"Edgar Allan Poe: The Spiritual And Emotional Dimensions Of His Love Poetry"

Abstract

The saliant features of Poe’s love poetry can be identified as a form of creativity. To him love was a hysterical experience and his poetry vibrates with the echoes of spirituality. This amorous verse is permeated to its core with an aura of spiritual emotionalism. His sentimental references to women are everywhere haloed with the dominant image of the religiosity of love. Poe’s love experiences in real life were tinctured with the chimerical quality of religious thoughts. In his letters he wants Mrs. Whitman in a “divine trance” to be his “hereafier and forever, in the Heavens”8 and secondly Mrs. Richmond wife of my soul “Not on earth even in Heaven”. Again he writes to Mrs. Whitman, “I notice you were my Helen. The Helen of a myriad dreams.”9 Just afier one month Poe again wrote to Mrs. Richmond, “oh! my dear, my Annie, my dear Annie, my fairy angel, wife of my soul... to be mine forever even in the Heaven”10 Poe’s prose echoes masculine vigor while poetry echoes female tone.