Video Poe

Here are several of the better tributes to Poe found on the wild, wild world of You Tube. (This is the first time I've tried to embed videos, so it will be...interesting, to say the least, to see what happens. Pray for me, good people, pray for me.)

First, there is Jeff Buckley's deservedly well-known rendition of "Ulalume." Buckley does some odd things with the rhythm of the poem, which only adds to the unsettling quality of his performance. It's very understated, too, which I like. I'm heartily tired of recitals of Poe's works where the reader feels the need to put exclamation marks! after every! phrase! believing! that heightens! the dramatic! effect!!! And by the end! they're practically! SCREAMING!!!!

I can do no more than say I think Edgar himself would approve.





Here's Virginia's Valentine poem set to music, with the title, "Ever
With Thee." The results are quite charming, although the selection of images in the video is sometimes a bit odd.





A bit of nostalgia: This is a tune I first heard when I was only two or three years old, and even then it left a great impression on me--a very young Joan Baez singing "Annabel Lee."

The Name of Annabel Lee (Part Two)

4. Frances Sargent Locke Osgood

In Osgood's case, it has not been suggested that she herself was the inspiration for "Annabel Lee," but that one of her poems was. In 1983, in the journal "Studies in the American Renaissance," Buford Jones and Kent Ljungquist published a strange little article, "Poe, Mrs. Osgood, and 'Annabel Lee,'" where they made the argument that Osgood's "The Life-Voyage" was a source for Poe's work.

This remarkably silly thesis was quickly demolished in a rebuttal by John E. Reilly ("Mrs. Osgood's 'The Life-Voyage' and 'Annabel Lee,'" "Poe Studies," June 1984.) Despite this, it still has a few adherents among Osgood's modern-day champions, who fondly cherish a revisionist fantasy of her as an unappreciated feminist genius. However, all one has to do is read "The Life-Voyage"--something, incidentally, I do not really recommend doing, as it is a lengthy and quite tedious experience--to realize that it is as unlike "Annabel Lee" as anything calling itself a poem could possibly get.

5. Sarah Anna ("Stella") Lewis

After Poe's death, Mrs. Lewis was reputed to have said that she was the poem's inspiration, with one version of the rumor claiming that she had heard this directly from Mrs. Clemm. It is not clear whether we have anything first-hand from Mrs. Lewis herself about the matter, but in any case, the idea of a connection between "Stella" and "Annabel Lee" is something not even Poe scholars have been able to take seriously. It is highly questionable that even Mrs. Lewis did.

6. Nancy Locke Heywood ("Annie") Richmond

The similarity of Mrs. Richmond's adopted first name to that of Poe's heroine has led some of the more fanciful biographers to speculate on a possible connection. However, "Annie" herself found no personal significance in the poem. In fact, she wrote John H. Ingram that Mrs. Clemm always maintained that "Annabel Lee," a poem which Mrs. Richmond claimed not to "understand," was written for Virginia. She added rather puzzlingly, "I think myself, that it has very little significance, if it was intended for anyone else, but his bride."7. Nobody

Chief spokesperson for this theory was Susan Archer Talley Weiss, who claimed that during the summer of 1849, Poe made a point of telling her that "Annabel Lee" (which was, of course, unpublished at the time,) had no connection to his late wife, or any other woman.

8. Everybody

Kenneth Silverman opted to cover all the bases by suggesting the poem "represents all of the women he loved and lost."

9. Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe

A couple of the nuttier disciples of Freud have made hazy speculations that Poe had his long-lost mother in mind when he wrote the poem. Which brings us into pop-psychological waters I refuse to even wade into.

10. Maria Scott

That ever-industrious fabulist Susan Weiss at times blithely ignored the story she gave in #7 above, instead stating that "Annabel Lee" was this Miss Scott, an early love of Poe's who entered a convent and died young. (Weiss also wrote that at the age of ten, Poe wrote "To Helen" for this same girl.) Needless to say, there is no other evidence whatsoever that "Maria Scott" ever existed.

11. Mary J. Leland

I discussed this particular historical atrocity here.

