Edgar Allan Poe: His Doomed Romance With Sarah Helen Whitman

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Are you ready to taste the demon toast? Okay. Needless to say, I'm King Loki. Some people call me Daniel Sokolov. This is Demon Toast, the official podcast for Death Wish Poetry magazine. We cover horrific and gothic literature and the people behind it with me are my co hosts, ca, who also, you know, produces the Unlearned podcast. And Adrienne, who is an incredibly talented painter. She does take commissions and writes for the Horror to Culture website. How you guys doing? [00:01:19] Speaker B: Peachy keen. [00:01:21] Speaker A: Awesome. Yeah. So tonight we're talking about two people, one person. This I don't know, I've never heard of him. It's Edgar Allan Poe character. [00:01:28] Speaker B: I mean, you did have a co worker that had never heard of Edgar Allan Poe. So that's actor. [00:01:34] Speaker A: It's a wild. Yeah, it's unfortunate, you know, I think he's from a Batman comic. I've got Batman Nevermore back there. I don't know, you might notice, I think he created Shadow the Hedgehog. I don't know. All joking aside, Edgar Allan Poe is the king. We all love him. He's the author of the Raven, creator of the detective story Murders of the Rue Morgue. Classic. Read it. [00:01:55] Speaker B: Ligia is my favorite. [00:01:57] Speaker A: Ligia is great. Ligia is great. August Dupas, the first detective character like that, you know, Sherlock Holmes is directly based off of him. Amateur detective. He was a poet extraordinaire. The writer of some of the most classic, seminal, beloved horror stories ever written. In case you know his name, not his work, which I highly doubt. A few essentials. The Fall of the House of Usher, which is also, incidentally, the name of Netflix series you should watch. [00:02:25] Speaker B: Mike Flanagan is amazing. [00:02:28] Speaker A: Midnight Mass is the Superior. [00:02:31] Speaker B: It is what Salem's Lot should have been. [00:02:33] Speaker A: Yes, that's exactly where I was going. I know. Midnight Mass, the superior Salem's Lot. Me and Adrian have a joke that the recent Salem's Lot is Annabelle's Lot. Annabelle's Lot, directed by. It's, you know, it's Salem's Lot directed by the director of Annabelle and Annabelle Creation. The classics. You know, great film. [00:02:50] Speaker B: The movie almost had me. I almost loved it. And then it killed itself. [00:02:54] Speaker A: It could have been worse. [00:02:56] Speaker B: It really. You know how I feel about it. I wrote a whole thing about it. It's awful. [00:03:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Speaking of Stephen King, I mean, I mean, Poe's going to be a likely. He's likely going to be a recurring subject on this podcast. You know, his is the immortal soul of gothic and modern horror literature. And most, if not all, modern writers with a macabre in this strange trace their literary legacy right back to him. You know, that includes Mr. King and Rice. Neil Gaiman, R.I.P. i know. [00:03:25] Speaker B: That's another story for another time, though. [00:03:27] Speaker A: We'll get to him. Don't worry, we'll cover that. It's a terrible thing. Yeah, yeah. Even frauds like James Patterson and Richard Layman, they reference Mr. Po. And it's not surprising that the moody, self destructive Raven man inspired them all. He's half of our focus tonight. The other half is none other than the subject of the longer poem titled To Helen by Po. You may have read it. We'll be covering it tonight. And possibly the gorgeous and ever popular poem, Annabelle Lee. You've all read it and if you haven't, what's wrong with you? Sarah? Helen Powers Whitman henceforth referred to as Helen, as she liked to be called. [00:04:05] Speaker B: Thank you for using her original last name. The fact that it was Power, I feel like had so much magic to it. I was like, of course it was. [00:04:15] Speaker A: Got it from her dad, I believe she did. You know, I mentioned her to my father and he was like, oh, was that a Will Whitman's old lady? And I'm just like, different Whitman. All these people are probably related, but. [00:04:26] Speaker B: You know, they were intellectually related. [00:04:30] Speaker A: Well, they were Both transcendentalist, that is true. Or wrote in that format, but yeah. Anyway, Mr. Poe courted her and nearly married her in 48, less than a year before his death in October of 9th, 1849. Poet, transcendentalist, spiritualist and general cool kid, Sarah would have slotted right in with the modern poetry scene. She wore a wooden coffin on her necklace as a memento mori. She had been widowed in 1833 after five years of marriage. Her husband, John Winslow Whitman, poet, and hilariously the editor of something called the Boston Spectator and Women's Album, which didn't really publish women's writing, left her with no children and oddly only allowed her to publish her work under her middle name, Helen. When he did publish her, despite her town of Providence, which is gorgeous, by the way. It's in Rhode Island. [00:05:19] Speaker B: That's where I was born. [00:05:20] Speaker A: Oh, really? I didn't know that. Fascinating. [00:05:25] Speaker B: In January. Like her, no less. I know. I was like, she's the 19th and I'm the 11th. I was like, oh my God. Yeah. [00:05:34] Speaker A: Anyway, Providence skewed towards the more progressive side of the culture wars of the day. You know, we'll get to that. But her love for Goethe, Byron, Shelley, all those guys, those romantic guys and other controversial and scandalous poets was a black mark on her. She was encouraged by her overbearing mother and writer friends to keep her interest on the down low, which, in typical bad fashion, she really didn't bear in mind women's suffrage wouldn't come until 69, when Wyoming would be the first state to grant women the right to vote. These were really great times to live in. Clearly. [00:06:06] Speaker B: Okay, but, like, reading about her today and, like, going over my notes and stuff, like, dude, she was so much more. Like, Transcendentalism was like, they were all for. Like, they were abolitionists. They were female rights. Like, it was like, a whole thing. And the fact that PO was like, fuck that shit. Like, they literally had the same beliefs as the paraphyte artists. It's literally the same manifesto. [00:06:32] Speaker A: Fascinating. [00:06:33] Speaker B: I know. I was looking it up today, and it was like, yeah, the paraphylites were like, let's see, what do I have written here? Reality, spiritualism, and freedom. And then nature. Right. Like, it was like, respect for nature. And the Transcendentalism, their whole, like, thing was individualism, nature and spiritual exploration. Like, it was literally, like, hand in hand. Which explains the whole artistic movement that was happening, because it was all happening at the same time. [00:07:08] Speaker A: Do you feel like they got there by a different route? Because Transcendentalism, like, grew out of Unitarianism? [00:07:14] Speaker B: Well, Unitarian did it, or did one? I thought Unitarian Unitarianism. Unitarianism came from Transcendentalism. [00:07:25] Speaker A: I mean. No, because the people who were writing transcendental shit were. They were all these Unitarian weirdos, you know? [00:07:32] Speaker B: Okay, well, what the Unitarian Church was and what it is, I think they took the transcendentalism and they turned it into something beauty. Because literally their entire ideas right now are just focused on kindness and love and being free to seek whatever spiritualism that you need or you feel connected to and respect, you know? [00:07:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, Mrs. Whitman was sort of one of them. Like, the thing is that. Is that, like, on one hand, you had Protestantism and Catholicism fighting. Right. [00:08:05] Speaker B: Mm. [00:08:06] Speaker A: And, like, that. That could persist to this day. I mean, like, people still don't really trust Catholics. I don't. I don't really. You know, I'm a Jew. I don't know. [00:08:14] Speaker B: Obviously, we don't want. [00:08:16] Speaker A: Yeah. See, this is why I said, I. [00:08:18] Speaker B: Think this is the time where you need to Catholicism, and it's weird sort of guilt and the way that it turns people makes things really interesting. [00:08:27] Speaker A: That's true of most forms of sex of Christianity, though. Right. [00:08:30] Speaker B: Catholicism is totally different. It operates on, like, a whole different level. Like, you have to write down and go into confession. You have to confess and if you miss anything, like you're gonna pay for it. God won't accept it. It's literally. Yeah, cna ca. And I know, like it's a thing. They omit something that's considered a lie. Like if you just forgot, you're a liar. [00:08:56] Speaker A: God damn's all liars. [00:08:58] Speaker B: I know that's a thing. Like, it's literally like. Yeah, Catholicism is interesting. [00:09:03] Speaker A: Well, that's awesome. [00:09:03] Speaker B: Afghan rice. [00:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, that is another topic for another day. I mean, Protestantism, Catholicism on one hand and where was I? Yeah. Unitarianism on the other hand. So think about the Unitarian people, right? And Adrian was just talking about it, of course, but we're going to give her the floor again in a minute. But the big thing about it was they were fixated on dispelling with biblical literalism. Their way of looking at it was that yes, the Bible talks about miracles and all this junk. However. However they believed coming off of idealism and I guess the pre Raphaelite movement, apparently according to Adrian. Adrian is a painter, she knows her shit. [00:09:44] Speaker B: So I, I do know about pre Raphaelite art. That might be the only. I actually know. So we'll just Give me that. [00:09:50] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. But the big thing is that they saw nature and all of reality as encompassing God's spirit, if you will, or whatever they were. Like, look, miracles break the natural order. Ergo, Mr. Jesus, he didn't need to be doing miracles. He could just come down and like his superior wisdom would have proved he was God. So we don't need to take the Bible literally. And like, you know, this is coming off a time where like biblical archaeology hasn't taken off. I mean, like that's kind of what tipped me off that the Bible wasn't true. I, you know, I went to yeshiva. I was in an ultra orthodox, like. [00:10:27] Speaker B: Well, and the thing about the Bible was before it was ever written down, it was like from mouth to ear for hundreds of years. Like it was just storytelling and you know how that goes. We all played the phone game when we were kids. Like you get a message down here and by the time it gets to the end of the line, it's a completely different, like different sentence. Yeah, like not everything. Like nobody wrote anything down for hundreds of years, so who knows what was actually there. [00:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean like if you look at it, I mean, like, you know, there are similarities to Babylonian mythology, Sumerian, that anunnaki sense. Yeah. 400 year old man building a boat and getting two of each kind. [00:11:10] Speaker B: Okay. No, that's not the part that I'm either, like, who cares about the 400 year old man building a boat? [00:11:16] Speaker A: The rabbis told me that dinosaurs were just the nephilim, so whatever. [00:11:19] Speaker B: Oh, wow. As that call it. [00:11:22] Speaker A: I know. I was like, I saw the bones. They're real. They're like, oh, yeah. Well, those are the super people that you know. [00:11:27] Speaker B: Because God has a sense of humor is what I was told. [00:11:30] Speaker C: Because God has a sense of humor. [00:11:33] Speaker B: God has a sense of humor. My God, my mom. [00:11:35] Speaker A: It's pretty great stuff. Anyway, anyway, getting back to the topic at hand. Part of dispelling with biblical literalism was looking at this concept of the Trinity and going, that isn't even in the Bible. They're reading into that. Yeah. And that's where they become Unitarians, where they're like, why would God have three heads? Or whatever it is the Catholics believe, You know, like three. Three people. God, he has a son. He has a son. That's also him. [00:12:00] Speaker C: That's also him and supports him too. It's like, I have a deep knowledge. [00:12:06] Speaker A: Of the Old Testament. You can consider me an Old Testament scholar because back in yeshiva we read it in Hebrew and I just have encyclopedic knowledge of it. I don't really. I didn't read the New Testament. I don't with that. I know that. I know the Jesus. I know the. The weird dream logic of why he had to die. It makes no sense. [00:12:24] Speaker C: So insane. [00:12:25] Speaker B: I remember seeing the illustrated thing when I was in, like, Bible school and I had perfect attendance and they gave me this Bible and it was like, Abraham sacrificing Isaac or whatever. [00:12:36] Speaker A: And it's a great story. Yeah. [00:12:38] Speaker C: So traumatic though. [00:12:39] Speaker B: But why would God ask him to do that? [00:12:41] Speaker C: Like, because he has a sense of humor. Adrian, it's super funny. It's a prank. Gotcha. [00:12:51] Speaker B: It was a prank. Ca. I love you. [00:12:55] Speaker A: It's true. It's true. [00:12:57] Speaker C: We're laughing super hard, you guys. [00:13:00] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks, God. Bible forever. I was five. I saw that picture and I was like, I don't understand. And no one could explain it to me to where it made sense. How does the God of love do that, though? Like, how would you. [00:13:11] Speaker A: After the flood, he's like, oh, my God, what did I do, guys? Here's a rainbow, bro. I'll never do that again. All right. That was super fucked up. I don't know. [00:13:18] Speaker C: I would never hurt you again like that. Just in other ways. Just in other ways. [00:13:24] Speaker B: Just in other ways. [00:13:26] Speaker C: He just says, never like that. [00:13:29] Speaker A: He's pretty wacky. [00:13:30] Speaker C: He's pretty sadistic. [00:13:31] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, Yahweh is probably a storm deity, but anyway. Yeah, so, yeah, there was a whole Semitic pantheon that there's, like a reverse. [00:13:41] Speaker C: Movement right now of people worshiping Ashira. [00:13:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I've heard of that. My issue is that none of it survived. So you're. [00:13:50] Speaker C: You're reconstructing it with less than worship her than Yahweh. [00:13:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Why worship anything, though? Yeah. Live your life without regret. But fair enough. Yahweh sucks. [00:14:04] Speaker C: We can all agree on that. Even the Unitarians. No, they were just like, you know what? [00:14:10] Speaker B: Because they don't even believe in God anymore, Right? [00:14:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:13] Speaker B: Okay. Like, I go to this Unitarian church. I started going to a Unitarian church when I was in seventh grade in Massachusetts, and I had this amazing pastor, and her name was Elizabeth Tarbox, and she was English, and it was in Middleborough, Massachusetts. And she was, like, so profound. She actually created gay marriages. And this