I need three real characters of Edgar Allen Poe characters and i need to know who those characters related to....in his life like...Lenore is his wife, lenore...and i need two more... please help!!

-- Anonymous, March 16, 2003

Answers

Poe is not always coding real names and sometimes when starting with real people he universalizes it way beyond the original. Usually when he actually addresses a particular woman he usues her real name(Fanny Osgood, Helen Whitman)

Lenore no, don't go there. It MIGHT be one of those referring to his disappointed romance with Elmira Royer but he goes way beyond anything personal. "The Raven" could go back that symbolic "death" as well.

"To Helen"(the first) Mrs. Stanard, a boyhood mentor who died, inspired and encouraged the young Poe to write and study the classics. references directly about her although the theme is very idealized.

"To Helen" the seond, later poem when poe was courting her and remebering how he first saw her. Both were poets exchanging poems.

"Eulalie" and "Ulalume" representing Virginia his wife, alive and dead respectively. Idealized as well. The more idealized the less the woman is described.

"Annabel Lee" is a problem probably an amalgram of several courtships going on, his general idealized theme and his constant mood since the death of Virginia.(I was a child, she was a child, Hop Frog and Trippetta- evokes Virginia I believe.)

"To Annie" Annie Richmond.

"To My Mother" To his mother in law, Mrs. Clemm.

Other poemns some with encrypted names as charming gifts to woman friends. He liked nicknames and the trend for romantic sounding, poetic names favoring the group of Helen names(Helen, Ellen, Eleanora, Lenore)for the idealized woman theme.

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2003