Why did Poe seek Knowledge of the afterlife in his writings?

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2001

Answers

Without being an amateur psychologist I think it seems safe to say something was missing from Poe's ability to deal with death. The mourning process is there but somehow there is a denial, a haunting, a yearning and at the same time a repulsion and denial.

It is as if he wants the spirits to guide him to heaven and hope and then tryies to escape them and get on with his life. The passion is deeply conflicted therefore and Poe's intense dedication to rational discoveries constantly struggles with this greatest of mysteries behind a tantalizing but impenetrably dark curtain.

-- Anonymous, December 05, 2001