Evermore: Edgar Allan Poe and the Mystery of the Universe

2. The Problem of Suffering

31 2 THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING 2 By temperament and habit, Edgar Allan Poe had a cheerful and optimistic disposition. Like everyone else, however, Poe’s life had highs and lows during which he responded appropriately. During periods of tragedy or loss, Poe experienced bouts with grief. In moments of injustice, Poe expressed righteous anger. On the whole, Poe’s life could be called happy. He had his share of disappointments and tragedies, but he also succeeded at his only real ambition—to become a significant poet. Like most of the people of the world, Edgar Allan Poe wondered about the problem of suffering. Why do the innocent suffer? Why does pain and death stalk the lives of everyone? This question haunted the Buddha and Job. It lay in the background of the work of Poe’s contemporary Charles Darwin. For most people, the question does not represent merely a philosophical curiosity but an existential dilemma. The same could be said for Poe. He experienced the problem of suffering. The child of actors before motion pictures made the celebrity of actors near worshipful in American culture, Poe was orphaned in 1811 when only two years old. Only the strenuous insistence of several ladies in Richmond upon their influential husbands made it Evermore 32 possible for Poe’s mother to be buried at the edge of the churchyard of St. John’s church, where Patrick Henry had made his famous “give me liberty” speech on the eve of the Revolution. Poe and his younger sister Rosalie were taken in by two families of Richmond: the Allans and the Mackenzies. Their older brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, was sent to Baltimore to live with their grandfather, General David Poe. Having loaned his fortune to the patriot cause during the Revolution, General Poe lived in impoverished circumstances in Baltimore awaiting the government’s willingness to repay the loan. Love and Affection Young Edgar Poe made his home with Frances Allan and her husband John Allan, a Scottish-born merchant in Richmond who engaged in trade with Britain. Mrs. Allan’s sister Ann Moore (Aunt Nancy) Valentine completed the household. The War of 1812 wrecked John Allan’s business, so after the war, he took his family with him to London for five years in an effort to rebuild his trade. Though not wealthy, the Allans had a comfortable, middle-class life. In Richmond they lived for a time in the rooms above the warehouse of the firm of Ellis and Allan in Shockoe Bottom beside the James River. In England they lived for a time in Stoke Newington, a pleasant village near London where Cowper had lived. Young Edgar attended Dr. Bransby’s Manor School in Stoke Newington from 1817 until 1820. John Allan’s attempts to revive his business did not succeed, and the family returned to Richmond in June 1820. Having lived almost half his life in England, the eleven-year-old boy had seen things and heard tales that would stimulate his imagination for the rest of his life. He sailed the Atlantic twice, providing vivid material for “MS. Found in a Bottle,” “The Oblong Box,” and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. On trips to Scotland to visit Mr. Allan’s relatives, Poe would have seen romantic landscapes, ruined manor houses, and a rich array of customs and behavior that would ornament his poetry and tales. At the Tower of London he would hear the dark stories of Henry VIII and the killing of his wives, Richard III and the murder of his little nephews, and the Tower 33 The Problem of Suffering ravens. According to legend, if the ravens ever leave the Tower, the British monarchy will fail; therefore, the wings of the ravens are clipped so that they may flit but never quit the Tower. Upon returning to Richmond, the Allans spent the summer with John Allan’s business partner Charles Ellis, who lived on the hill above Shockoe Bottom, and settled into a new house near the Ellis family on Clay Street at the end of the summer. By all accounts of those who knew him as a child, these were happy days for Edgar Poe, though it was hardly a time of luxury and extravagance for the Allans. John Allan’s debts continued to accumulate and his properties were mortgaged to the hilt. The family lived with Scottish frugality and young Edgar learned...