with a woman named Jane Stanard, the mother of a schoolboy friend. She was a strange, closeted, not too steady figure. Even as their friendship deepened, Jane Stanard sickened, was declared insane, and died. Frances Allan also had never been robust. When Poe was twenty years old, and away from home, Frances Allan died. It was a separation without closure, since John Allan chose not to summon Poe home in time for a last meeting before the final and implacable silence of death.
In 1834, when he was twenty-five, Poe married his cousin Virginia Clemm; she was thirteen years old. Does the future seem ensured? Eight years later, while Virginia was singing, blood began to run from her mouth. It was, it is fair to say, consumption. In 1847 Virginia died. She was twenty-five.
Poe had two years to live. With terrifying gusto, he drank his way through
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