was, like, 1994. [00:14:42] Speaker C: So that was kind of. [00:14:45] Speaker B: She was. And she could see the beauty in it. I actually have one of the books that she wrote. She wrote these meditations about love and kindness because that's really, like, what the unit. What the Unitarian Church has become. It's like, be kind. Do kind things. Believe what you need to or what you want to. We accept everything. [00:15:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:15:08] Speaker B: It's crazy, but it's like this beautiful acceptance. Like, I started going to the one here because I had a dream about Elizabeth, oddly enough, and I was like, you know, I miss that because when I was a kid, she was the most inspiring human I'd ever met. She was so wise, and she was probably closest to a Buddhist than anything else. She was not Christian in any way, shape, form, or fashion, but she allowed people to have their beliefs. When she left, I remember this beautiful service where one of the members came up and talked about how, you know, when we die, that's it, and it's empty and, like, there's nothing afterwards but what peace can you get from just, like, the end of things, you know? And it was the most comforting thing as a ninth grader that I'd ever heard. It was amazing. So the one here is also, like, I've started taking my kids, and my ex thinks it's like a witchy church or whatever. And I'm like, that's not really what it is. Like, it's really just, like, accepting, like, kindness is the religion now. That's what the Unitarian Church is and believes and like, manifest, basically, it's kindness. That's what they say at the beginning, that's what they say at the end. There are no chance to any God. Like, you're free to believe. May all who come, like, feel safe where they are. They do a lot of work with, you know, gay rights, female rights, like, a whole bunch of stuff. And like, that's. That's literally what it's become. It's beautiful. [00:16:54] Speaker C: So just connecting the dots because I popped out due to technical difficulties. Let's hope it doesn't happen again. But you were saying that that Unitarianism was like the evolution of Transcendentalism. [00:17:05] Speaker A: Yeah, they were. Well, well, yeah. So the Unitarianisms were essentially reaching towards this pantheism, and it seems like they moved past the Bible. [00:17:15] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:17:16] Speaker B: Well, I think transcendentalism kind of affected the way that the Unitarian Church even worked because they, like, really into spiritualism and to respecting nature and stuff like that. [00:17:27] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:28] Speaker C: That so related, like, ish, but not directly. [00:17:32] Speaker B: I'll just combine it. [00:17:35] Speaker A: Well, so a lot of. A lot of the early Transcendentalists, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, who else is in my list? [00:17:43] Speaker C: Thoreau is definitely an example for sure. [00:17:45] Speaker A: Henry David Thoreau, a lot of them were Unitarians and were part of this New England movement. They were in Boston. They were in Providence, as it were, and all over. So, you know, she was part of that world essentially. Now, you know, I wrote here, like, I don't want to fault them too much for clinging to the Bible for a while, but, you know, I mean. [00:18:09] Speaker B: They were trying to operate within the confines of what was, like, modern, socially acceptable, with, like, also pushing those boundaries. [00:18:18] Speaker A: I will say that Mr. Shelley published the Necessity of Atheism in 1811. So. [00:18:25] Speaker B: Okay. Hey, you know how I feel about. [00:18:28] Speaker A: That, dude, listen, they all suck, okay? [00:18:31] Speaker C: Everybody sucks. [00:18:33] Speaker A: They all suck. Mr. Poe, I hate to say it, Mr. Poe did some pretty reprintable things. [00:18:37] Speaker B: He was horrible. [00:18:38] Speaker C: He actually was problematic. No, it's true. Like, we love his writing. We love his literature. We can't live without it. And the world's never been the same because of it. But at the same time, like, yeah, there. And I feel like this is going to be a recurring sort of thematic exploration that we are going to have to do on nearly every episode of this podcast, which is like, this person is so problematic. Oh, man. Let's talk about the art. But let's also be so honest about the problematic nature of some of the things that were going. Actually. Actually going on, you know? [00:19:14] Speaker A: Yeah, Poe is such a big part of why I am a writer and why I do what I do. But, yeah, it kind of breaks my heart a little that a lot of what we're going to be doing because we're going to talk about him frequently. [00:19:23] Speaker C: Yep. [00:19:24] Speaker A: It's going to be this. This kind of thing. So we will get to all these wonderful things. Needless to say, transcendentalist. As Adrian was saying, they oppose slavery. I've got some dates here, too. [00:19:36] Speaker B: They were all about women having the right to vote. [00:19:38] Speaker A: They were also. [00:19:40] Speaker B: Were like. [00:19:41] Speaker A: They were pro Prohibition, which I. You know, it can't be right all the time. Right. [00:19:45] Speaker B: You know, you're right. [00:19:47] Speaker C: You're right. [00:19:47] Speaker A: Mr. Pope. Mr. Pope probably shouldn't have drank, but that's another discussion. [00:19:50] Speaker B: If he had just kept sober for a little bit, he'd have married Helen Whitman, and that would have been different. [00:19:58] Speaker A: In 1784, they. Well, okay, in 1652, they abolished slavery, but didn't really enforce it. Know, Quakers and others and other activists were kind of pushing. And in 1784, they published, published, passed the Gradual Emancipation act, which dictated that no child born of slaves were slaves anymore. So there's that. I mean, they were ahead of a good portion of the country. [00:20:23] Speaker B: You know, I think they kind of paved the way for modern kindness as far as politics and religion are concerned, because they were just like, fuck it, we don't care. Let's, like, see the person. Like, let's actually see people now. [00:20:43] Speaker A: Mr. Po did not care for these people. He had a real chip on his shoulder. [00:20:49] Speaker B: Talk about Po. He was in love with himself. [00:20:53] Speaker A: Poe was a pugilist. He loved himself. He was. [00:20:56] Speaker B: He did. [00:20:57] Speaker C: He really did. [00:20:58] Speaker A: He knew he was a genius, and he wallowed in it. Despite being poor, he was a broke ass and probably should have kept his big mouth shut. [00:21:07] Speaker C: So broke. Like, oh, it's crazy. [00:21:10] Speaker A: It's crazy. Yeah. No, I read this stuff, and I'm like, oh, my God. Like, you were friends with. [00:21:14] Speaker C: Okay. And the thing is, like, I don't know when in the timeline of today's episode we. This is most appropriate to talk about, but I. I actually do want to talk about his financial woes as a factor in how hard he pursued Sarah. No, that is literally, it's a factor. [00:21:36] Speaker A: So ca. This is 48. This is less than a year before he died. So it was. He liked her, but I think her money was definitely, like. Because there were four other women. [00:21:46] Speaker C: There were all the women. He was. [00:21:49] Speaker B: All of them. [00:21:50] Speaker C: He was saying, yes, I need a house to sleep in. [00:21:55] Speaker A: Like, a Lot of them were married, which is pretty pathetic in a different way, but, you know. Yeah, but he didn't like transcendentalism. So despite the end of the pit in the Pendulum, Poe also really hated the uplift that a lot of writers of the day felt was an essential form of short stories in general. You know, Dickens tales, they don't always have, like, a happy ending, but they usually do Oliver Twist. [00:22:17] Speaker C: Like, it feels like a resolution. [00:22:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:19] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. He wrote, like, the never bit the devil your head, where this guy gets his head brutally cut off and then turned into dog meat. It's. This is his middle finger. It's a great story. [00:22:31] Speaker C: I always think about it in the context of, like, songwriting where, like, in most songwriting, it'll end in, like, a major chord, like, and, like, make you feel good. Like, ta da, it's done. But then when like, a song ends on, like, a minor chord or, like, in like, a mode chord, and you're like, oh, that's weird. That's how Poe's writing feels sometimes you're just like, that's the end. Okay. Yeah. So great. I love it. I love it. So dissonant. [00:23:00] Speaker A: He's Edgar Allen fucking Poe. I mean, a lot of his stories end in a stark, decisive and gruesome note. Just like that Mask of the Red Death, or the ultimacy and finality of death's reach is affirmed by the prince's death. [00:23:12] Speaker B: It's like Lygia, for example, were like, some of the first. Like. Like, the woman was powerful, right? Like, it was totally, like, full on. And I feel like some of that might have been, like, influenced by the transcendentalist movement, probably Helen Whitman. Honestly, like, let's be honest. [00:23:33] Speaker A: How could you say such a thing? What? [00:23:35] Speaker B: No, no, it totally was like, he was trying to, like, be like, oh, yeah. So he made this woman who was larger than death and it's beautiful, and her willpower. Right. Because women weren't even supposed to have willpower back then. Like, it was, oh, my God, Sarah's my father. It was not even. It was not even an attractive quality in a woman. But he wrote that story, and it happens to be my favorite. [00:24:03] Speaker A: It's my favorite as well. I love how he describes her eyes especially. I do think that you're probably onto something there. But I think that it has less to do with women in general and just his obsessive love of women and their forms and their majesty. Like the way he writes about Helen in To Helen, which, again, we'll get there. It's Very worshipful. I hate to use this word, but Poe writes, like, an incel at times. [00:24:29] Speaker C: Oh, okay. That's what we're gonna get to, because I read all of his letters to her. I'm gonna read some of these quotes. [00:24:34] Speaker A: You did what? I could not. [00:24:36] Speaker C: I'm gonna read some of these quotes out loud. [00:24:38] Speaker A: I could not handle it. [00:24:39] Speaker C: Y'all cringe. [00:24:41] Speaker A: Thanks. [00:24:41] Speaker C: I set a few aside because. [00:24:43] Speaker A: Glad we're doing this. [00:24:45] Speaker C: There were times where I was like, I am having such bad secondhand embarrassment, like, reading this. Like, this is rough, bro. This is intense. Yeah. Yeah. So. And that's just like, his private letters to her, Right. Which now have been made public, you know, posthumously and everything. But, like, the. Then, like, the poetry itself sometimes comes off very, like, whoa. But, like, yeah, the letters, they're. They're painful. It's. [00:25:12] Speaker A: It's the letters. It really casts a nasty slant to everything that we know about him. Yeah. [00:25:17] Speaker B: So question. [00:25:19] Speaker A: Go ahead. [00:25:20] Speaker B: In my research, I could not find, because I guess they wrote two poems in the same year. Helen Whitman wrote a poem to him about a dream within a dream. And it almost looks like she wrote it to him before he wrote that. Like, he literally borrowed it. But I cannot. I'm not sure. I know. [00:25:43] Speaker A: Look at when. Let's look at when Dream. Dream Within a Dream was written. [00:25:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I've been trying to do research all day on that. That's what I was going crazy about, because I was like, this doesn't. I don't. I don't know. [00:25:54] Speaker A: Hang on. [00:25:55] Speaker B: Because if he borrowed. [00:25:56] Speaker A: Oh, wait. No, no, no. You're. You're right. It was written in 100. Yeah. 18, 14, 49. So. [00:26:02] Speaker B: And she wrote hers to him in 1848. [00:26:07] Speaker A: Well, again, this. All this nastiness happened in 1848. So. [00:26:12] Speaker B: Yeah, good. [00:26:13] Speaker A: Good catch, Adrian. So, yeah, because when we get to her poetry, she. She playfully throws his own lines back at him in a really fun way. [00:26:23] Speaker B: He. All that we do is but a dream within a dream. He literally stole that from her. [00:26:29] Speaker A: Listen, listen. You do it once, plagiarism, do it twice, it's an homage. Do it three times, it's a new freaking genre. [00:26:38] Speaker B: Oh, but no, like, there's no excuse for that. [00:26:41] Speaker A: I was like, intel Beef, plagiarist. You know, I'm sorry. [00:26:47] Speaker B: I found that out. Like, I was, like, researching, and I was. She. It was her brain. He took it to a different level. [00:26:57] Speaker C: This is what I mean. This does speak to, like, a larger conversation in the entire world of literature, past and present. Which is like, you know, how do we influence each other versus straight up plagiarism? Or is it inspired by. Yeah, well, dream with a dream. [00:27:15] Speaker B: She literally wrote that to him. [00:27:17] Speaker C: It's true. [00:27:17] Speaker A: It's interesting. It's interesting that you. You point that out because. Going to talk about Longfellow in a bit. And he. He went after Longfellow and accused him of plagiarism a lot. He accused a lot of people of plagiarism. He was called. They called him the Hatchet Man. [00:27:30] Speaker C: No, literally. So it's like, if that was such a value of his, then, like, you would think that he would steer clear of that with a 10 foot pole ever being accused of doing the same. [00:27:41] Speaker A: I. Look, here's what I'll suggest. Despite how badly things ended between them. [00:27:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:48] Speaker A: I'm gonna be charitable and say maybe he was planning to send it to her. [00:27:53] Speaker C: Okay. [00:27:53] Speaker B: She was nice to him. We'll leave that there. [00:27:57] Speaker A: She was very, very, very, very nice to him. [00:28:01] Speaker B: I know she loved him for forever. She didn't even ever. I could not find a single complaint about her using. About him using her quote. She never said jack. [00:28:13] Speaker A: Well, well, you know, this is news to me. And excellent catch. He cared nothing for the metaphysical musings found in Emerson and the other transcendentalist writers. His detective stories employ an element he coined. We don't use the word anymore, but you see it in detective fiction. It's called ratiocination. It's become the default structure for detective and mystery stories. You'll see it in Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie novels, Scooby Doo, knives out. Whatever the detective looks at all the clues logically follows them wherever they lead, no matter how bizarre and out of left field the conclusion might be, because Rue Morgue. Yeah, Rue Morgue, it was the. It was the orangutan. Spoilers for a story that's almost 200, you know, years old. [00:28:55] Speaker B: You know, that, like, English professors who, like, study Poe, they refuse to be, like. They refuse to talk about that particular book because, like, feelings run so crazy hot over it. It's