Evermore: Edgar Allan Poe and the Mystery of the Universe

4. The Problem of Love

85 THE PROBLEM OF LOVE 4 The problem of pain and suffering presents a major challenge to monotheism, and Poe felt the problem strongly. On the other hand, Love presents an equally challenging problem for materialism. In a purely material world, it is not difficult to account for pain and suffering, but how do we account for Love? Love formed the central core of Edgar Poe’s life experience. Surprisingly little has been written about Love in relationship to Poe’s works. Much has been written about his view of Beauty, especially in relation to his idea expressed in “The Philosophy of Composition ” that Beauty is the province of poetry and his remarks about the death of a beautiful woman. Poe did not tell all, however, when he spoke about the melancholy sadness of the death of a beautiful woman. For it to have its effect, the death must be of a beloved woman who is beautiful.1 The death of a beautiful villainess does not produce the desired effect. Poe employs a clever trick when writing of lovely women. He barely describes their features at all. He requires the reader to enter the narrative with their imagination and picture the woman themselves, using their own experience of loveliness. In order for it work, Beauty and Love must be universally known, even if only in their absence. For Poe, the reality of Love, Evermore 86 a nonmaterial experience associated with physical persons, serves as a pointer to a spiritual reality from which Love and Beauty come. Love is a multidimensional aspect of human experience, though the English language uses the same word to speak of all these dimensions. In other cultures, however, different words express the various aspects of Love. It is impossible to understand Edgar Poe’s references to Love without understanding the various ways in which he experienced and valued Love. For Western culture, the Greeks provide a helpful framework for understanding the various dimensions of Love.2 Storge refers to the affection between parents and children, and between people and their pets. Philia refers to the bond of friendship. Eros involves sexual attraction and passion. Agape encompasses the realm of charity without thought for return. Unless we recognize that each of these dimensions of Love played an important and complex part in Poe’s life and his writing, we may miss some of the essential connections Poe made between the physical and the spiritual. Poe’s love poetry represents the variety of loves he felt. In “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” “Eulalie,” and “Tamerlane” we find the passion of eros as the driving force. In “To My Mother” and “Elizabeth” we find the calm affection of storge. For the friendship of philia, we turn to “A Valentine to __ __ __,” “To M. L. S.,” and “An Enigma.” Storge: Affection Poe lost both his parents by the time he was two years of age. This loss did not mean, however, that he went without parental affection . If ever a soul experienced love throughout his life, that person was Edgar Allan Poe. Cherished by a mother who died too young, Poe was raised by Frances Allan, who loved him deeply and showed him every affection. Poe also experienced the betrayal of parental affection from John Allan, who turned on Poe viciously after Allan entered into a series of adulterous affairs. Finally, he found the constant affection of his Aunt Maria Clemm, who also became his mother-in-law and surrogate mother. Poe understood the need for affection, and his tales depict both the positive side of affection and affection’s betrayal. 87 The Problem of Love People Poe experienced the depth of affection with Maria Clemm that he had never known from his own mother and that had been lost to him with the death of Frances Allan when he moved to Baltimore and came into the home of Maria, his father’s sister. One of the most sentimental poems of affection ever written came from the pen of Poe when he composed a poem for her, which he entitled “To My Mother.” Few people know it, for it violates all the basic mythology about Poe for him to have written such a poem. It has been printed on Mother’s Day cards, gift boxes, and advertisements, and it reveals Poe’s essential attitude about normal human affection: Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The...