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Professor Brenda L. Escudero
English 2327-106
7 October 2017
Damsels of Death:
An Analysis of Death and Women in Edgar Allan Poe’s Literature
We are what we know. That statement couldn’t be any truer when describing Edgar Allan Poe. To understand this uniquely grim and tragic man’s literature you’d have to understand the pieces of his life that resurface time and time again in his work. Almost like a ghost, there are themes within his works that seem to haunt his settings and characters; women and death being the most tightly correlated themes. This essay will analyze the events in Edgar Allan Poe’s life that have inspired his obsession with this dreadfully poetic theme. Possibly one of the most significant dates in our author’s life …show more content…
Poe rarely narrates the voice of the women who constantly make appearances in his work, and examples of this are seen within ‘The Raven” and “Annabel Lee.” Although the women are the centerpieces of the work, their voices are never present. Could this be because he lost the most intimate connection a man could have with a woman at such a young age? He aged learning to appreciate women; however, he never seemed to have learned to connect with them. In “Annabel Lee” he described, “The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me—” (618). This line eludes to this magnificent presence their love and her beauty had over the heavens, but the text is only descriptive of her and not interpretive. A similar theme is seen in “The Raven”, “ Sorrow for the lost Lenore—for the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—” (613). Both women presently passed in this poetry, and both women possessing traits praised or recognized by evangelical …show more content…
His wife Virginia was a victim of consumption, or presently known as tuberculosis. According to a documentary presented on the BBC named Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death and Women, the poem “Annabel Lee” was written around the time that Virginia first fell ill during her marriage to Poe. Poe’s affection towards Virginia was commonly described as an unquestionable love, but their marriage was never recorded to have been consummated. This alludes back to the assumption that Edgar Allan Poe lacked an intimacy between the women in his life and poetry because, although he loves them, he held the on a pedestal as oppose to seeing them as equals. This obsession between women and death that Poe stitches into each of his works appears to be a struggle to understand the events that have happened to him. He’s attempting to romanticize the tragedies that have be bestowed on him, and create
Professor Brenda L. Escudero
English 2327-106
7 October 2017
Damsels of Death:
An Analysis of Death and Women in Edgar Allan Poe’s Literature
We are what we know. That statement couldn’t be any truer when describing Edgar Allan Poe. To understand this uniquely grim and tragic man’s literature you’d have to understand the pieces of his life that resurface time and time again in his work. Almost like a ghost, there are themes within his works that seem to haunt his settings and characters; women and death being the most tightly correlated themes. This essay will analyze the events in Edgar Allan Poe’s life that have inspired his obsession with this dreadfully poetic theme. Possibly one of the most significant dates in our author’s life …show more content…
Poe rarely narrates the voice of the women who constantly make appearances in his work, and examples of this are seen within ‘The Raven” and “Annabel Lee.” Although the women are the centerpieces of the work, their voices are never present. Could this be because he lost the most intimate connection a man could have with a woman at such a young age? He aged learning to appreciate women; however, he never seemed to have learned to connect with them. In “Annabel Lee” he described, “The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me—” (618). This line eludes to this magnificent presence their love and her beauty had over the heavens, but the text is only descriptive of her and not interpretive. A similar theme is seen in “The Raven”, “ Sorrow for the lost Lenore—for the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—” (613). Both women presently passed in this poetry, and both women possessing traits praised or recognized by evangelical …show more content…
His wife Virginia was a victim of consumption, or presently known as tuberculosis. According to a documentary presented on the BBC named Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death and Women, the poem “Annabel Lee” was written around the time that Virginia first fell ill during her marriage to Poe. Poe’s affection towards Virginia was commonly described as an unquestionable love, but their marriage was never recorded to have been consummated. This alludes back to the assumption that Edgar Allan Poe lacked an intimacy between the women in his life and poetry because, although he loves them, he held the on a pedestal as oppose to seeing them as equals. This obsession between women and death that Poe stitches into each of his works appears to be a struggle to understand the events that have happened to him. He’s attempting to romanticize the tragedies that have be bestowed on him, and create