ridiculous. [00:29:12] Speaker A: What? Room work. [00:29:13] Speaker C: Mm. [00:29:15] Speaker A: What do you mean? [00:29:16] Speaker B: Like, what's the symbolism in this? Like, they can't talk about. It's literally off limits. [00:29:20] Speaker A: It's just. It's just. Yeah, off limit. It's pretty superficial. He just really wanted to show, like, you know, someone going through the motions of. And anyway. But he was such a stark rationalist that he didn't care for these guys babbling about the spirit and the soul. And he's like, what is this? Nothing. Meanwhile, if you read his. His piece Eureka, it's. He's talking about Adams and stuff, but it's very clear he doesn't know what he's talking about. [00:29:42] Speaker C: Right. [00:29:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I tried to read it. [00:29:45] Speaker C: Eureka was a reach. Like. Yeah, he was trying to do something there. [00:29:49] Speaker A: He was. He was taking a heavy swing at Emerson's intellect. And, like, intellect, I understood perfectly. He was suggesting that everything is linked to mind. It's all that we perceive and all is a projection possibly emanating from God. You know what I mean? However you feel about that assertion, you can read it and follow its line of logic. Eureka, man. He does a lot of wacky things in it. And I would have loved to have heard him read it because that's generally how he delivered it. It was a lecture, but it was also published as a prose poem. [00:30:23] Speaker C: But he never had success. Like, as a lecturer? [00:30:26] Speaker A: Like. No. [00:30:27] Speaker C: So, no, it can't have been that convincing or good. [00:30:30] Speaker A: No, no, no, no. People showed up to hear him read the Raven. They did not show up to hear Eureka. [00:30:35] Speaker B: I feel like we're kind of, like, giving him a whole bunch of shit when he was actually. [00:30:40] Speaker A: He has his moments. [00:30:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:43] Speaker A: Like, so. [00:30:44] Speaker B: Flows through my head. Like, I can. [00:30:47] Speaker C: I know. [00:30:48] Speaker A: We're gonna read his poetry. We're gonna. We're gonna read his poetry. And you can't say shit about him when it comes to his writing. Yeah, he's at Gorilla Po. We love him. I have lots of doodads of Mr. Po all over my house. [00:31:01] Speaker B: I have salt and pepper shakers, and I have, like, three cups, and I don't even like him. It's fine. [00:31:08] Speaker C: I don't even like him, guys. [00:31:10] Speaker B: I don't even like him. Like, whatever. [00:31:12] Speaker C: Don't look at my mugs. Somebody gave those to me. No, we love him. We love him. We also are allowed to criticize him. Remember what I said earlier? The things we love, we're allowed to criticize harshly. So. [00:31:24] Speaker A: So that is. That is correct. [00:31:27] Speaker B: You are the sound of reason. Like, literally, you are magic. [00:31:31] Speaker A: He's held up to a higher standard for a reason. The closest he came to really considering their ideas, even though I think Adrian made a decent case for Ligia, like, embodying some aspect of transcendental thought, I think. Yeah. [00:31:44] Speaker B: I'm sorry. [00:31:45] Speaker C: He was. He was caught up with a lot of married women, I think. I think Daniel's onto something with. It's. It's. He just loved women. [00:31:55] Speaker B: He loved Impossible things. [00:31:58] Speaker C: He loved. He loved. He loved him. An emotionally Unavailable woman. [00:32:04] Speaker A: He did, though. He did. [00:32:05] Speaker C: He really did. [00:32:07] Speaker A: That's what. That's. That's what he preferred in amuse. It's. It's. It's. It's a fucking mental illness. [00:32:12] Speaker B: Yeah, because the idea of it, it's not the actual. [00:32:15] Speaker A: It is. [00:32:15] Speaker C: It's the longing. The longing is what the muse comes from. Truly. Like, if he actually, like, had an emotionally stable relationship, he probably wouldn't have been as good of a writer. [00:32:26] Speaker A: Listen, I'm a weird poet, man, and I've had. I've had muses that I had a real relationship with. Those were the good muses, you know? [00:32:35] Speaker C: Hey, I'm not taking a stab at everyone. I'm just saying the way his brain was wired specifically seems to have only been wired in that way. [00:32:43] Speaker B: He just loved the idea of things, not the actuality of people. [00:32:49] Speaker C: He was a real big self sabotager. [00:32:52] Speaker B: Yes. [00:32:52] Speaker A: He was his own worst enemy. We will get to that as well. [00:32:56] Speaker B: Stay sober for like, what was it, five days? [00:32:59] Speaker A: But just like four days. [00:33:01] Speaker B: It was like four days for four days. And he could have married Helen Whitman. [00:33:06] Speaker A: It was the 19th century. [00:33:08] Speaker B: Four days. [00:33:09] Speaker A: It was a terrible time to be alive. [00:33:11] Speaker C: I mean, are you familiar with, like, the debate about whether or not he was an actual alcoholic or he just had like, the allergy to alcohol that, like, made one drink act as if he was 10 sheets to the wind? [00:33:24] Speaker A: I don't buy it. And then it was like her. [00:33:27] Speaker C: And it was all just like a cruel rumor, you know, by Griswold. Griswold had it out for him and. [00:33:34] Speaker A: Spread that Rufus Griswold. Mr. Griswold. [00:33:39] Speaker B: Just one drink. [00:33:40] Speaker A: I'll brick you up. [00:33:41] Speaker C: It's. [00:33:41] Speaker B: I'm not a drunk. I just have an alcohol allergy. No, it's bullshit. [00:33:47] Speaker C: I'm literally dead. [00:33:48] Speaker B: A good person, that's someone who also loves the idea of things instead of the actual. [00:33:56] Speaker A: Well, at any rate, he wrote Mer Revelation. He wrote Mesmeric Revelation, which is a completely fictional account of a man under a hypnotist spell relating the secret nature of the soul and mystical underpinnings of the universe. It's awesome. It's completely fictional. I have to reiterate that a fact Mr. Poe was pretty open about. But he took great pleasure in laughing at the transcendentalists who took it at face value. There were newspaper clippings about it. People were talking about it. You know, there was a common belief back then also that hypnotists had otherworldly powers. They were magic, you know, they could tap in. People under hypnotic suggestion were clairvoyant. Sorry, spiritualist. Transcendentalists were often one and the same. They took the existence of the immortal and tangible, unmeasurable nature of the soul for granted. They. They were doing, like, creepy things, like seances for Native Americans, like. For his part, Poe was just using the narrative framework of hypnotic interview as a means to express some of his own beliefs about the soul. He was pretty upset that people were. Despite laughing at them. He was pissed off. I think that's why he wrote Stupid Eureka, but, you know, anyway, that would be a cute story, if only that. [00:35:04] Speaker C: Were as far as it went. [00:35:05] Speaker A: What you quickly learn about Mr. Poe is that, as we said before, he was his absolute worst enemy. From his vantage point in New York writing about writing from the Broadway Journal, he went to war with not just the transcendentalists, but the entire literary scene of Boston. This guy is poor. He should be networking with these people. [00:35:24] Speaker C: No, for real. [00:35:25] Speaker A: He referred to them as Frog Pondians because to him they were a bunch of frogs going, ribbit, ribbit, ribbit. I'm sure that was hysterical 200 years ago, but they did. They really didn't like it. They called him the hatchet man for his incisive review skills as well as the methodical cruelty with which he inflicted on his subjects. Unable to keep his ego in check. Poe felt that the transcendental writers and even his peers, like the aforementioned Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, or like the croaking of hordes of frogs, Right. Anyway, he wrote a spoof of their types of stories called Never bet the devil your head, which I mentioned already. Anyway, Longfellow thing. The Longfellow thing is pretty bad because of how severe his attacks on him were. He said he wouldn't be remembered in a generation. You know, he accused him of plagiarism. He disparaged him as often as he could, but he was, like, popular. I mean, you know, if you haven't read Longfellow, the challenge of Thor, the Children's Hour, I mean, for fuck's sake. [00:36:27] Speaker B: No, I think he was kind of jealous. I think Poe had some. [00:36:30] Speaker A: Probably. He was rich. [00:36:32] Speaker B: I know he was rich. And he was actually saying things that mattered kind of at the time. And I think he wasn't happy. So he wanted to tear everything out. [00:36:44] Speaker A: Sure, yeah. And I think that he was making his money and building a brand off of being this, like, brutal fucking critic. But see, I compare it to, like, imagine if Robert Eggers the witch wasn't popular and he was Like, I'm gonna go attack Zack Snyder. Zack Snyder sucks. But you're a broke. [00:37:03] Speaker B: That would be fair. [00:37:04] Speaker A: It would be fair. By Zack Snyder's wife, Deborah Snyder could get you some jobs, get you some directing gigs. I'm gonna. I'm gonna go to war. It's like, Mr. Poe, shut up. You know? [00:37:14] Speaker C: Yeah, right. And then I also feel like it was an attempt to stay relevant and, like, stay in the conversation. And that was like the lowest hanging fruit way to stay in the. Even in the conversation. Right? Because, like, by then, like, so many bridges had already been burned that it was like the best way was just keep. Keep putting out diss tracks. It was like the only way to, like, keep his name relevant almost. I think that was also a factor. [00:37:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:41] Speaker A: At this point, the Raven was a minute ago, you know, like. Yeah, yeah, It's. It's like a lot of YouTubers, or celebrities for that matter, who. They haven't done anything in a while, so they start stirring up drama, you know, it's the same kind of thing. I think that's a fair reading of his actions. I do want to read from Edgar a Poe, a biography by Mr. Kenneth Silverman. We will be citing that later, of course, but this is a pretty good quote, which should be read out loud. The ongoing Longfellow war distressed Poe's partner, employer Briggs, in allowing Poe to undertake his campaign. He had expected him to write no more than one article, but Poe was becoming, he said, a monomaniac on the subject of plagiarism. Poe's fervor seems to have intimidated him, for he felt unable or unwilling to stop him. I could not cut it off until he had made a finish of it his own way. Briggs understood, too, that Poe's fault de Rol called attention to the Journal and gained it readers. But he also had close ties with New England, especially among abolitionists there, and he worried over the response of Boston and Cambridge. I hope that Longfellow is too good a fellow to take it much to heart. He also fretted that Longfellow might turn against Lowell, who, after all, had introduced Poe to the Journal. Longfellow, although by now much battered by Poe, did not answer him in print. He considered life, he said, too precious to be wasted in street brawls. [00:39:00] Speaker B: Longfellow sounds like a really good dude. I'm just gonna say total. [00:39:03] Speaker A: Total king. Total king. [00:39:06] Speaker C: He's like, fuck, yeah. [00:39:10] Speaker B: Just stay out of the drama. [00:39:11] Speaker C: It's fun. [00:39:11] Speaker A: Play. [00:39:12] Speaker C: Love it. [00:39:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:13] Speaker A: After Poe's death, he couldn't bring himself to say A bad word about him acknowledged Po as the genius he was. [00:39:19] Speaker B: He actually saw him. He's like, yeah, you're being a little bitch to me right now, but okay, you're talented. Okay. I'm just not gonna engage. [00:39:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's exhausting because Po was great at networking when he wanted to be. [00:39:32] Speaker B: I know. [00:39:32] Speaker A: He couldn't stop himself from picking fights, and he never backed down till it was too late. I mean, you should read about him and Dickens. Fun fact, Flash fact. Dickens had a raven named Grip and Poe originally was gonna name. He was. He was writing a poem about a talking bird. He was gonna make it like a parrot. And he was like, eh, it's too colorful. Whatever. He met Grip, and Grip was talking and he was like, what the fuck? We actually. We have Grip in Philly right now. He's at the public library in, I guess, Center City. [00:40:00] Speaker B: A picture of him. You better go see him and take a picture. [00:40:03] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll visit him. Yeah, it'll be cool, but. Yeah. This stuff really is exhausting though. Like, I hated reading this. It sucks. It sucks. [00:40:11] Speaker B: It's because he's greater than himself at this point. Okay, so, like, what he did and what he wrote really matters. And all of our little goth hearts, like, yeah, are filled with Po, Like. But also, he was a self sabotager. He was a horrible human. But aren't we all kind of. I mean, we try to be good, but, I mean. [00:40:38] Speaker A: I mean, I don't know, man. [00:40:40] Speaker B: I mean. [00:40:42] Speaker A: This is all relevant because while Poe was on the warpath, Sarah Helen Whitman was attending seances, reading about magnetic therapy, and exploring the burgeoning field of spiritualism. In fact, it became apparent to Mrs. Whitman that Poe knew of her. She inquired specifically about his knowledge of magnetic therapy, not knowing what a staunch skeptic he was or that mesmeric revelation was fictional. She seems to have been completely unaware of his feud with the Frog Pondians of Boston. Such a funny joke, huh? What she actually knew about him came from his good friend Franny Osgood and from her local friends, many of whom had heard his dramatic, electrifying recitation for themselves. As the writer of the Raven, he'd been able to lecture on the theory and form of poetry throughout New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Manhattan, Baltimore and Philly were his whole world. Basically, he went back and forth between them. He was living in the Bronx at this point, which was very rural. Incidentally, she was also told the tragic, horrifying death of little Virginia, as well as his poverty. She'd read One of his stories, which, to quote, gave her a sensation of such intense horror that I dared neither to look at anything he had written nor even utter his name. Which story this is is not clear. However, she had heard of his mesmeric revelation and wrote to her friend Jane lynch to ask if it were, in fact, a real account of hypnotism. She also asked for one of his reviews, which she found discriminating and hypercritical, as legit and succinct a summation as can be drawn about one of Mr. Poe's EdgeLord reviews. [00:42:13] Speaker C: I love her. [00:42:14] Speaker B: I know. I think she's, like, probably one of my biggest heroes now. [00:42:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:42:18] Speaker A: Yeah. I really hope that us doing this makes her not be just a footnote in his story anymore. [00:42:24] Speaker C: Seriously, she