12. Annabel Lee Ravenel

This is among the plethora of Poe legends that has absolutely no basis in reality, but refuses to die a decent death. In Charleston, South Carolina, there is a local legend (started, I suspect, by tour guides who had a few too many,) that when Poe was stationed there during his army career, he had the obligatory ill-fated love affair with a local belle, which, years after her untimely death, inspired his famous verses. Although the Ravenels were a genuine Charleston-area family, there is no evidence Poe knew any of them, and, as with the case of Mrs. Weiss' Maria Scott, there is no reason at all to believe anyone named "Annabel Lee Ravenel" ever so much as walked the face of the earth. But why let a little detail like that keep a good story down?

13. Jane Stith Stanard

Mrs. Stanard reputedly acted as friend and mentor to Poe during his boyhood, and her tragic descent into insanity and death when he was fifteen was believed to have been a serious blow to him. She was supposedly the inspiration for his first "To Helen" poem--which would be curious, as the lines are so obviously describing Helen of Troy, and have no discernable connection to the ill-fated Richmond matron. One or two literary critics have suggested that Mrs. Stanard was also the model for "Annabel Lee," (and, like most of the other women on this list, "Lenore,") but any possible link is far too tenuous for serious consideration.

So, there you have it; a veritable Army of Annabels. I am not aware of any stories arguing that the poem was inspired by Maria Clemm, Elizabeth Ellet, his landlady at 85 Amity Street, or Catterina, but if there are such claims, please do not tell me about them.

(Images courtesy New York Public Library, Wikipedia.)

The Name of Annabel Lee (Part One of Two)

"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..."

The debate over which woman--or women--inspired what is arguably Poe's most beautiful poem has raged with remarkable vigor practically from the moment "Annabel Lee" first appeared in print, only days after the author's death.

It is a tribute to the unique emotional resonance of the poem that such a controversy even exists, considering that it is so overtly allegorical, rather than autobiographical, and there is certainly no valid evidence that Poe himself gave clues about any personal significance it may have had for him. (Poe was never one to offer explanations for any of his writings--in fact, he seemed to rather enjoy mystifying his readers with an air of, "It's none of my concern if you're too dull-witted to know what I mean.") However, this has not stopped Poe fans from linking his fable of the "kingdom by the sea" with virtually every woman he ever knew--something that, I suspect, would have both amused and disgusted him.

The leading actresses who have auditioned for the role of "Annabel Lee" are, roughly in order of popularity:

1. Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe

Poe's wife, is, by far, the woman most identified with the poem, and, while one Poe scholar perhaps became overly partisan when he said it was "sacrilege" to associate any other name with "Annabel Lee," she is the only logical choice if one wishes to read the lines as having any basis in fact.

The first to publicly state that the poem was a tribute to Virginia was Frances S. Osgood, in the "Reminiscences of Edgar A. Poe" she published in "Saroni's Musical Times" in December 1849. (Rufus W. Griswold later reprinted her account in his "Poe memoir.") Osgood's stated aim was to counter a current rumor that the poem was written in memory of a "late love affair" of the poet's. (It is not known if she was referring to Sarah Helen Whitman, Sarah Elmira Shelton, Sarah Anna Lewis, or some other lady--who hopefully was not named "Sarah.") Osgood commented disdainfully that "There seems a strange and almost profane disregard of the sacred purity and spiritual tenderness of this delicious ballad, in thus overlooking the allusion to the kindred angels and the heavenly Father of the lost and loved and unforgotten wife."

Whatever Osgood's motives may have been in making this assertion--whether it was out of spite against one of these other women, a desire to show intimate knowledge of the love between Poe and his wife, or simply a wish to give Virginia her due--she may have, for once, told the truth. Aside from the probability that Virginia was, as Mrs. Osgood conceded, his one genuine love, of all the women Poe knew, she was the only one who had "no other thought than to love and be loved by me," she alone was his "bride," and, of course, unlike the other leading candidates, she was dead when he wrote the poem. (The "wind" that "came out of the cloud, chilling/And killing my Annabel Lee" could be interpreted as a reference to Virginia's tuberculosis.) "Annabel Lee" is very possibly simply a lovely piece of imagery with no specific personal implications, but if Poe did intend it as autobiography, applying it to anyone other than his late wife is pure absurdity.

