The most Poetical Topic: Edgar Allan Poe and the Death of a Beautiful Woman

Proceed into this crypt with caution, and beware the spoilers that lie ahead for the following short stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe: Berenice, Morella, Ligeia, Eleanora, The Oval Portrait, The Black Cat, To One in Paradise, The Raven, Lenore, Ulalume, Annabel Lee, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, Eulalie.

The Women Tales

It's no secret that Edgar Allan Poe enjoyed depicting the deaths of beautiful women, rather than exploring what they got up to while alive. It was in his 1846 essay, The Philosophy of Composition, that he expressed his belief that 'the death... of a beautiful woman' is 'unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world'. Prior to this, Poe had already written all four of his famous 'women tales' by 1841: Berenice and Morella were both published in the April 1835 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger, while Ligeia was published in 1838 and Eleanora in 1841. All four of these tales revolve around that poetical topic Poe described in The Philosophy of Composition.

In the women tales, we learn very little about the beautiful women before they die. All we are told about Berenice is that she used to be 'agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy' before she fell ill. Similarly, Eleanora is described as 'artless and innocent', but we do also learn that she had a possessive side, due to her lamentations before her death that her lover, the story's narrator, might fall in love with someone else after she dies. 

Meanwhile, Morella and Ligeia are portrayed as intelligent, scholarly women. Morella's 'powers of mind were gigantic' and Ligeia's knowledge 'was immense, such as I [the narrator] have never known in a woman'. We learn that, prior to her death, Morella was interested in the works of German philosophers, while Ligeia's passion was for 'metaphysical investigation'. Interestingly, both Morella and Ligeia seek to educate their male counterparts, proving themselves more learned and educated than their companions.

This is the extent of our knowledge of what these women were like when they were alive, and in death, only Eleanora seems to get a happy ending. Morella and Ligeia experience strange resurrections, while Berenice is subjected to very dodgy dental surgery. Eleanora, like Berenice and Ligeia, dies of illness, but she returns to her lover as a ghost and blesses his union with a new woman.

The Body Count Rises

Beyond the women tales, dead women appear in a plethora of Poe's tales, including The Oval Portrait, The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Black Cat. They also appear in his poems: To One in Paradise, The Raven, Lenore, Ulalume and Annabel Lee, to name a few. However, these poems differ from the women tales because the women tales explored (albeit briefly) the lives of the women before their untimely passing. All of the above poems deal solely with the aftermath of a woman's death. (A poetical topic indeed.)

The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Mystery of Marie Roget, two of the earliest examples of detective fiction, both revolve around Poe's detective, C. Auguste Dupin, solving the murders of women. However, Poe wrote three stories about Dupin's investigations, and the third one, The Purloined Letter, involved a female character who survives the entire tale: the Queen of France. It is a shame, therefore, that she is never shown on page.

Eulalie, an Outlier

Beyond The Purloined Letter, there are other works by Poe that feature women who always remain alive and well, such as Eulalie from the poem/bridal song Eulalie, whose marriage to the poem's narrator allows him to overcome his miseries and woes. Nevertheless, the dead women outnumber the living.

Life Influencing Art

We don't know for certain where Poe's fascination with beautiful dead women came from, but it is often speculated that the interest stemmed from his real-life experiences. He married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, in 1836, and she died of tuberculosis in 1847. While this particular death could explain some of Poe's later works involving dead women, it does not explain the women tales, the last of which was published in 1841, a year before Virginia Clemm's tuberculosis symptoms began manifesting, and six years before her death. Instead, Poe's earlier works involving dead women are believed to have been inspired by the deaths of other women in his life: his mother, Eliza Poe, died of tuberculosis (like Virginia Clemm) when Poe was only two years old, and his foster mother, Frances Allan, died of an unknown illness in 1929 when Poe was twenty years old.

Poe wrote women who were beautiful, clever, curious, kind, forgiving, and loving. He wrote women who were scholars, with intellectual prowess surpassing that of their male companions. He wrote women who died. A lot. And sometimes, he wrote women who came back from beyond the grave. 

And, very, very occasionally, he wrote women who lived.

SOURCES:

• Belton, Robert J., 'Edgar Allan Poe and the Surrealists' Image of Women', Woman's Art Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1, (1987), pp. 8-12

• Poe, Edgar Allan, 'The Philosophy of Composition', accessed via the Poetry Foundation, (2009)

• Stovall, Floyd, 'The Women of Poe's Poems and Tales', Studies in English, No. 5, (1925), pp. 197-209