is, like, she should be able to just stand on her own. She's really cool. [00:42:30] Speaker B: Literally ripped her off for a poem. Like, I'm just in total awe. Like, I can't believe I found that today. [00:42:38] Speaker C: But I was like, oh, how dare you? [00:42:41] Speaker A: Mr. Po. Mr. Poe. Okay. [00:42:43] Speaker B: I literally have a coffee mug that says Dream within a Dream on it. It's on the House of Usher. [00:42:50] Speaker C: We're gonna go on like a crusade. A Helen Whitman. [00:42:55] Speaker B: It was her the whole time. [00:42:58] Speaker A: My God, what have I done? [00:42:59] Speaker C: What have you done? You've radicalized us. We have been radicalized. [00:43:04] Speaker A: You know, we're bringing truth to the world. She'll. [00:43:07] Speaker B: She. [00:43:09] Speaker A: Ultimately met Poe when he was Lord of Massachusetts by a supposed lover in Lowell. More on that in a minute. Jane lynch, who ran salons. They were, like, poetry readings, but, like, you know, with alcohol and food and, you know, something you'd actually want. [00:43:23] Speaker B: Like an art show. [00:43:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Something worth going. I was at one recently, and it was a disaster. There wasn't anything to do. There were all these people there, and they were all, like, over the age of 60. Not that there's anything wrong with that. [00:43:33] Speaker B: But that sounds like our show. All right. [00:43:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. It was Bucks county, so it was a lot of, like, ladies, like, writing poems about swans and, you know. [00:43:42] Speaker B: I do know. I do know. [00:43:45] Speaker A: And not that there's anything wrong with that, but not. Not quite my scene. I'm here writing about, like, you know, Norse gods and, you know, death, and. [00:43:52] Speaker B: You don't even like Norse gods, do you? [00:43:54] Speaker A: Even goth, bro. You know? So. [00:43:58] Speaker B: Fair enough, fair enough. [00:44:00] Speaker A: Anyway, Mr. Poe requested some verses from Helen. She proceeded to write a piece called Simply To Edgar a Poe, which we will be looking at in a bit. To her dismay, she hadn't even to her dismay. Poe hadn't been invited. That's the thing. Some of the people he'd attacked would have been offended by his presence there. So I have another quote. We don't have that many of these, but I do think some of this bears reading. Helen evidently wanted Poe to know she had saluted him without too boldly sending him a copy of the poem herself. It's also not especially back then, a lot of women were really looking to be pursued anyway. [00:44:40] Speaker B: Well, if you were suing a guy, it was viewed as unladylike. [00:44:46] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:44:47] Speaker B: But she was. [00:44:48] Speaker A: She was very much a lady. [00:44:50] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. So there were things that she was not allowed to do that she did on the DL that was, like, pretty cool, you know? [00:44:58] Speaker A: She wanted to get the poem printed, but lynch discouraged her. I really do not think it would be any advantage to you to publish the Valentine's po, she said, not because it is not beautiful in itself, but. But there is a deeply rooted prejudice against him. Lynch added, however, that if Helen still wished the poem to appear, she would ask someone to have it done. Apparently, Helen persisted for a week. Later, her to Edgar a Poe also appeared in the Home Journal. That Helen had meant to make herself known to Poe was evidence of Fanny Osgood. I see by the Home Journal. Fanny wrote to her that your beautiful invocation has reached the raven in his eyrie. And I suppose ere this he has swooped down upon your little dove co ote and providence. Very fun language. May providence protect you, for his croak is the most eloquent imaginable. He is, in truth, a glorious devil with large heart and brain. As it happened, Poe had seen Helen's poem before its publication, and lynch sent it. Sent it to him. [00:45:54] Speaker B: So of course she made that happen. [00:45:56] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, she was trying to hook it up, but yeah, you know what? [00:46:00] Speaker B: Good for her. [00:46:01] Speaker A: Hey, it's a good piece. You know, it's. It's. It's the kind of thing that, like, if a woman wrote that to me, and I'm like, you're using my lines to do this. Like, whoa, dude. [00:46:10] Speaker C: There's like a whole part in his first letter to her where he talks about that situation, like, in detail. [00:46:18] Speaker A: Is this after the initial breakup? [00:46:22] Speaker C: First letter was in October of 1848, I believe. Let me double check. [00:46:28] Speaker A: Okay. [00:46:29] Speaker C: Yeah. The first letter was dated October 1, 1848. So. Yeah. [00:46:37] Speaker A: Well, all right, let's. Let's talk about their first meeting, and then we'll get to that. [00:46:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:46:44] Speaker A: Most likely, he first saw her in 45 they met in Providence when he passed through on his way home to New York from a speaking engagement at the Boston Lyceum. Spent the night at his friend Fanny Osgood's home, who you can't convince me he wasn't fucking. Who tried to introduce him to Helen. Yo, it was happening, you know, fucking. [00:47:06] Speaker B: She was already enamored with him. The moment she met him though, pretty. [00:47:10] Speaker A: Sure Virginia like sent her a letter saying like, please show interest in my husband like he did we discussion about. [00:47:17] Speaker B: That because that you were horrified and you're like, oh my God, poor Virginia. [00:47:22] Speaker A: I wasn't horrified. I'm just like, he wasn't sleeping with a 13 year old cousin. He married her manipulation tactic to keep her with him. [00:47:28] Speaker C: Right? [00:47:29] Speaker B: But having her write to a potential lover's. [00:47:33] Speaker A: It's. [00:47:33] Speaker C: Yeah, it's messy. [00:47:35] Speaker B: It's messy. That's the word, messy. Not necessarily icky, but it's definitely complicated. [00:47:41] Speaker A: So anyway, Fanny Osgood, being, you know, the good friend here, tried to introduce him to Helen, but thinking she was married, Poe's like, eh, I got enough of those, you know, I got, I got the married woman at home. So he demurred. He was, he told, you know, he. But he went on a long walk. Anyway, he totally wasn't, wasn't going, you know, to surreptitiously wander past Helen's house and, you know, wonder about her. [00:48:04] Speaker B: No, not that dude. [00:48:06] Speaker C: He blamed, he blamed. By the way, he said that she told him that Helen was married. [00:48:12] Speaker A: Oh, really? I missed that. That's crazy. [00:48:15] Speaker C: That's what I'm saying. He talks about it in the letter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:48:18] Speaker A: Jane Lynch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because Jay lynch wanted him for herself even though she was married with five kids. [00:48:26] Speaker C: So messy. [00:48:28] Speaker A: These people suck. New England bastards. Anyway, we love you New England, by the way. Go Patriots. [00:48:36] Speaker C: That's. [00:48:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm from up there. You don't have to do that. It's gross. [00:48:41] Speaker A: He happened to see her tending to her roses and I think judging from the epic poem he wrote to her, that image left a heavy impression on the poet. When he read Helen's poem to him, he couldn't help himself. He tore his own poem written to a totally different Helen, a woman actually named Jane Stannard, who we'll probably get to in a future episode. He tore it out of a copy of the Raven and other poems, pasted it to stationery and folded the whole thing into an envelope. He made it this whole Einstein art project, you know, and he mailed it anonymously to her. [00:49:12] Speaker B: He's Literally got the same game going for him that Rosetti did. So that's all I. As dramatic as fucking Rosette. [00:49:21] Speaker A: That's amazing. Not as dramatic as Picasso, though. She didn't immediately respond, even though she knew it had come from Mr. Poe, having had his hands break identified. When she didn't reply, he proceeded to send her a new piece, also entitled To Helen. Who wants to read it? I can read it if you'd like. [00:49:39] Speaker B: Please read it before it. [00:49:43] Speaker A: We're gonna read a few poems. [00:49:44] Speaker C: I'll read it. Let me grab it real quick. [00:49:46] Speaker A: Oh, cool. Awesome. [00:49:50] Speaker C: I saw thee once once only years ago. I must not say how many, but not many. It was a July midnight, and from out a full orbed moon that like thine own soul soaring, sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven There fell a silvery silken veil of light with quietude and sultriness slumber upon the upturned faces of a thousand roses that grew in an enchanted garden where no wind dared to stir unless on tiptoe fell on the upturned faces of those roses that gave out in return for the love light. Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death fell upon the upturned faces of these roses that smiled and died in this partier enchanted by thee and by the poetry of thy presence. Clad in all white upon a violet bank, I saw thee half reclining while the moon fell upon the upturned faces of the roses and on thine own upturned, alas, in sorrow. Was it not fate that on this July midnight, was it not fate, whose name is also sorrow, that bade me pause before that garden gate to breathe the incense of those slumbering roses? No footsteps stirred. The hated world all slept, save only thee and me. O heaven, O God, how my heart beats in coupling those two words, save only thee and me. I paused, I looked, and in an instant all things disappeared. Ah, barren. This garden was enchanted. The pearly lustre of the moon went out. The mossy banks and the meandering paths, the happy flowers and the repining trees were seen no more. The very roses odors died in the arms of the adoring heirs. All, all expired. Save thee, save less than thou. Save only the divine line in thine eyes save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes. I saw but them. They were the world to me. I saw but them, saw only them for hours, saw only them until the moon went down. What wild heart histories seem to lie in written upon those crystalline celestial spirits Fears a woe yet how Sublime a hope. How silently serene a sea of pride. How daring an ambition, yet how deep, how fathomless a capacity for love. But now at length, dear Dian sank from sight into a western couch of thunder cloud. And thou a ghost amid the entombing trees didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained. They would not go. They never yet have gone. Lighting my lonely pathway home that night. They have not left me as my hopes have since. They follow me. They lead me through the years. They are my ministers, yet I their slave. Their office is to illumine and enkindle my duty to be saved by their bright light and purified in their electric fire and sanctified in their Elysian fire. They fill my soul with beauty, which is hope and are far up in heaven. The stars I kneel to in the sad, silent watches of my night, While even in the meridian glare of day I still, I see them still two sweetly scintillant Venuses unextinguished by the sun. [00:53:51] Speaker B: I don't think there is a girl in the entire planet that would not fall for that goodness or to have mercy soar once. [00:54:00] Speaker A: Yeah, once. [00:54:02] Speaker C: Sorrow once. [00:54:04] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:54:05] Speaker A: It's beautiful. [00:54:06] Speaker B: Like, yeah. It's the right amount of morbid romanticism that just makes my heart go flutter. [00:54:13] Speaker C: It's interesting because he had. He had already been, like, priming a lot of, like, bubbling some of these. You'll. You'll see in one of his letters, he talks about how he fell in love with her before he even met her. [00:54:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:27] Speaker C: And so it's like he had kind of already like, built this up in his mind and then Caesar and is like, look, she is as perfect as I built her up to be in my mind. So he tried to build it up. [00:54:39] Speaker B: In her mind because at this point, I'm not entirely sure she. [00:54:44] Speaker A: He knew that she believed in psychic connections and mystical stuff, and that's why. [00:54:49] Speaker B: He used the wordage that he used with her. Like, I feel like it was. [00:54:55] Speaker A: It is a great poem. The way he frames her against the moon like a goddess. It's exquisite. [00:55:02] Speaker B: There's no way a woman would not swoon those words. [00:55:06] Speaker A: The flowers. The flowers themselves are like nature's gift to her as they die. [00:55:12] Speaker C: It's. [00:55:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:14] Speaker B: The most morbid, romantic thing you can think of. Right. [00:55:17] Speaker A: He takes a stab in the dark knowing that she, at this point, that she's a widow and makes her so sad as well. And it's like. Right. [00:55:24] Speaker C: Like she's knows his audience. Yeah. [00:55:28] Speaker A: I. Here's the thing. I Know that, like, there's a fine line. I think there's a fine line between when you're, you know, chasing a woman and trying to use her. I. I think the fine line is like, does he actually care? [00:55:44] Speaker C: Okay. And so that's what I. That's what I, in my preparation for this episode have been like, what was going on here? To what degree of sincerity act. What degree of sincerity actually existed in his pursuit of her? Like I said, I think the financial situation was a factor, however. [00:56:03] Speaker A: A factor. [00:56:04] Speaker C: You freaking read a poem like that and you're like, that can't all be. That can't all be a game. That can't all be just a con. [00:56:12] Speaker B: No. Cuz like, I'm sorry that, like, that makes. That makes your heart go flutter. Like, that was like, Like. I want if there was like sincerity in there, because that's like, it's like. [00:56:24] Speaker C: A little too beautiful to not have some degree of sincerity. [00:56:27] Speaker A: I. I am firmly in the camp of he saw her as an equal. He was a transpire. She was probably. She probably was gorgeous in life. And yeah, I agree that it was a factor. Like that money would have really gone a long way towards, you know, kickstarting his. His magazine, the stylist, which never saw the light of day, paying off his debtors that were always coming for him. Go ahead, Adrian. You want to say something? [00:56:51] Speaker B: I have a question. [00:56:52] Speaker A: Go. [00:56:53] Speaker B: Do you think he really wanted to do all that? Because, like, every opportunity he had, he literally sabotaged himself, like at everything, like at every turn. And I'm just like, dude, you had so many amazing things going. [00:57:09] Speaker C: Okay, There's a lot. I mean, there's so many things I could say about Po, but one of the things is like, I. Through a modern lens, I very much. He's very coded, like of some sort, and very much like neurodivergent. And that is a major factor. When he was described as having monomania, that is literally the term that they