The libel suit, cont'd

Frequent readers of this blog may recall that Poe had brought a libel suit against Hiram Fuller, editor of the New York Mirror and the Evening Mirror. The trial was originally scheduled for September 7, 1846, though it would be postponed. Poe's lawsuit was in response to Fuller publishing a letter from Thomas Dunn English, though English himself was not named in the suit (likely because English didn't have money, but the publication did). Perhaps because of this, English assumed he was safe — so he continued his attacks on Poe.

On September 5, 1846, the Weekly Mirror included the seventh installment of English's serialized novel 1844, or, The Power of the "S. F." This seventh installment introduced a character named Marmaduke Hammerhead, a man described as:

a very well known writer... who aspires to be a critic, but never presumes himself a gentleman. He is the author of a poem, called 'The Black Crow,' now making some stir, in the literary circles... He never gets drunk more than five days out of the seven; tells the truth sometimes by mistake; has moral courage sufficient to flog his wife, when he thinks she deserves it.

In other words, as a trial inspired by English's libelous actions against Poe was about to begin, English continued libeling Poe. Most notably in this excerpt is the accusation that Poe was a wife-beater (at this time, Virginia Poe was an invalid in the last few months of her life).

The Mirror continued as well, apparently unconcerned about the libel suit and even made light of it. A filler published on September 10 included an epigram:

P— money wants to "buy a bed," —
His case is surely trying;
It must be hard to want a bed,
For one so used to lying.

Vindication for Poe would not come for a long time. The trial was delayed until February 1, 1847 (the day that Virginia Poe's obituary was published). Finally, on February 17, the Superior Court returned a verdict in Poe's favor, awarding him $225 in damages and additional court fees. These results were a bit controversial, with various newspapers taking one side or another. Hiram Fuller later published a defense in his own newspaper. But, what about Poe?

To him, it was more important for him to know that he was right, not to broadcast it to others. He left no public response to his victory nor to his shame caused by English and Fuller.

Or did he? Perhaps he left his last jest with no intention of ever taking credit for it. After all, true vindication for Poe was not merely to punish, but to punish with impunity, as he relates in a short story published a couple months after Marmaduke Hammerhead is introduced in English's novel 1844. That last example, readers might note, features a man taking revenge for unspecified insults. At the end of the tale, the narrator admits (boasts?) his revenge has not been discovered for 50 years.

A Poe Valentine's Day

As you spread love, chocolate, and flowers this February 14, keep in mind that Poe got into the spirit of Valentine's Day himself. Here are a few examples:

-An acrostic poem written by Poe's wife Virginia, February 14, 1846

Ever with thee I wish to roam —
Dearest my life is thine.
Give me a cottage for my home
And a rich old cypress vine,
Removed from the world with its sin and care
And the tattling of many tongues.
Love alone shall guide us when we are there —
Love shall heal my weakened lungs;
And Oh, the tranquil hours we'll spend,
Never wishing that others may see!
Perfect ease we'll enjoy, without thinking to lend
Ourselves to the world and its glee —
Ever peaceful and blissful we'll be.

(These are the only surviving words written by Virginia. If it's not enough of a tearjerker, check out this musical rendition by an acquaintance of mine.)

Knowing that his wife was dying, Poe kept up flirtations with other women. The same day Virginia presented the above poem, Poe wrote this to Frances Osgood:

-A Valentine February 14, 1846

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!- they hold a treasure
Divine- a talisman- an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-
The words- the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets- as the name is a poet's, too,
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto- Mendez Ferdinando-
Still form a synonym for Truth- Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

This next one was written to Marie Louise Shew, a woman who had served as a volunteer nurse as Virginia was dying. It is likely meant platonically.

-To M. L. S.--, dated February 14, 1847

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning-
Of all to whom thine absence is the night-
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun- of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope- for life- ah! above all,
For the resurrection of deep-buried faith
In Truth- in Virtue- in Humanity-
Of all who, on Despair's unhallowed bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be light!"
At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes-
Of all who owe thee most- whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship- oh, remember
The truest- the most fervently devoted,
And think that these weak lines are written by him-
By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think
His spirit is communing with an angel's.

Poe was surprised in 1848 when he heard that a poem was dedicated to him at a Valentine's party that year. The author, Sarah Helen Whitman, was very, very close to becoming Poe's second wife. Here is the Valentine poem she wrote for him:

-The Raven, February 14, 1848

Raven, from the dim dominions
On the Night's Plutonian shore,
Oft I hear thy dusky pinions
Wave and flutter round my door—
See the shadow of thy pinions
Float along the moon-lit floor;

Often, from the oak-woods glooming
Round some dim ancestral tower,
In the lurid distance looming—
Some high solitary tower—
I can hear thy storm-cry booming
Through the lonely midnight hour.

When the moon is at the zenith,
Thou dost haunt the moated hall,
Where the marish flower greeneth
O'er the waters, like a pall—
Where the House of Usher leaneth,
Darkly nodding to its fall:

There I see thee, dimly gliding—
See thy black plumes waving slow—
In its hollow casements hiding,
When their shadow yawns below,
To the sullen tarn confiding
The dark secrets of their woe:—

See thee, when the stars are burning
In their cressets, silver clear—
When Ligeia's spirit yearning
For the earth-life, wanders near—
When Morella's soul returning,
Weirdly whispers "I am here."

Once, within a realm enchanted,
On a far isle of the seas,
By unearthly visions haunted,
By unearthly melodies,
Where the evening sunlight slanted
Golden through the garden trees—

Where the dreamy moonlight dozes,
Where the early violets dwell,
Listening to the silver closes
Of a lyric loved too well,
Suddenly, among the roses,
Like a cloud, thy shadow fell.