Not that this has stopped many people from trying.

2. Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton

Mrs. Shelton is the only other "Annabel" whose candidacy has developed any sort of following, in spite of the fact that her sole claim to the role rests upon a 1901 article by Edward Alfriend, "Unpublished Recollections of Edgar Allan Poe." Alfriend, who claimed to have been a friend of Shelton's (even though he gave her first name as "Elizabeth,") stated that she told him that Poe had assured her that she was his inspiration for the poem (and that she was the "lost Lenore," to boot!) Alfriend's piece is among the most easily-ridiculed Poe articles--it is packed from beginning to end with statements that are both easily disproved and manifestly ludicrous. It is impossible to read his "recollections" without coming to the conclusion that he didn't know the first thing about either Poe or Mrs. Shelton.

There is absolutely no other valid reason to link La Royster to "Annabel Lee," (and it should be noted that in the interview Mrs. Shelton allegedly gave Edward V. Valentine in 1875, she stated that Poe never addressed any poems to her.) Nevertheless, she still has her champions, most notably Thomas O. Mabbott.

Mabbott, as was often his habit in many other matters, gave varied and uncertain opinions about the poem's origins, but he was fondest of naming Mrs. Shelton as the poem's inspiration--largely, it seems, because of his strange antipathy towards Virginia Poe. For whatever reason, he swallowed whole all of Susan Archer Talley Weiss' unfounded slurs against Virginia and her marriage, making it impossible for him to accept the possibility that Poe had loved his wife enough to immortalize her memory in verse. (Mabbott was also under the impression that Poe wrote the poem during the brief period of his 1849 reacquaintance with Mrs. Shelton. He seemed oblivious to the fact that "Annabel Lee" was completed by the early spring of that year--months before Poe reconnected with his old neighbor.)

Here I must pause for an admittedly off-topic rant: What made all of Mabbott's pronouncements regarding Virginia all the more exasperating is the fact that--like other Poe biographers, most notably Hervey Allen, George Woodberry, and Frances Winwar--he seldom directly named Weiss as his source. He would instead write statements along the lines of, "Rosalie Poe's foster-brother John Mackenzie said..." or "Rosalie said..." or simply relate anecdotes without giving any source at all. (He often did this trickery with other sources as well.)

This was completely misleading Mabbott's readers. What he quoted was, rather, what Mrs. Weiss--a chronicler who made King Rufus himself seem a model of probity--alleged these people said to her. (Susan Weiss is also, lest we forget, the same person who asserted that Elmira Shelton instigated Poe's murder.) The fact is, we have no statements about Poe that come directly from any of the Mackenzies--I suspect they had only a formal social acquaintance with him--and nothing of any interest or importance from Rosalie, who made it clear to John H. Ingram that she had virtually no personal knowledge about her famous brother--she did not even know she had siblings until she was "a good size girl." In short, Mabbott, Allen, Winwar, Woodberry, et al, relied on uncorroborated and easily discredited hearsay. Mabbott's boast that, unlike others who wrote about Virginia, he was relying on the words of people who were close to Poe, while dismissing first-hand testimony from those who actually did know both the Poes, all of whom lauded Virginia and testified to the couple's devotion to each other, witnesses such as Maria Clemm, Lambert A. Wilmer, George Lippard, Mayne Reid, George R. Graham, Thomas C. Clarke and his daughter Anne, Mary Brennan, William Gowans--even Rufus W. Griswold and Frances S. Osgood, for crying out loud--makes one wonder if Mabbott wasn't permanently possessed by the Imp of the Perverse.

Mabbott's copious and incredibly influential writings (the question of how he obtained this influence is a mystery I will likely never solve) were usually not even bad scholarship--they were bad historical fiction.