used to use back then for like adhd, hyperfocus or autistic special interest. Like, that's literally the term that they used back then. We know that now to be. Oh, that's neurodivergence. Right? Like singular minded obsession about a particular topic. Right? Yeah, they called it monomania. And so I think that was a factor. And so if there was like levels of executive dysfunction layered onto his personhood, obviously also this extreme, like, trauma of growing up the way that he did, like an orphan, like the little. I'm pretty sure the Baudelaire children Are, like, based on the po children. Like, it's sad, you know, and so, like, there's a lot going on. I. I don't know. I could go on a lot about Po, but we're trying to focus on Ms. Helen right now. [00:58:14] Speaker A: So this is what happens. This is what happens. [00:58:17] Speaker C: This is what happens. We're trying to not make it about po, but it's so hard not to. [00:58:22] Speaker A: She had her shit. She had. She had her shit together. He never did, so. [00:58:26] Speaker C: Yes, exactly. Exactly. But to answer your question about the self sabotage, like, I think even that is very layered. [00:58:34] Speaker B: And I'm having such a hard time because, like, I've loved him my entire life, and I'm like, reading this stuff and I'm like, yeah, dude, I don't. I don't entirely understand your decision making here. Like, also, you're being very manipulative, and I don't entirely agree with that. And now, like. No, but that makes perfect sense. And thank you. I really needed that on, like, a personal level. [00:59:00] Speaker A: It was gorgeous. Yeah. [00:59:02] Speaker C: 100%. [00:59:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So all that being said, that those are really great points about monomania. I think that that goes a long way. And my response is. I think. I think bro just ran out of time too, because he was dead with. In under a year. We don't even know what happened. That's. That's a. Yeah. That's a discussion for another episode. [00:59:23] Speaker C: Definitely. Definitely. Yeah, definitely. [00:59:26] Speaker A: That being said, I think it's worth reading that Valentine. I'll take this one. Because you took to Helen. [00:59:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:59:33] Speaker A: Unless you really wanted. Okay. [00:59:36] Speaker B: No, I am not reading tonight. [00:59:38] Speaker A: Oh, sad. Oh, okay. So wait. So this is dated February 1848. It's a Valentine. So a raven true has ever flapped his heavy wing against the window of the sick and croaked despair from young's revenge? Thou grim and ancient raven, from the night's plutonic shore often dreams thy ghastly pinions wave and flutter around my door. Oft thy shadow dims the moonlight sleeping on my chamber floor. Romeo talks of white dove trooping amid crows athwart the night. But to see thy dark wings swooping down the silvery path of light amid swans and dovelets stooping, were to me a nobler sight oft amid the twilight, glooming round some grim ancestral tower in the lurid distance looming, I can see thy pinions lower, hear thy soul and storm cry booming through the lonely midnight hour. Off to this work day world forgetting from its toil, curtained snug by the sparkling embers, sitting on the Richly broidered rug Something round about me flitting glimmers like a golden bug Dreamily its path I follow In a beeline to the moon Till into some dreamy hollow of the midnight sinking soon lo, he glides away before me and I lose the golden boon oft like proserpine I wander on the night's plutonic shore Hoping, fearing While I ponder on thy loved and lost Lenore Till thy voice like distant thunder Sounds across the distant moor from thy wing one purple feather Wafted o'er my chamber floor Like a shadow o'er the heather Charms my favorite fancy More than all the flowers I used to gather On Idalia's the velvet shore Then grim and ghastly raven, wilt thou to my heart and ear be a raven true as ever Flapped his wings and croaked despair Not a bird that roams the forest shall our lofty eyrie share. It's good stuff. I like that she takes a. You know, the color purple from. Probably from his piece. But, you know, as an artist, the. [01:01:55] Speaker B: Way that she uses color and everything is totally inspiring. [01:01:58] Speaker A: I wanted to highlight that, too. She does it a lot. [01:02:01] Speaker B: She does it a lot. I think she's literally my hero. Like, she is my newfound. [01:02:05] Speaker A: Like, she's great. She's wonderful. She's such a genius. I like that. Persephone is her avatar. [01:02:11] Speaker C: You know, I do like that, too. [01:02:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it's cool. [01:02:14] Speaker B: I could go on a whole. Like, I'm just not gonna. [01:02:18] Speaker A: Well, I mean, we're gonna talk about a poem later that retells the story of Persephone and Hades and, you know, what it's really about, obviously. But I like how when she evokes Persephone, she's putting herself into Poe's poem. Like, I was there, too. I was also thinking about Lenore. Isn't that weird? I mean, it's. It's cute because she's. She's trying to. You know, she's trying to hit on him, basically. It's. It's good stuff. [01:02:41] Speaker B: Such a, like, magical way. Like, she's literally his equal. She can, like, take his words and she can, like, feed them back to him kind of. You know what I mean? Like. [01:02:54] Speaker C: Right. And that's where. That's where I do feel like there is a level of sincerity in their connection. Right. Like, I do think that there is. I think they both clearly very highly. And so they. The fact that they can, like, meet each other on the same level. It's hard to find somebody who can go toe to toe with you. And so I think they probably were like, oh, my gosh. Like somebody I can actually, you know, not hold back with. [01:03:23] Speaker A: Right. I think that her flexing with Shakespeare, too, was her going, yo, I read. You know, for real. It. [01:03:31] Speaker C: No, it is. It's like a display of the intellect. It's like she's flirting by showing how fucking smart she is. [01:03:38] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [01:03:39] Speaker B: And she's fucking smart. He literally mixed his words with Shakespeare, which, of course, you know, he found flattering. Like, let's be honest. He's like, oh, my. [01:03:49] Speaker C: Stroke my ego a little more, like, please. [01:03:54] Speaker B: But also, like, if we're being honest, I think they were probably soulmates, as hard as I've been on him and whatnot. Like, I think she was the one that was his equal. [01:04:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:04:07] Speaker B: Like, there were other women, and he was a mess, but I think they understood each other on, like, a creative level that, like, most people probably never get in their lifetimes. [01:04:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she was one of four women he was chasing, and. [01:04:23] Speaker B: And she was the one, but I. [01:04:25] Speaker C: Don'T think she was the one that he really. I think you're right that, like, there was, like, a genuine connection. And I think most of the other chasing he was doing probably was a little bit more motivated more heavily by the desperation of the situation that he consistently found himself in. So, yeah, it's interesting. [01:04:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:49] Speaker B: But now I believe that they were actually really connected. Was. [01:04:55] Speaker A: Well, he definitely wasn't connected to Jane Lock. She's the one who lured him out there in the first place. Place, Dude. Yeah. [01:05:02] Speaker B: He died, and she still, like, went to his funeral and, like, said amazing things about him. Like, she never had anything bad to say about Helen. [01:05:09] Speaker C: Oh, Helen. [01:05:11] Speaker A: She wrote. She. For years. I mean, she was defending him. She wrote an entire book called Edgar Poe and His Critics, which, sadly, I did not read for this podcast because I'm fixated on the story. Right. But, yeah, that doesn't come from nowhere. She wrote that years later. Like, years and years later. So, yeah, no, definitely. Here's what I'll say about Jane. She wrote him a terrible poem, essentially deifying him. She hid the truth of herself from him. After getting a gig speaking on the Poets and Poetry of America at Wentworth hall, he was stupefied to find that she was actually married with five whole children. So she paraded him around to all of her. All the other lumber mill wives. Her husband owned a lumber mill. She was never leaving him. The Poe thing was really just a game to her, you know, unlike what we're talking about with Helen where she's like, hey, the thing is Shakespeare with me. [01:06:02] Speaker B: And he had decisions. It's like that. I mean, they've made movies about it like, ooh, which choice am I gonna make? Like, she was the. She was the choice and shit together days. And like, they literally could have probably saved each other's lives. [01:06:23] Speaker A: I should introduce Nancy Richmond also. That was Poe's aunt. Yeah, that was Poe's Annie. He passionately loved her as well. She was another married woman. She had a three year old daughter. [01:06:35] Speaker C: So, you know, unavailable, emotionally unavailable women. He has a type. Yeah, that's true. [01:06:46] Speaker B: They all had kids. [01:06:47] Speaker A: He's like, yeah, no, I will say that his. To Annie is a much tighter poem than to Helen, if such a thing is possible. It's passionate. It's beautiful. We're not going to look at it tonight, sadly, but it's definitely worth a read. He did have. He was obsessively in love with her though. That's the thing. She was unattainable, except as a muse. I don't think he was trying to steal her from her husband, but he probably wouldn't have said no. Here's the thing. [01:07:16] Speaker B: Did he ever really say no to anything? [01:07:19] Speaker A: He said no to success quite a few times. [01:07:21] Speaker C: Right? He said no to. Yeah, he said no to the right choices. And. [01:07:26] Speaker A: Yeah, like, I have a really egregious story I'm gonna tell later. That just the first time I read it, I was like, oh, this is who I'm reading about. Okay. [01:07:33] Speaker C: Sad. [01:07:34] Speaker A: This is why growing up, I really didn't read much about him. I'd heard and I was like, never meet your heroes. [01:07:40] Speaker B: Sometimes there are moments where you can. I have met some that were good people. I've also met others that were. [01:07:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, Poe's other candidate for marriage, Elmira Royster, was a widow who Po had had a relationship with earlier in life. But when Helen finally decided. Poe. Yeah, finally decided to send Po a response to Helen, he pretty much lost interest in her as well as his doom's planned adventure to find financial backers for his own magazine, the Stylus, which. [01:08:09] Speaker B: Never came into being because he didn't self sabotage himself. Ever. [01:08:16] Speaker A: Nah, he didn't. [01:08:18] Speaker B: No. [01:08:18] Speaker A: So ca. Did you want to talk about his first. Their first letter? Or is it not time for that yet? [01:08:23] Speaker C: Yeah, no, it's good, it's good. It's good because I think we've laid enough groundwork that like, some of the stuff he talks about in here will make sense in Context. Because we've kind of chatted about it. Yeah. So when he was referring to the events of Jane lynch talking about. Okay, so let me. I'll just read. I'll let that. I'll let the letter speak for itself. So he says these letters is that he's. So they're like an entire page is one sentence. Okay, so, like, figuring out where to, like, jump in. [01:09:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:02] Speaker C: Okay, so let me see, let me see, let me see, let me see, let me. Let me see. Where to start this, probably. Well, let me just read a little bit of a snippet just so you can hear what we mean. When we were talking earlier about how he, like, simps so hard for her and it's super cringy, he was like, okay. I have pressed your letter again and again to my lips, sweetest Helen, bathing it in tears of joy or of divine deck despair. But I, who so lately in your own presence vaunted the power of words of what avail are mere words to me now could I believe in the efficiency of prayers to the God of heaven, I would kneel, humbly kneel at this most earnest epic of my life. Kneel in entreaty for words. But for words that should disappear glows to you that might enable me to lay bare to you my whole heart. Yeah, I just keep you. [01:10:05] Speaker B: Fantastic. [01:10:06] Speaker C: Okay, like this man. Sir, like, calm down. [01:10:12] Speaker A: She already likes you. [01:10:14] Speaker C: I know, but then. Okay, all right, so. It's so cringy. But also, again, reading it through the lens of, like, how they related to each other. I think he knew that she would dig that, you know, that's the thing. [01:10:28] Speaker A: That's the thing. That's the thing. He knew his audience and she was into it. She was into it. And, like, it's only cringe when she rebuffs him and says, I can't marry you. [01:10:39] Speaker B: And I know that's when. [01:10:41] Speaker A: That's when it. That's when it crossed the line to me. It's like she said, no, sir. [01:10:45] Speaker C: Yeah, you know. All right, here's where I'll jump in. Okay, so during our walk in the cemetery, I said to you, while the bitter, bitter tears spring spraying into my eyes, helen, I love now. Now, for the first time and only time I said this, I repeat in no hope that you could believe me, but because I could not help feeling how unequal were the heart riches we might have to offer each to each. I'm giving my all at once and forever. Even while the words of your poem were ringing in my ears. And then he Quotes her poem. This is her poem. Okay. Oh, then, beloved, I think on thee and on that life so strangely fair Ere yet one cloud of memory had gathered in hope's golden air I think on thee and thy lone grave on the green hillside far away I see the wilding flowers that wave around thee as the night winds sway. And still, though only clouds remain on life's horizon cold and drear the dream of youth returns again with the sweet promise of the year. End quote. Beautiful poem. She's a queen. He says when these lines were indeed beautiful. Beautiful. But their very beauty was cruelty to me. Why? Why did you show them to me? There seemed to so very special a purpose in what you did. I've already told you that some few casual words spoken to you. Three words. There was something in the letter that was illegible. Okay. That some few casual words spoken of you by Ms. Lynch. He's talking about Jane Lynch. Were the first in which I had heard your name mentioned. She alluded to what she called your eccentricities and hinted at your sorrows. Her description of the former strangely arrested her allusion to the letter. In chained and riveted my attention. She had referred to thoughts, sentiments, traits, moods which I knew to be my own. But which until that moment, I had believed to be mine own. Solely unshared by any other human being. A profound sympathy took immediate possession of my soul. I cannot better explain to you what I felt Than by saying that your unknown heart seemed to pass into my