Once, where Ulalume lies sleeping,
Hard by Auber's haunted mere,
With the ghouls a vigil keeping,
On that night of all the year,
Came thy souding pinions, sweeping
Through the leafless woods of Weir!

Oft, with Proserpine I wander
On the Night's Plutonian shore,
Hoping, fearing, while I ponder
On thy loved and lost Lenore—
On the demon doubts that sunder
Soul from soul forevermore;

Trusting, though with sorrow laden,
That when life's dark dream is o'er,
By whatever name the maiden
Lives within thy mystic lore,
Eiros, in that distant Aidenn,
Shall his Charmion meet once more.

Virginia's funeral

Virginia Clemm Poe died on January 30. Her obituary in the New York Daily Tribune her death "of plumonary consumption, in the 25th year of her age, VIRGINIA ELIZA, wife of EDGAR A. Poe". A young Walt Whitman also made a notice of her death in the Brooklyn Eagle. On February 2, 1847, her funeral was held and she was buried (for the first time).

Not having a lot of money at this point, Poe turned to his landlord, John Valentine, in Fordham, New York. The Valentine family had taken an interest in the Poes and were willing to have Virginia buried in their family plot in a Dutch Reformed Church near the cottage they rented to the Poes (seen in the image at right, the Fordham Cottage is open to the public!). Funeral attendees included Nathaniel Parker Willis, Mary Valentine, Sarah Anna Lewis (presumably), Poe's cousin Elizabeth Rebecca Herring, and possibly Evert Augustus Duyckinck, Cornelius Mathews, and other (then) important literary figures. It was a cold afternoon and Poe wore the great grey coat he was issued at West Point — which had previously been used as a blanket by Virginia on her deathbed.

It is speculated that it was only a few hours after Virginia's that Poe, realizing he had no image of his wife, commissioned a water color portrait (possibly painted by Mary Louise Shew). For a time, it was believed this, a portrait of her corpse, was the only image of Virginia in existence. Some time ago, however, a more flattering oil portrait was found in the possession of the Herring family.

Mary Louise Shew, a friend who had served as an amateur nurse in Virginia's final days, helped arrange for the funeral. After Virginia's death, she tried to take care of Poe, who was suddenly ill. She also helped make the controversial diagnosis that Poe had a brain lesion or brain congestion — leading to more modern speculation about his death two years and eight months later.

Shortly after Virginia's funeral, possibly a day or two, Poe scribbled out a couplet — the beginning of a poem he never finished:

Deep in earth my love is lying
And I must weep alone

In memoriam: Virginia Clemm Poe

On January 30, 1847, Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe died after a five-year battle with tuberculosis at the age of 24. Though she is often referred to as Edgar Poe's "child bride," it's important to note that after 11 years of marriage, we can presume she grew up a bit.

We don't tend to talk much about her character; not even I have a personal opinion if she was a strong woman, intelligent, artistic, or good at housekeeping. She has sort of been relegated to a background character in the life of Poe. Even so, discussing Poe requires discussion of his wife, and that discussion can be romantic, awkward, confusing, or apologetic. The truth is, yes, Poe married his first-cousin when she was 13 (he was 27). No, it was not unusual to marry your cousin in those days and, from what I've seen, especially among poorer families in the South. But, just to make a point, others who married their first cousins include two signers of the Declaration of Independence (a couple others opted for second cousins), writer H. G. Wells, and (fellow bicentennial) Charles Darwin. As far as the age difference, women did marry young in those days. But, I would quickly point out that Virginia was unusually young for marriage, even at this time period. I can't dispute that.

Of course, there has been dispute as far as the kind of relationship Mr. and Mrs. Poe shared. The doting husband called his wife "Sissy" as a nickname, and many scholars believe they shared more of a sibling partnership. Many also believe that the couple never consummated their marriage (especially if you believe "Annabel Lee" stood in for Virginia as the "maiden there lived whom you may know"), while others suggest that they held off until a more appropriate age.

My personal opinion is that Poe was madly in love with his wife. But, to Poe, love was not physical but poetic and, because he existed on this higher plane of artistic passion, his relationship can't compare to our modern definitions of marriage. Even if their relationship was sexual (which I believe is possible, but I fall into the camp that believes it didn't happen right away), it was not the primary part of their marriage. This relationship was based on love - and there's nothing wrong with that, especially for a 19th century coupling. When she died, of course he was devastated.

Nevertheless, there is a rumor that Poe never got over the death of his wife, and that her sickness and death defined all of his writing and forced him to become an alcoholic. I would dispute some of these rumors, if you don't mind.

First, though much of Poe's writing emphasizes death and, more specifically, deaths of women, not all of them do. One of his most famous, for example, "The Tell-Tale Heart," shows no signs of illness or of women dying. Further, Poe's use of the theme of dying women is for artistic purposes - as explained in my last blog post on "The Raven." As far as Poe never getting over Virginia's death, well, there is likely some truth to that - just as they say today, you never truly stop loving someone. But, Poe was looking for his second wife even while Virginia was still alive and, in some cases, was encouraged by Virginia to do so.

Drinking, of course, is always a contentious discussion with Poe. I would argue that his drinking problems first manifested as a university student (anything unusual about college students experimenting with alcohol?) and, sure, he drank throughout his life. But, it was after Virginia's death that Poe joined a temperance society and took a vow of sobriety. We can argue about this for quite some time and never really find the source of Poe's drinking, how much he drank, how affected he was by alcohol, etc.

All this aside, here's to Virginia Clemm Poe, to whom this blog is respectfully dedicated today.