3. Sarah Helen Power Whitman

What makes Mrs. Whitman stand out among the parade of Annabel wannabes is that she herself was the sole promoter for her connection to the poem. Sometime after Poe's death, she conceived the notion that "Annabel Lee" was written to her as a "peace offering." She insisted the poem disproved the common belief that Poe went to his grave harboring negative feelings towards her. (Although, in a letter to Rufus W. Griswold written two months after Poe's death, Mrs. Whitman evinced no personal knowledge about the origins of "Annabel Lee"--in fact, she even asked Griswold if he had any idea who had inspired the poem. He offered no opinion on the subject.) To the end of her life, Mrs. Whitman tried, with increasing desperation, to convince the world of her link to "Annabel Lee," and how it proved she had a special place in Poe's heart--despite the fact that she must have been aware that few people, if any, believed her. Of all the parade of possible Annabels, Mrs. Whitman's exercise in self-delusion is undoubtedly the saddest and most pitiful of the lot.



Next post: The Annabel Also-Rans.

A Precursor to "Annabel Lee?"

"Annabel Lee" is arguably Poe's most well-loved poem--certainly, it is one of the most controversial. Like "The Raven," it quickly took on a mythology all its own, spawning endless warring schools of literary guessing-games regarding its creation. Claims for possible sources and inspirations for the poem have ranged from the sublime (the theory that it was a memorial to his wife Virginia) to the ridiculous (to the end of her days, poor Sarah Helen Whitman kept up a dogged campaign to convince the world that that the ballad was a response to her "Stanzas For Music"--some florid lines that resembled "Annabel Lee" about as much as "The Tell-Tale Heart" is reminiscent of Mother Goose. Evidently, she saw this as a way of proving that--contrary to what most of her contemporaries believed--Poe had not gone to his grave disdaining her. Unfortunately for her, this obsession was seen as something of a joke, even among her friends.) Wightman F. Melton, writing in the "South Atlantic Quarterly" in 1912, fancied he saw parallels between "Annabel Lee" and the prose poem "Eleonora" (a work that has also been linked to Virginia Poe,) which were interesting, if completely speculative.

One of the most curious proposed sources for "Annabel Lee" is a brief poem called "The Mourner," which appeared in the "Charleston (SC) Courier." The author, who only went by the initials, "D.M.C," wrote:

"How sweet were the joys of my former estate!
Health and happiness caroll'd with glee;
And contentment ne'er envy'd the pomp of the great
In the cot by the side of the sea.

With my Anna I past the mild summer of love
Till death gave his cruel decree,
And bore the dear angel to regions above
From the cot by the side of the sea!"

As unmemorable as these lines may be, the similarities to Poe's poem in theme, cadence, and the name of the lost beloved are easily apparent, and the phrase "side of the sea," is repeated in what is generally considered to be the final version of "Annabel Lee." Certainly Poe himself, if he had seen "The Mourner" appear in print after he had written "Annabel," would be screaming of plagiarism loud enough to wake the dead. (Not that it ever took much for him to do that.) However, one must also agree with the critic who commented--assuming, for the sake of argument, that this obscure verse was any sort of inspiration to Poe's own work--that he lost nothing of his poetic reputation by this theory, as it would have been a case of Poe transforming a "buried nugget into fine gold." Also, "The Mourner" is merely a typical specimen of the literary conventions of the era, and as a whole is so obviously inferior to "Annabel Lee," that one cannot connect the two poems with any confidence.

There are more objective difficulties with crediting "The Mourner" as any sort of inspiration. The poem appeared in the "Courier" in 1807, two years before Poe was even born, and so far as is known, never appeared in print again. How in the world could this little-noticed and quickly-forgotten old poem ever have come to Poe's attention at all? During his term in the army, Poe was briefly stationed in Charleston in 1827-28. Certain of his biographers speculate--on very thin evidence--that he must have taken a deep interest in the theatrical career of his parents, who had often performed in that city. Putting these threads together, it has been proposed that while in Charleston, Poe took the opportunity to look up back files of local papers, for the purpose of reading old notices of Eliza and David Poe. Might not, it has been proposed, "The Mourner" have come to his attention in this fashion?

While I bow to the imaginative ratiocination of this theory, it is simply too full of "what-ifs" to be relied upon. In any case, it is hard to picture the teenage Poe taking time from his military duties to do a bit of amateur genealogical research in the local archives, stumbling across this limp poem by an unknown author, making an indelible mental file of the verse, then never pulling it out for use until twenty-two years later.