bosom there to dwell forever. While mine, I thought, was translated into your own. From that hour I loved you so. This is the part where he talks about loving her before ever even seeing her. [01:13:19] Speaker B: No girl's gonna like. [01:13:22] Speaker C: Like. I heard somebody talking about how weird you were and it made me love you. [01:13:27] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [01:13:28] Speaker C: I love your weirdness. Yeah. Yeah. [01:13:31] Speaker A: He knew. [01:13:32] Speaker B: He knew. [01:13:32] Speaker A: He knew she was a black sheep, though. [01:13:33] Speaker C: That's the thing, right? Exactly. Then he says, the impression left, however, upon my mind by Ms. Lynch. Whether through my own fault or her design, I know not. So I guess he doesn't fully blame her. But he says the impression was that you were a wife now. And a most happy one. And it's only within the last few months that I have been undeceived in this respect. For this reason I should present and even the city in which you lived. You may remember that once when I passed through providence with Mrs. Osgood. I positively refused to accompany her to your house and even provoked her into a quarrel. By the obstinacy and seeming unreasonableness of my refusal. I neither go nor say why I could not. I dared not speak of you, let much less see you. Because he was saying I was so in love with you already that I knew I couldn't get near you. Because he knows he has a weakness for married women. So he thought that she was married. [01:14:36] Speaker B: Totally using that to, like, woo her, right? [01:14:41] Speaker C: But no, listen, listen, listen. Here's the thing. You know, he has a type. Emotionally unavailable married women. I think if he didn't actually love her, he would have gone to see her and just done his. He would have just gone and done his boy. But because he actually loved her, he was like, I can't see her because I'll sabotage her and I'll hurt me and her ca. [01:15:04] Speaker A: You've solved it. Go home, everyone. Yes. Good. I think that's it. [01:15:10] Speaker C: Seriously, this is a pivotal moment. When I read that part, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, he might actually love her. [01:15:18] Speaker B: We just said that. [01:15:20] Speaker A: That's so funny. That's so funny. Yeah. [01:15:23] Speaker C: We've done great work here tonight, folks. We've done great work. [01:15:25] Speaker B: I feel like we really did. I've been telling Daniel for, like, weeks. I was like. I'm pretty sure they were soulmates. Like, I feel like they really. Like, they really were. [01:15:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:15:37] Speaker A: I mean, their. Their first meeting is crazy. I'm gonna. I'm gonna read from Mystery of Mysteries. Great book, by the way. It's. It's about the events leading up to his death, but it goes in depth about his life and it tries to solve his. The mystery of his death through ratiocination, which is his. You know. It's a great book. [01:15:57] Speaker C: No, that's a really cool concept. [01:15:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a beautifully written book. [01:16:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:16:02] Speaker A: Mystery of Mystery is the Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dewidziak. So this is just a short excerpt, but he was just about to embark on the tour in support of the stylist. The dream of love trumped the dream of having his own magazine. He reversed course and headed north. His destination was Providence when he reached, which he reached on September 21, calling at Whitman's 76 Benefit street home. Poe showed up at the door with a gift. He presented her with the 1845 Wiley and Putnam editions of his the Raven and Other Poems and tales, bound in one volume and inscribed. To Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman from the most devoted of her friends, Edgar Apo. The next day, they visited the Athena Library, and she asked him if he'd ever read this strange poem called Eulaloom. Which was an unsigned work published the previous December. Whitman was astonished when he informed her she was in the presence of the author. I mean, come on. This motherfucker. [01:17:02] Speaker B: Their brains were in love with each other. [01:17:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:17:04] Speaker A: Storybook romance. He's like, I wrote that, Heather. She's like, fuck cool. I know I'd say to you, you're the best. Now, as a fellow awkward, weird poet, man, I can practically feel Poe's heart throbbing as he meets this pale, delicate creature. He, you know, he's fascinated and possibly open to actually marrying him for real. [01:17:24] Speaker B: I really. They had gotten married, I think they would have done phenomenal things together. [01:17:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I feel the same way. She was probably just as lonely as him, by the way, having been with five years. What'd you say? [01:17:39] Speaker B: She was a badass. Like, she thought things and she knew what things to fight for. And she was smart. And her writing, obviously, he literally copied her. Like, they would have brought out the best in each other. [01:17:55] Speaker A: I do want to point out that when she was at the seances, she wasn't like, like, you know, eyes wide, like, oh, my God, there's so many goats. She was there in a critical position. She wrote about them later. [01:18:08] Speaker B: She brough hero. [01:18:10] Speaker A: She brought. She's great. She brought something that Po gave her. I can't remember what it was now, but she brought in. What'd you say? [01:18:17] Speaker B: Skepticism. She brought skepticism to everything that was there. [01:18:21] Speaker A: No, but what's cool is she went to some fraud and was like, you do telemetry? Can you reach out to my dear Edgar Poe? And she took his. I don't know what it was. It might have been a cravat or something. And she said a bunch of stuff that Mr. Po would not have said. And she was like, okay, have a nice life. You know? Yeah, it's cool to read. Because even though she's part of this transcendental movement, she's. She's still thinking. I wouldn't call her a stark rationalist like Po. I think his rationalism comes from a different place. I think he didn't trust the scientists and stuff, because he was the superior intellect. No matter what. [01:18:54] Speaker C: In any room. Yeah. Yeah. [01:18:56] Speaker A: In any room. [01:18:57] Speaker C: Yeah. He was always had to posture himself in that way. Yeah. [01:19:01] Speaker A: He really needed, like, a friend to hug him and say, eddie, stop. You're ruining it. You're ruining, like. [01:19:09] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:19:10] Speaker A: Like, when I. When I was doing research for this, I was like, having dreams where I'm like, eddie, stop. Stop it. You have to stop. You're the pizza Friend, keep it in your pants. [01:19:24] Speaker B: He would have had a lifetime friend in your pants. [01:19:27] Speaker C: Yeah, true. That's true. And I think she loved him. And she loved him hardcore. [01:19:35] Speaker B: Even after he was not good to her. So good to him. [01:19:41] Speaker A: Something eerie died. Something eerie. They have the same birthday? January 19th. Yeah. It's hard not to see in her. [01:19:50] Speaker C: Sorry, what'd you say the 18th is? [01:19:54] Speaker B: The 18th where it turns? [01:19:56] Speaker C: I think it is actually. Mighty question. I could be off by a second. [01:20:01] Speaker B: No, I have to know because, like, so David Bowie, his Birthday's on the 9th, I'm on the 7th. I'm the weirdest Capricorn ever. I am not a Capricorn at all. And then both of my kids are. [01:20:15] Speaker C: Aquariuses, So it's the 20th, so we're off by two days. [01:20:19] Speaker B: He's a Capricorn like me. I feel like that matters right now. [01:20:24] Speaker C: It matters so much. No, it's a lion. She's your literary. [01:20:30] Speaker B: Yes, she's my literary. [01:20:32] Speaker C: Like, what are we gonna call it? What's the word I'm looking for? [01:20:35] Speaker A: Zenith North Star. [01:20:36] Speaker C: Northstar. I love it. [01:20:37] Speaker A: I love it. [01:20:38] Speaker C: Yeah, North Star works. [01:20:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:40] Speaker C: Kindred spirit. [01:20:42] Speaker A: Kindred spirit, definitely. Yeah. No, but seriously though, like po. Looking at her, she was, you know, black haired, bright eyed, like Ligia with her blue eyes. Proclivity to carry a cloth drench. [01:20:54] Speaker B: I feel like he wrote that for her. [01:20:56] Speaker A: I don't know, it may be. I haven't looked at the date when that was written. You know, it doesn't come up in. [01:21:01] Speaker B: Any of these books. You know, that's by the way. [01:21:04] Speaker A: But something cool that I like is she carried a cloth drenched in ether in order to still her nervous heart. She would use that to get out of like situations she didn't want to deal with. She's like, exactly, yeah. [01:21:15] Speaker B: Expected like they had fainting couches still back then. [01:21:19] Speaker A: Now she had been hospitalized for mania, so he definitely saw something of himself in her. [01:21:24] Speaker B: Any woman got excited, got hospitalized for mania back then? [01:21:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess. Yeah, no, definitely. But it happens quite a few times to her, so I don't know. She was known for it, is my point. You're not wrong at all. [01:21:38] Speaker C: Again, I read that through the lens of my area of expertise is neurodivergence. And I read that through that modern lens and I'm like, those were probably autistic meltdowns and people called it mania. Yeah. [01:21:50] Speaker A: All the women were encouraged to be. To act in a certain way. [01:21:55] Speaker B: Like any sort of emotional. Like in public. [01:21:59] Speaker C: They were both on, like, a level. For sure. It is interesting. They share the same birthday. That's very interesting. [01:22:04] Speaker A: It is interesting. Yeah. [01:22:06] Speaker B: And honestly, like, you're right. Like, they probably had a lot of the same brain chemistry. [01:22:13] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. [01:22:14] Speaker A: Something. Something they didn't have in common were their friends. Helen was friends with pretty much everyone he attacked, which was not great. He. I have a quote here. My heart is heavy, Helen, for I see that your friends are not my own. [01:22:27] Speaker C: Okay, okay. He talks about that in his second letter. He talks about. You want me to read it? [01:22:34] Speaker B: Yes. [01:22:34] Speaker C: All right. He goes again, where to start? Okay. So, you know, he's just so, like, woe is me. Everybody hates me. I've done nothing wrong. [01:22:46] Speaker A: I think. I think a lot of these were prompted by breakups because, you know, they went back and forth quite a bit. [01:22:51] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Okay. So, yeah, for sure. [01:22:55] Speaker A: Actually, by the way, see, that first letter you wrote, the most horrifying. So the thing that I really hate about that letter is he sent a lock of his hair along with it. [01:23:07] Speaker C: He was like, she's going to love this shit. [01:23:09] Speaker B: Yes. She's going to love. [01:23:10] Speaker A: She might have. I don't know. [01:23:11] Speaker C: She's going to sniff it. [01:23:13] Speaker B: She totally did. You know, she probably definitely did. [01:23:17] Speaker C: She definitely sniffed that hair. [01:23:20] Speaker B: Yes. [01:23:22] Speaker C: All right. So he goes, okay. Nevertheless, I must now speak to you the truth or nothing. It was in mere indulgence then of the sense to which I refer, that at one dark epic of my late life, for the sake of one who, deceiving and betraying, still loved me much, I sacrificed what seemed in the eyes of men my honor, rather than abandon what was honor in hers and in my own. But alas, for nearly three years I have been ill, poor, living out of the world. And thus, as I now painfully see, have afforded every opportunity to my enemies, and especially to one the most malignant and per pertinacious of all friends. And then the next line is completely obliterated. So we don't know what he says to me in private society without my knowledge and thus with impunity. Although much, however, may and I now must see must have been said to my discredit during my retirement. Those few who, knowing me well, have been steadfastly, my friends, permitted nothing to reach my ears. So he's saying all my friends protected me from hearing about all this garbage. Blah, blah, blah. The tools employed in this instance were Mr. Haram Fuller, Mr. TD English. He's so messy. He just, like, calls everybody out. I replied to the charge fully in a public Newspaper afterwards suing the Mirror in which the scandal appeared, obtaining a verdict and obtaining such an amount as for the time, completely break up the journal. If your knowledge of my character and of my career does not afford you an answer to the query, at least it does not become me to suggest the answer. Let it suffice. That I have had the audacity to remain poor, that preserve my independence. That nevertheless, in letters, to a certain extent and in certain regards, I have been successful. That I have critic and unscrupulously honest, and in many cases a bitter one. That I have been uniformly attacked where I attacked at all those who stood highest in power and influence. And that whether in literature or in society, I have seldom refrained from expressing either directly or indirectly, the pure contempt with which the pretence intentions of ignorance, arrogance or hostility inspire me. And you who know all this you emphasize, ask me why I have enemies. I have a hundred friends for every individual enemy. [01:25:56] Speaker B: But has it. [01:25:57] Speaker C: But has it never occurred to you. He goes, but has it never occurred. He's insane. But has it never occurred to you that you do not live among my friends? Ms. Lynch, Ms. Fuller, Ms. Blackwell, Mrs. Elliott. Neither these nor any within their influence are my friends. [01:26:20] Speaker A: Such a queen, man, I can't even. [01:26:23] Speaker C: All right, we're almost done with this little section. Had you read my criticisms, generally you would see too how and why it is that the Channings, the Emerson and Hudson coterie, the Longfellow. Click one. And all the cabal of the North American Review, you would see why all these cabal. You would see why all these whom you know best know me the least and are my enemies. Do you not remember how deep a sigh I said to you in Providence? My heart is heavy, Helen, for I see that your friends are not my own. He knew that. So here's. Here's my next theory. You ready? Drop in the theories. All right. So, yes, one of the reasons he self sabotaged his relationship with Helen, even though that connection was sincere, was because he knew it would never work out. Because her social circle hated his guts. [01:27:19] Speaker B: She was so loved by her social circle, they would have fucking accepted it. [01:27:25] Speaker C: You think so? [01:27:26] Speaker B: Oh, I do. [01:27:28] Speaker A: I think if he hadn't been such a smacked ass, like, because some of these people would have been like, yeah. [01:27:35] Speaker C: You can hang out with us so. [01:27:36] Speaker B: Nice to him after he died. [01:27:38] Speaker C: After all, I think what he was scared of was that she like down several notches in their opinion. If she I decided to be with him, they wouldn't have like seen her the Same. They would have judged he was trying. [01:27:55] Speaker A: To get her to go back to Bronx with her. That's. [01:27:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I know that's the thing at all. Concerned about what? [01:28:01] Speaker C: She's definitely a little too egoic for that. That's true. [01:28:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:28:07] Speaker A: I really. I really think he was just like this. This was after she. She turned him down and told him. Told him that she couldn't handle sex because of her weak heart. Again, using that to get out of jail. [01:28:17] Speaker B: I mean, if you're gonna get out of jail, that's the way to do it. [01:28:20] Speaker A: I understand. Like, like, look, I mean, I get it. Like a girl says, no, maybe you try once or twice. But like, he pushed really hard and at a certain point it's like, yeah, no, my heart, I can't take it. [01:28:31] Speaker C: It's, you know now, which is interesting because it's like maybe she just was. Yeah. Just had the like intellectual connection with him, but wasn't really interested in a full bodied marital connection. [01:28:48] Speaker B: Okay. [01:28:48] Speaker A: You know, I think she did not want to leave her entire life behind. I think she enjoyed. She enjoyed being a high born New England woman with money and having a friend. Group of poets and artists. And she didn't really feel like crossing her mother, despite where we're going with this story. You know, that's the heart of it. Go ahead, Adrian. Sorry. [01:29:12] Speaker B: I feel like you're right. She didn't want to cross those people because she could do the most good. Because she literally was trying to like, help people till literally the day that she died. And trying to be a voice for people that didn't have a voice. And if she had done anything to kill that off, none of the good that she did would have mattered. [01:29:38] Speaker A: Let's talk about more of Poe's bad behavior. Just because I think it's. I think it's relevant. These are the types of stories she was hearing. Okay, so back in 1833, this was kind of a big deal. This was the first time he made a big. Well, I think. Yeah, I think this is. I know he wrote the Raven, whatever. The Baltimore Saturday Visitor. This stupid magazine had a poetry contest and a short story collection contest. He submitted six stories for their $50 prize as well as the Coliseum, which is an epic fucking poem. If you haven't read it, go read it. What are you doing? It's great. It's great. It's incredible. The editors were over the moon about his writing. They ordered him $50 a piece in. [01:30:24] Speaker B: 1830S money, which was a whole big thing back then. [01:30:27] Speaker A: Wind full of 300 whole dollars. I mean, that's a lot of sandwiches right there, man. They could not, however. Sorry. [01:30:36] Speaker B: Dollars from a painting you wouldn't be. Or a poetry like thing, you wouldn't be like, super excited. [01:30:42] Speaker A: I mean, you know. [01:30:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Winning a lot. [01:30:46] Speaker A: It wouldn't pay rent for like years, though. That's the thing. [01:30:48] Speaker C: No, not years. [01:30:50] Speaker A: Back then your dollar went a little further, you know. [01:30:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:54] Speaker A: But, you know, they, they, they told him they could not award him the poetry prize as well. They gave it to some guy called Henry Willett, who Mr. Poe learned was actually one of the editors, a certain John Hewitt. Unable to take the money and be happy and work with these people who wanted to do more with him, he accosted him in the street. And John Hewitt didn't even say anything. He just punched him in the face and kept walking. Yeah. So the visitor wanted to publish. Despite it's crazy, the visitors still wanted to work with him. They wanted to publish his stories. And the Folio, they were gonna call it the Folio Society, sell them for a dollar apiece. But Poe was like, fuck you guys. I'm gonna do it myself and make more money. He took the manuscript back to Philly, Philadelphia, and gave it to some publisher who sat on it for years before deciding it wouldn't be profitable because the public were into long form novels at the time. The stories went on to be highly pirated and earned him no money during his lifetime. And of course, he couldn't leverage that connection with those people because he fucking picked the fight with one of the editors. So, yeah, Helen claimed to be disenchanted with Po by all the horrible things she was hearing. We've read. You've read two of his letters. I mean, the Emerson Hudson coterie, the Longfellow. Click. I mean, come on. It's insane. He attacked her privilege. I love it, I love it, I love it. They're all out to get me. It's everyone else. It's not me, you know? He attacked her privilege. She lashed out of her wealth, claimed to want to end their courtship altogether rather than to quote, afflict her with his love. Got her, you know, like, it's crazy. [01:32:32] Speaker B: That's the most. [01:32:34] Speaker A: Oh, by the way, he included a lock of his hair with that letter as well. Would you say? Adrian, I'm sorry you got cut off. [01:32:40] Speaker B: That was like gaslighting at its best. [01:32:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, he was really good at it. I mean, wordplay was his deal. I mean, that's. Yeah. [01:32:48] Speaker C: Very many. [01:32:49] Speaker A: Yeah, These letters are like 15 pages long. I mean, I couldn't read them. I couldn't handle it. Sia, you're a lot braver than I am. [01:32:55] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. No, and it's not great. Not great. [01:33:00] Speaker B: You are. [01:33:01] Speaker A: The thing is, I think the real tragedy is that I really think he failed to really understand her character because, like, you know, never ending letters of suicidal thoughts, dogged hopelessness, desperation, fawning cringe worthy entreaties of worship, it didn't really appeal to her. At the end of the day, he. [01:33:17] Speaker B: Was in love with the idea of her and she wanted someone who was actually in love with her. [01:33:22] Speaker A: This kind of stuff worked with his, his adopted mother, you know, like he got her to stay with him and not go to his uncle, who could have taken better care of her, you know, and part of that is why he married Virginia, which we're gonna have to talk about Virginia in a future episode, because that's a whole fucking yeah adventure right there. But here's the thing, here's the big thing with Helen that we haven't touched on, right? She loved reading about and defending the gross excesses of her romantic heroes like Byron and Shelley, but she didn't want to be with them. She didn't want to be like them. She had very little interest in living in a small cottage and having no money. You know, things like opulence and wealth are like the one ring. No one wants to give them up once you have them, you know, golden handcuffs. Golden handcuffs. Abso fucking lutely. I'm not chastising her either. [01:34:07] Speaker C: I mean, like most, no, most people wouldn't want to leave a life of comfort and surrounded by your community and all of that. Like, why would you want to leave that to go? No, and quite honestly, she got to. [01:34:19] Speaker B: Do more with it than like most people for sure. Period. [01:34:24] Speaker C: Like, yeah, she knew what she had. She knew what she had and that's why she was so reluctant and slow moving with Poe and Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:34:35] Speaker A: Good thing she was, what, an npc. She didn't want to throw everything away to marry the broke, scandalous poet man. [01:34:41] Speaker B: You know, if stayed sober for four days, it would have happened either way. [01:34:45] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know. [01:34:47] Speaker C: We don't know what would have been the outcome. Like it might have been. [01:34:51] Speaker A: It's all speculation. [01:34:54] Speaker B: I could totally see that happening. But like, honestly, I think she probably would have won over him. [01:35:00] Speaker A: Besides being an unreliable and unstable person, you know, which I think she could clearly see from a mile off, even though I think she did love him, she also had to deal with her mother, who was overbearing and held the purse strings to their inheritance in her elderly death group. [01:35:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:35:17] Speaker A: Anyway, so after several letters, he showed up on her doorstep a few days later, basically begging her to marry him again. He told her that he had planned to compare her writing to other female poets of the day and tore the printed page of his lecture mentioning her out of the book to show her, which. Please, sir, so mad I'm back. I'm struck by his selfishness, too. [01:35:38] Speaker B: Like, that the dude, he's, like, trying to bribe her to come back to him with, like, literary, like, his name. His name is, like, I can give you this. Your work, like, needs me to do this for you. [01:35:54] Speaker A: He urged her to consider his future welfare and happiness. I. You know, I get that he's poor, lonely, and horny, but from where I'm sitting, there's not a lot in his proposal for her. Yeah, she's gonna lose her family, money, friends, culture. It's just a poor cell. [01:36:08] Speaker C: Exactly. [01:36:08] Speaker A: You know? [01:36:09] Speaker B: Yeah, kind of. Especially since he was mean to everybody. [01:36:13] Speaker C: So, like, love bombing to her, which is very icky. [01:36:18] Speaker B: Literally. He has severe narcissistic tendencies. And, like, he calls her out at. [01:36:24] Speaker C: One point for, like, never saying, I love you back. [01:36:27] Speaker A: So it's pretty awkward. [01:36:29] Speaker B: I know. [01:36:32] Speaker A: His lack of decorum would be his undoing, once again. Having successfully guilted Helen into reconsidering his proposal again, he went on to Lowell, Massachusetts, to give his lecture, staying with Jane Locke's family. She was still in love with him, of course, having rebuffed her and shown interest in her married cousin, Nancy Richmond. Annie, that's another thing. All these people are related, like British royalty or something. This was a disastrous and stupid move. You know, it's again, another moment where I'm just like, come on, bro, what are you doing? [01:37:02] Speaker C: Self sabotage, dude. Like, I'm serious. [01:37:05] Speaker A: Yeah. So Jane Locke, who might have managed to make up with him and, I don't know, might have even helped him settle in New England. She freaked out that he was staying with Nancy and not her. And she insisted that Nancy was only part of polite society because of her and her influence. And that Muddy, his beloved aunt, who he lived with, should be disgusted by his beloved Annie. She would just be absolutely disgusted if she knew anything about that filthy Annie. Po took off, preferring to hold hands with, you know, the other married woman. So, you know, our king Annie, by the way, she did take. She loved his nickname. She changed. She legally changed her name to Annie later in life. [01:37:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:37:44] Speaker A: So, yeah. Also Married to. Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? She was also married to a mill owner. They're all married to mill owners. I don't know. [01:37:52] Speaker C: Yeah, they're cheaper owners and. [01:37:54] Speaker A: Yeah, in New England. It's pretty weird. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe that's all that was there. Their relationship was cold and distant. Charles liked to read the paper and run his business and according to relatives, lacked in, quote, home sympathy. He seems to have been supportive of his wife's relationship with Po enjoying his presence, probably appreciating the attention he gave his wife. Annie, for her part, encouraged Mr. Poe to pursue Helen. And when a brief non committal letter came to him in Lowell, he fled back to Providence to see her again in a state of delirium and mania. He made it to Providence, but couldn't bring himself to walk to Benefit Street. Instead, he went to a hotel, spending what he called a long, long night of hideous despair. Unable to contain himself, he took a train to Boston, purchased 2 ounces of laudanum and wrote a passionate, manic letter to Annie, who he madly, so distractedly loved, begging her to honor the promise to come to him should he ever find himself on his deathbed. If. Yeah, if you. If you have anything to add, you can. Because I have a pretty brutal quote here from this book. [01:39:00] Speaker C: No, no, hit it. Hit the quote. [01:39:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So this is again, Edgar Apo. A biography by Kenneth Silverman. As if to curse the one and embrace the other, PO then swallowed about half the laudanum. It is a solution of powdered opium and alcohol, weaker in opium content than morphine or heroin. In post time, it was administered through cotton earplugs to hallucinating patients in mental hospitals, but was easily obtained and also widely used as a tranquilizer. The drug works quickly, producing maximum respiratory depression in 10 minutes and its peak effect in 20 minutes. The answer. So that Poe took. Poe said he took equivalent to about 300 milligrams of morphine, represents some 30 times the average dose. The quantity is by itself enough to be fatal, although he intended, after Annie arrived, to swallow the remaining ounce or more as well. Whatever his plan, Poe miscalculated. He hurried to the post office with his letter for Annie, but never mailed it. Before he reached the place, he said, my reason was entirely gone. I have another one, too. I'm gonna go into from Mystery of Mysteries, page 213. Yeah, yeah, this is a good one. So, okay. Poe knew what he was doing, and he would have known the proper dose to end it all. If that's what he truly wanted to do, said Baltimore Dean of Poe Studies, Jeff Jerome. So don't point the finger at me. Don't come to my house. Go after Jeff Jerome. He took just enough to get sick, and my belief is that he took it as a cry for pity. Whatever his intention, his retching stomach had other ideas. Back in Providence, he did not tell Whitman about the laudanum. All right, that's. When was that. [01:40:43] Speaker C: When was that, that event? Do you know? Was there a date around that event at all? Because I'm wondering if it's coinciding with this particular letter where he talks about being sick. [01:40:56] Speaker A: I think it does. Let's see. It was page 73, right? I don't have the date in front of me. Let me. Let me pull it up. This was. Yeah. This was November 4th. [01:41:06] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay, so there's a letter that he writes to Helen, November 7, and says, I have no engagement, but I am very ill. So much so that I must go home if possible. But if you say stay, I will try and do so. If you cannot see me, write me one word to say that you do love me and that under all circumstances you