In this tale we see then the unconscious influence which an earlier love held on Poe. It is a tale of dead love as much as of death.
Mary enters into another famous tale where her presence was never suspected, in Eleonora. It has been thought that Eleonora was the poet's wife, Virginia, but the tale of the "Valley of Many Colored Grass" refers to the happy days when he courted Mary, and the sad change when Eleonora died, that took place in the Valley, describes the poet's grief when Mary jilted him. The story appeared in 1841 in The Gift for 1842. Whether it was written before Virginia burst a blood vessel, in 1841, as is likely, or afterwards, matters not. For in the tale, which was certainly written six years before Virginia died, the narrator thinks of a second marriage after the death of Eleonora, and Poe was surely not thinking of a second marriage in 1841. We recall in the tale that the narrator had vowed never to love or marry again after he lost Eleonora, but he does—he marries Ermengrade, who is really Virginia, since Eleonora is Mary. The narrator believes he hears the voice of Eleonora forgiving him for his marriage. The poet tells us then in this tale that in spite of his great love for Mary he was able after her rejecting him, still to care for and marry some one else.
The strongest passion of his youth was Mary and not Miss Royster. When he became engaged later in life to Miss Royster it was due to worldly reasons, and he once broke the engagement. I believe that the fact that Poe and his wife were cousins and that she burst a blood-vessel gave rise to the theory that Eleonora, who is a cousin of the narrator, was Virginia.
Another earlier tale of the period of Assignation and submitted in the prize contest at Baltimore, and hence written by 1833, is Morella. In Morella, Mary is still present in the person of the first Morella, whom the narrator marries and who dies; again we have a symbol of Mary's dead love. Morella leaves him a daughter also called Morella, and this may be a description of the paternal feeling Poe entertained at the time for Virginia, who was then 11 years old. In the tale the second Morella also dies.
The sadistic story, Berenice, of the same period, also has memories of Mary.
These stories with fanciful names like Ligeia, Eleonora, Morella, Berenice and the tale Assignation were given us by the poet from the depths of his unconscious; love repressions starting from the death of his own mother in infancy, the loss of his foster mother, Mr. Allan's first wife, the grief at the death of his friend's mother, the quarrel with Mr. Allan's second wife, the love affairs with Miss Royster, and Miss Herring, but especially the rejection by Mary entered into the influences, which made up not only the poems and tales previously mentioned, but much of his later work. He was neurotic because he lost his mother in infancy and had many love disappointments. The only tale where he gives an account of the love emotions is in The Spectacles, written before or about 1844, and here he drew on his experiences, probably chiefly from memories of Mary.
Now comes a question that has always puzzled his critics: Why was the poet so occupied with the subject of death of fair ladies or of depicting a man bereaved by the death of his love. Many replies have been made, but not altogether satisfactorily. The most common answer is that he was so occupied with the subject because he lost his own wife, Virginia. Some uninformed critics are of the belief that poems like The Raven and The Sleeper, tales like Eleonora and Ligeia, were written after his wife died. As a matter of fact these, with the exception of The Raven and possibly Eleonora, were written even before Virginia burst a blood-vessel. There is evidence to make us believe that Ulaume, which is taken to refer to the death of his wife, was at least commenced before Mrs. Poe's death, in January, 1847; Annabel Lee was, however, written after that date. Nearly all of Poe's short stories, too, had been published by that time. He was occupied with the subject of death long before he married; he mourns the death of women in Lenore, Tamerlane, and The Sleeper, all written before he was twenty-two years old. His first tales, Assignation, Ligeia, Morella, deal with the subject of women's deaths. So those who believe that he may have imagined Virginia dead after she burst a blood-vessel, and hence wrote as if she had died, are not right. For all the stories of this nature with the doubtful exception of Eleonora were written before she burst a blood-vessel. The Raven and The Conqueror Worm, two poems occupied with death, were written before her death but after her hemorrhage.
Poe tells us in his Philosophy of Composition,—an unconvincing account of the origin of The Raven,—that he regards the death of a beautiful maiden the most poetical and melancholy topic. But there were factors that made him think so, and these were the deaths of women he loved and the rejections by girls with whom he was infatuated. He lost his mother when he was three years old. Mrs. Lannard, who is said to have inspired To Helen, and who was "the first pure ideal love of my soul" (Poe) died when he was fifteen. (She is also said to have inspired The Sleeper.) He lost Mrs. Allan, his foster mother, to whom he was greatly attached, when he was twenty. He had also lost three sweethearts by the time he was twenty-three. These he looked upon as departed or gone from him. In the Bridal Ballad, written probably on the occasion of the marriage of Miss Royster, he refers to himself as a dead lover. The poems To F——, To One in Paradise, and To Zante, as I showed, were most likely written to Mary, though he may have had the others in mind, who either died or were gone from him. All this shows the strong infantile influences on Poe in damming up of his libido. He was, therefore, occupied with the subject of death not because of Virginia's illness or death, but because he lost, before he was twenty-three, six girls or women. His interest in the subject made him hope death could be conquered or stayed, and hence we have Ligeia and The Facts in the Case of Valdemar. There is a philosophic treatment of death in The Colloquy of Monos and Una.