On the whole, it is most likely that the similarities between "The Mourner" and "Annabel Lee" are the result of coincidence, a quirk of fate--"only this and nothing more." A strange quirk of fate, it is true, but then Poe's history is positively overflowing with those.

As an aside, it is hard not to see the obsession with identifying supposed "sources" and "inspirations" of Poe's poems and stories as a subtle way of demeaning him as an artist in the same way the biographers and novelists have more overtly demeaned him as a human being. The implied message sent by all this inventive literary detective work is this: "Poe was incapable of writing anything on his own. Those works the world thinks are so brilliant? Nothing but borrowed goods!" It is nearly as tiresome as the similar mania for interpreting everything he wrote--"Annabel Lee" being one of the most notable examples--as mere autobiography.

In the man's own words: "...under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified--more supremely noble than this very poem--this poem per se--this poem which is a poem and nothing more, this poem written solely for the poem's sake."

Annabel Lee Leland - Another Cautionary Tale

In March 1851 the Milwaukee "Daily Free Democrat" copied a death notice that had recently appeared in a New York newspaper:

"DIED-On Monday evening, Feb. 24, of inflammation of the brain, after an illness of 38 hours, ANNABEL LEE, only daughter of Mary J. and T.C. Leland, aged 9 months and 2 weeks."

The "Free Democrat" said of this sad little obituary:

"Connected with the above announcement, is a piece of beautiful history." The paper went on to say that the Lelands "had always cherished the warmest affection for the late gifted and unfortunate Edgar A. Poe. Their house had been a refuge for him when all others were shut against him, and in the bitterest hours of trial and suffering, he had found in them warm and steady friends."

The paper explained that Poe's close relations with the family resulted from a "sincere affection" he felt for Mrs. Leland in their youth. After he left school, they parted ways for many years, and during their separation, he received the mistaken impression that she had died. "But the bright dreams inspired by her remained with him, and he told us that her angel form often rose up before him in his degradation, darkness, and ruin...In one of these moments, when frenzied by intoxication, the lovelight of his early days appeared before him--he thought how it was untimely quenched, and left him in the darkness alone, friendless, helpless and hopeless, he seized his pen and wrote those wild sweet strains of "Annabel Lee"--and 'the cloud that came out by night'--

'Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.'"

Soon after writing this poem, he chanced to meet his old sweetheart, seemingly returned from the grave, and married to another. But she and her husband both befriended him, and when their only child was born, named her after the lovely tribute to the mother. "And here we see that this child is dead. The cold sod too, is above the form of him whose life was clouded by suffering, and whose sun went out in darkness. Lightly may it rest on his bosom, is the prayer of those who loved him, and lasting will be the remembrance of the proud and gifted one."Not a dry eye in the house, eh?

This elegiac little story was widely reprinted in newspapers across the country, establishing the previously unknown Mary J. Leland as one of the innumerable candidates for the honor of having inspired "Annabel Lee." At least two Poe scholars who discovered this column assumed that Mrs. Leland was the "Poe's Mary" of Augustus Van Cleef's infamous 1889 magazine article. (I'm surprised John Evangelist Walsh failed to write a book arguing that Poe was the real father of Mary Leland's baby.)

What is unfortunately overlooked is the fact that, shortly after this story became public, the Lelands paid to have a "card" published in a New York paper "stating that they are not the persons who showed kindness to Edgar A. Poe--though they wish they were--that they never had the pleasure of his acquaintance." The Lelands, unsurprisingly, expressed their curiosity about how their names came to be so colorfully linked with the late poet.

The "Free Democrat" soon printed a sheepish retraction, muttering that they had not expected "the article would be generally copied." They absolved the Lelands of all responsibility for the story.

In other words, the editor of the "Free Democrat," in need of lively copy for his newspaper--or perhaps he just had had a liquid lunch--saw the death notice from New York with the Poe-inspired name, and allowed himself to have way too much fun with it.

