Who is lenore and what was her role in Poe's life? When did she die? and how old was she?

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2003

Answers

It is a poetic fiction chosen for its musical properties(as other poets did too). Lenore can vaguely stand for various women but does not even correspond to nicknmames Poe commonly attached to his women friends(Ellen, Helen, Annie, Sissy) Lenore apepars a few times in different poems, the meleancholy ryme with no more, shore, etc. suitable to the tragic nature of her death and ghsotly memory. In some poems and stories Poe refers to a lost love as "dead" to him, so even this is a poetic device. Another dead woman seems borrowed from another story.

You COULD delve into these various women, real or literary, but it was Poe's intention in his best poems to transcend the mere identity of an actual woman and purposely made the details vague, even different from reality("Eulalie" is written for Virginia possibly, but the rare physical descriptions are not exactly her.) People are much put off by a poet writing romantic verse that seems personal but is detached in ways we don't immediateley understand.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2003