Celebrate Poe

In this blog, I would like to look at one of the writer’s most personal works - the original version of the 1829 poem, Alone – a poem that the writer could have written about his youth. There were actually serious doubts concerning the work’s authenticity, but now it is widely accepted as one of the most revealing of Edgar’s works.

This poem has meant a great deal to many people because so many of us can identify at one time or another with the feelings that Poe touches on in this work. Many people think Alone points to the heartaches of the writer’s childhood, and his feelings of difference.  The poem climaxes with the words “of a demon in my view.”

What is this demon?  Is it spiritual?  Is it alcohol?  And by the way, we do not believe that Edgar A. Poe was an alcoholic – he was far too prolific in his writings.  But he did have an unnatural reaction to alcohol where he would loose control. So alcohol was therefore like a “demon” to him.  Or does “demon” in this poem refer to the cruelty of his foster father John Allan?  Does it refer to the writer’s loneliness and despair? Feelings of regret and pain?  An uneasy feeling of longing that he cannot define?  Like the greatest writers, Poe created works that can be read on so many different levels with multiple meanings.

The original version of Alone (from the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore website)

From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were — I have not seen As others saw — I could not bring My passions from a common spring — From the same source I have not taken My sorrow — I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone — And all I lov’d — I lov’d alone — Then — in my childhood — in the dawn Of a most stormy life — was drawn From ev’ry depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still — From the torrent, or the fountain — From the red cliff of the mountain — From the sun that ’round me roll’d In its autumn tint of gold — From the lightning in the sky As it pass’d me flying by — From the thunder, and the storm — And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view —

E. A. Poe This blog entry deals with material on my CD Christmas With Edgar Allan Poe – and remember that the Allans, as Episcopalians, went to a church that  would have sung Christmas carols until January 6.

Readers of this blog can get the above CD at a greatly reduced price at:

http://Kunaki.com/Sales.asp?PID=PX00Z72XZ0

It may come as a surprise to many of us today to learn that he played the flute.  The master of dark stories enjoyed playing the flute.   Actually at one time the flute was considered appropriate only for men to play – I know it was thought very unladylike in colonial America for women to play the flute or any wind instrument where there was a danger that they would contort their faces into unladylike positions, and this might negatively affect their marriage prospects.  George Washington even writes about this – and ladies of the period played the harpsichord, harp, and later piano.

Edgar Allan Poe played the flute in duets with his teenage sweetheart Elmira Royster from Richmond, while she played the piano on carols such as God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. Unfortunately Elmira’s father did not approve of her relationship with Edgar, and intercepted their letters to each other while Edgar was at the University of Virginia. Elmira marred a Mr. Shelton, and Edgar married his cousin, Virginia Clemm.  Music was always very important to the writer, and he played duets with Virginia Clemm playing the piano. Coventry Carol was especially popular then. One night when Virginia was playing the piano (though some reports say the harp,) she began spitting up blood, and Poe cared for her 5 years until her death.  Until her illness, Poe would play the flute almost every night with Virginia. It is not hard to imagine them playing Silent Night.)

While Edgar and Virginia would have definitely celebrated Christmas influenced by the newly emerging Victorian attitudes, such Victorian era Christmas carols as We Three Kings, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and It Came Upon a Midnight Clear were not published until after Poe’s death.

Thank you for reading this blog entry, and in the near future I intend writing about the writer’s youth, and the poem that he wrote later in his life about his teenage crush.  And I would love to hear from you at celebratepoe@gmail.com

I would like to end blog with the first of many references in this series to the writer’s mysterious death, Years after Virginia’s death, Edgar and Elmira met again.  She was now a widow, and Edgar and Elmira rekindled their romance, and were to be married at St. John’s Church in Richmond. But the writer tragically died in Baltimore a few days before their wedding.

I have a podcast to accompany this blog that ends with a fanciful, but sad version of Auld Lang Syne (a Scottish melody by Robert Burns) In this piece I tried to be accurate to the instruments of the writer’s adult world (flute, piano, and harp), emphasize the melody, but also hint at the tragedy in his life. In addition to Poe seeing his wife die after a long period of illness, he experienced his father deserting the family while Poe was a child, Poe’s mother dying when he was two years old, his only brother dying at 39 from alcoholism, being disinherited by John Allan, and constant poverty.  The fact that the writer triumphed over the many tragedies in his life to become “America’s Shakespeare” is proof of his genius. If Christmas is a time when man can surpass what it is to be ordinary, Edgar Allan Poe unknowingly celebrated the spirit of Christmas every day.  And as we enter a new year with its hopes and opportunities, one cannot help but think that this must have been the way Edgar unconsciously approached each day.  The more I study Edgar Allan Poe, the more I see that not only could he write horror stories better than anyone, but was a writer with a deep hope for a better future.

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