An alarming amount of accepted information about Poe has been built on no firmer foundation. His biographies have repeated as fact many old newspaper and magazine articles that are as uncorroborated and unbelievable as the Leland saga. And the "Free Democrat" was hardly unique in its methods for filling column space. As this article shows, dramatic tales about celebrities were always highly popular, and journalists were supremely indifferent about whether they were true. And, of course, then as now, there were many people eager to gain their fifteen minutes of fame through a publicized "brush with greatness"--whether they could do so legitimately or not. If the Lelands had not had the integrity to publicly refute this story, the world would never have known of the hoax.Poe biography could use more of the honesty shown by the Lelands. Two of the more egregious examples of this need are the cases of Kate Bleakley and Mary Andre Phelps. Bleakley's story surfaced in 1903, with numerous newspapers carrying the story of the elderly lady who had known Poe in early 1830s Baltimore. (The young poet was said to have written her the "letters and verses" that are obligatory to all Poe reminiscences of this stripe--none of which was extant, of course.) The problem is, none of the stories about her was identical. In some versions of her tale, she became romantically involved with him before he entered West Point. In others, she met him after he left the Military Academy. Depending on which account you care to believe, she knew him either as "Edgar Allan," or "Mr. Poe." In one newspaper, they had been engaged. In another, they were merely sweethearts, with what Sarah E. Shelton would call a "partial understanding." Yet another quotes the lady herself as saying that she and Poe had been nothing more than acquaintances, with no hint of romance, and she warmly remembered his future wife Virginia Clemm as "one of the sweetest girls of her day."

And this dog's breakfast of contradictory silliness, simply because it had the virtue of appearing in print, achieved immortality for Miss Bleakley through the inclusion of her name in that well-respected reference source, "The Poe Log"!

As for Mrs. Phelps, she was a woman who, in 1900, gave a newspaper interview where she described her family's close friendship with the Poe household when they lived in Fordham. Thomas O. Mabbott, Hervey Allen, George Woodberry, and other Poe biographers used her story as serious source material--largely focusing on Phelps' claims of overhearing Maria Clemm telling her mother that she--Mrs. C.--had "made the match" between Poe and Clemm's daughter Virginia. (As if this would be something Poe's mother-in-law would boast about to one and all.)

As in the Bleakley case, anything that casts doubt on her story's credibility is ignored by these "historians." For instance, Mrs. Phelps--who supposedly knew Poe so intimately--stated that Virginia had died many years before Poe and Mrs. Clemm moved to Fordham. (She also imagined that "Muddy" had been Virginia's nickname.) Elsewhere, she said that her father, William Andre, was a direct descendant of the Major Andre who had been hanged as a spy during the Revolutionary War. (She was evidently unaware of the fact that the Major had no direct descendants, and that a study of her family's genealogy establishes that she had no relation to this historical figure at all.) Just for good measure, she also claimed to have been a childhood friend of opera star Adelina Patti.

In 1893, the "Chicago Herald" carried an interview with Mrs. Phelps' mother, Aurelia Andre, that managed to outdo even her daughter's inventiveness. Mrs. Andre was also under the impression that Poe had become a widower long before his arrival at Fordham. She went on to say that the name of Poe's wife--who, according to this authoritative source, had been Mrs. Clemm's niece--was "Lenore." She described Poe as having been raised by Mrs. Clemm from boyhood, and that her brother, "Eddie's" uncle, "had him educated."

And then the interview got truly weird.

And these were two women whom Mabbott, Allen, Woodberry, etc., treated as unimpeachable witnesses!

In other words, either the reporters who published these stories learned all they knew about journalism from studying back files of the Milwaukee "Free Democrat," or the Andres were publicity-hungry liars. Or both.

The cases of Leland, Bleakley, Andre, and Phelps are merely representative of many, many similar stories associated with Poe. There is the published account of "Mrs. Jane Clarke, of Louisville, KY" (a woman who, so far as can be ascertained, never even existed,) Mary Winfree (ditto,) Mary Bronson DeLuc (who claimed that Poe wrote "Ulalume" for her father's use as an elocution exercise--?!?--the letter Poe allegedly wrote to her father on the subject deserves a post all its own. I'd wager good money it is one of the clumsiest forgeries I've ever seen...)

The credibility given to these stories says a lot about the depths to which Poe scholarship can sink.