Edgar Allan Poe loved and respected women. He spent most of his time in their company, and sought solace and peace in their companionship. How did his experiences with women influence his writing?

-- Anonymous, September 02, 2001

Answers

"Experience" in this case is the kind of relationships Poe had from the tragic variety to the social circles. Women made up a great part of the readership and minor literati of America at that time. Many of his acquaintances were poets. His loss of his mother had him attaching to surrogates such as his aunt(who died), a friend's mother Mrs. Stannard(who died). His romance with Ellen Royster(which failed) and the death of his beloved Virginia were part of that pattern. This is interwoven with his choice of poetic themes revolving around unrequited, lost loves, dying women. And of course his partly flirtatious use of romantic love themes(in his melancholic way)had his listeners swooning. The distant, yet spiritual connection that dominates his poetic theme also applied to this relationship with his female circles. In the bounds of gothic experimentation many taboos could be hinted at yet still remain in the bounds of extreme propriety, something the French poets might find mystifying or Puritanical.

-- Anonymous, September 04, 2001