will be mine. Remember that. This is the part where he says, remember that these coveted words you have never yet spoken, and nevertheless I have not reproached you. Like, you've never even told me you love me, and I still love you. My power to be here on Saturday as I had proposed, or I would undoubtedly have kept my promise. If you can see me, even for a few moments, to do so, or even for a few moments, do so. But if not, write or send some message which will comfort me. That's the end of it. It was a really short letter, so he was referring to that incident. So he went off, did this insane freaking side quest surrounding Annie, and then has the audacity to write to Helen and be like, I'm sick. Come see me. [01:42:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's crazy. Yeah, that was after. That was a. Like a day or so after everything, after they had their. Their one meeting at her house. So, yeah, it's. It's crazy. So this episode allowed Poe to think clearly for a minute. His depression and mania having subsided, he returned to Providence, but was told by a servant at the door that he was to return in the afternoon. Poe, ever the adamant jerk, couldn't work with what he was given and angrily told the servant he could not return due to an engagement, but hastened to write that letter you just read out. She eventually wrote back to say that she would meet him at the Athenaeum in a half hour, whereupon he begged her to marry him once again. In response, she demanded to know what had happened that past Saturday when he had promised to see her. He told her of his laudanum adventure, but she had begun to distrust the poet. She believed that he'd been drinking and brought out several letters she had received warning her about her involvement with him. One of these is thought to have come from Rufus Griswold, his erstwhile enemy. He arose and bowed wordlessly, not replying when Helen asked, will we see you later? Utterly crushed and defeated, he went back to his hotel and sank into the depths of the bar, wallowing in his misery. This was to prove his final downfall, Forever immortalized in the famous daguerreotype picture that you've all seen. He sat for it that night. It's called the Ultima Thule Portrait, which comes from his masterpiece. Well, the word does. Dreamland. It's a striking, eerie portrait and is essentially. It's become the face for his spooky caricature. That same night, Po went back to Benefit street in a delirious state. Helen's mother sat with him for nearly two hours as Poe begged for Helen to show herself and save him from impending doom. When Helen did finally descend to speak with him, he threw himself at her feet, clinging to her dress and sobbing. Helen's mother sent for a doctor, who gave the writer a hasty diagnosis and sent him from the house, leaving him in the care of another writer. Despite all this, incredibly. Like Padme in Star Wars Episode 2, agreeing to marry Anakin after he confesses to being a fascist and begging for sex repeatedly, Helen agreed to marry Mr. Poe, provided he abstained from drinking. She still trusted her own mystical belief that they were meant to be together and was unwilling to ignore her own feelings for the writer of the Raven. It's also more than likely that his emotional words at the end had an impact on her, and she felt guilty for having any reservations at all. I don't even know what to say about that. I mean, like, is that part where. [01:44:45] Speaker C: It says, left her. Left him in the care of another writer? Is that Mr. On the. Mr. Peybody, whatever his name was. [01:44:53] Speaker A: Yeah, Pey Body. Yeah, it's that. It's that confirmed bachelor guy. [01:44:56] Speaker C: Yeah, that's who. That's who they're referring to. Right. Left him in the care of another writer at that time, because that would. That would coincide with that timing. [01:45:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:45:05] Speaker C: And then shortly after that, he left for New York, right? [01:45:09] Speaker A: Yep. [01:45:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:45:12] Speaker A: Yeah. He was like, post one friend there. It's crazy. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't name him in my little write up here because. Because I didn't. It's not that important, but, yeah, it's sad stuff. He really could have carved out a niche here. [01:45:25] Speaker C: Yeah, seriously. [01:45:28] Speaker A: At any rate, in December, a marriage document was written up by Helen's practical, unyielding mother, which added the caveat that. Oh, there she is. [01:45:34] Speaker C: You made it back. [01:45:36] Speaker A: We lost you for a second. [01:45:37] Speaker B: My phone crashed. It was a thing, but I got it. [01:45:41] Speaker A: It's only technology. You can't expect it to work ever. [01:45:44] Speaker B: It never. [01:45:46] Speaker A: So. So, yeah, we just told the horrible story about, you know, Po when he went back high on something and begged her to marry him through herself, threw himself at her feet, and she, like Padme from Star wars, was like, sure, I'm. I'll marry you. Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? Now he. She. She did. She did. She was finally like, he's. I. He can't live without me. Helen's mother went ahead and wrote up a marriage document, which added the caveat that should Helen marry Mr. Po, she would be cut off from her inheritance. Showing her love and dedication, Helen agreed. Mr. Poe predictably freaked out, having been counting on that windfall to pay off all his debts, but made sure Helen was not aware of his feelings. Everything seemed to finally be going his way. Despite the failure of Eureka to light the world on fire, Poe was giving lectures and publishing reviews. Finally had found a very nice lady to marry and love him and his adopted mother. In fact, when Helen Salpo, in his place of power, giving a talk at the Lyceum in Providence, which is gorgeous, by the way. You know, when I was in Providence earlier this year, it was on my ghost tour, and it's a gorgeous building. [01:47:00] Speaker B: It's magical. [01:47:02] Speaker A: It is magical. By the way, another famous writer, famous racist, and a giant squid enthusiast. How HP Lovecraft. He's also buried in Providence, incidentally, he's buried in Swan. Swan Point Cemetery, which Po and Helen hung out in. [01:47:16] Speaker C: Daniel, I'm just gonna tell you that pen clicking sounds gonna piss you off when you're trying to edit this later. So throw it away. You're gonna be like, why was I clicking that pen? [01:47:25] Speaker B: What am I doing? [01:47:28] Speaker A: You're so right because I can't hear it. But. No, but his granite, his plain gravestone is surrounded by pens from probably teenagers, like Dracula's castle or Something. It's really cool, but needless to say, but that's beside the point. Anyway, Helen saw him reading at the Lyceum in Providence, and he didn't just read the Raven, but his other rhythmic and evocative poem, the incomparable of the Bells, which. Yeah, I feel like every time I mention one of these pieces, I just want to talk about that. But she was so moved by his recitation that she decided they needed to be married immediately, knowing there was no way for him to engage and defeat the dragon that was Helen's mother. Poe signed the fucking documents, requested those bands of marriage be posted. As fate would have it, like the black cat crying from behind the bricks or the beating of the telltale heart, an anonymous letter found its way to Helen, asserting that Poe had been drinking and thus had already betrayed him. The final image of this story is hard to relate. Helen lay on the sofa, dead to the world, while Poe, on his knees, pleaded with her to trust him. He was thrown from the house by her mother, and in Helen's words, she never saw him again. That was all less than a year before his death on October 7, 1849. It's easy to point to, you know, the finger at Poe for refusing to play nice with other writers of his day for his alcoholism and pugilism. But here's the thing. Helen herself, despite my own disgust with Poe's attitude and approach, seemed, despite her own preferences and misgivings, heartbroken at the failure of the engagement. It bothers me, and I've said this before tonight, but it bothers me tremendously that her legacy has been effectively reduced to a footnote in Poe's own history. In fact, the best place to read about her is in the very books I've read from and will be citing for the podcast tonight. After the Raven man's death, Mrs. Whitman was one of Poe's most aggressive defenders, pushing back against the likes of Rufus Griswold and the many, many writers who had a bone to pick with Poe. She even published a book called Edgar Poe and His Critics, highlighting the literary merits of his work. And by the way, if you want to read her poetry, you know, we've got Last Flowers. It's not a great book by any means. It does a fair amount of editorializing, but it has lots of her poetry in it, and that's the real value of it. It's hard to find them. [01:49:52] Speaker C: It's crazy. It's criminal. [01:49:54] Speaker A: Yeah, poetry dot com. It's got every fucking Poe poem. It's got everything. Yeah, no, Whitman, dude. [01:50:00] Speaker C: He literally was such a good poet too. She was so good. [01:50:04] Speaker B: She was so good that he literally stole lines from her. [01:50:07] Speaker A: Let's read Arcturus. By the way, this is a poem she wrote to him. Who wants to read it? [01:50:11] Speaker C: You. [01:50:13] Speaker A: I mean, I can. [01:50:14] Speaker B: Yes, you are. [01:50:16] Speaker A: All right. I believe it's page 112. It's been a second. No, this is our island of dreams. One second. It's okay. We'll let the silence out. We're almost done. [01:50:25] Speaker B: I've got my poke up now. [01:50:28] Speaker A: Yours is better than mine. I just have a bunch of stylist stylish quotes on mine. No, no, no, but this. So basically, Arcturus is a star that he pointed out to her in Swan Point Cemetery. It became a cipher for him in her poetry. She would refer to him as her. Arcturus. Our star looks through the storm, Star of resplendent front. Thy glorious eye shines on me still from out yon clouded sky shines on me through the horrors of a night more drear than ever fell o'er day so bright shines till the envious serpent slinks away and pales and trembles at thy steadfast ray. Hast thou not stooped from heaven, fair star, to be so near me in this hour of agony? So near, so bright, so glorious that I seem to lie entranced as in some wondrous dream, all earthly joys forgot, all earthly fear purged in the light of thy resplendent sphere, kindling within my soul a pure desire to blend with thine its incandescent fire, to lose my very life in thine and be soul of thy soul through all eternity. [01:51:30] Speaker C: Okay, okay, okay. Help me figure this out. [01:51:33] Speaker A: A few lines from. Go, go. [01:51:34] Speaker C: Help me figure this out then. Because Poe talks about this poem in his sixth letter to her. And the incandescent fire line. [01:51:42] Speaker B: Uh huh. [01:51:43] Speaker A: Yep. [01:51:44] Speaker C: Okay, let me just tell you what po. So I'm trying to figure out if he was writing this letter after that was like, complete or not. Because of what he says. He says your lines to Arcturus are truly beautiful. I would retain the Virgilian. So it sounds like she. This is how this letter reads to me. It sounds as though she wrote to him, here's a poem I'm working on. Your thoughts. Like, it sounds like she was asking him for feedback because this is what he says. Your lines to Arcturus are truly beautiful. I would retain the Virgilian words omitting the translation. The first Note Leave out 61. Signe has been proved nearer than. So Signe is the one of the constellations. [01:52:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:52:31] Speaker C: Has been proved nearer than Arcturus and Alpha. Alpha Leary is presumably so. Bessel also has shown six other stars to be nearer than the brighter one in this hemisphere. There is an obvious tautology in pale candescent. To be is. Wait, so listen. To be candescent is to become white with heat. And he says, why not read to blend with thine its incandescent fire? [01:53:01] Speaker A: Yes. [01:53:02] Speaker C: It says, forgive me. And she does. That's the exact line that she uses. [01:53:05] Speaker A: That's a great. That's a great. That's a great note, though. Yeah. I'm laughing at how pedantic it is. But he's not wrong. [01:53:14] Speaker C: He calls himself out for it. He goes, forgive me, sweet Helen, for these very stupid and captious criticisms. Take vengeance on my next poem. [01:53:24] Speaker B: That's cute. [01:53:26] Speaker C: It's cute. And he is cute. It's really cute like that. I know. [01:53:31] Speaker A: Yeah. After all this, like, all these, like, this scourging of the guy. I mean, it's nice to hear something pleasant. [01:53:38] Speaker C: Right, right. [01:53:39] Speaker B: I'm sorry. [01:53:40] Speaker C: So, again, like, it speaks to the kind of, like, tragic nature of their connection because, like, they really are very much like, literary equals and, like, probably would have been, like, great contemporaries to, like, riff off each other and, like, help give each other notes and make each other's poetry better, you know? And they did. [01:53:58] Speaker A: They would have. I think they would have been a literary power couple. [01:54:01] Speaker C: They really would have been a power couple. [01:54:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:54:03] Speaker C: Sure. [01:54:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:54:04] Speaker A: What did I want to say? Yeah, I will say, too, that I feel like she's throwing back his. To Helen at him a little bit because that poem concludes with this, like, this framing of her eyes as these, like, exquisite orbs. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. [01:54:19] Speaker C: No, it could be. Yeah. That's cute. I like that idea. [01:54:25] Speaker B: I love him. [01:54:27] Speaker C: The very, like, last known writing of him to her was sometime in, like, January. So the whole drama went down, you know, late 1848. They were supposed to get Merry Christmas Day or whatever. [01:54:39] Speaker A: Right. [01:54:39] Speaker C: Blah, blah. They found, like, a fragment of a letter in January. And this is all that they found was this. This is all he wrote. This is all we have. [01:54:49] Speaker A: Heaven was never sent. [01:54:51] Speaker C: It was sent. But so it says. It says that it was received at the beginning of 1849. So Helen herself, like, wrote that she never replied to this. So whatever excerpt they found, she had written down, like, somehow or another, she had described this as. I never replied to this. Like. [01:55:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:55:14] Speaker C: Which. Good for her. Right? Have some dignity. He Never signed it. There was no signature. But we know his handwriting, so we know it was from him. And this is all that was left of the fragment. It says, heaven knows that I would shrink from wounding or grieving you. I blame no one but your mother. Mr. Peabody will tell you all. May heaven shield you from all ill. Okay, so again, no. No faults. It's not my fault. It's your stupid mother for having standards. [01:55:47] Speaker B: I mean, some of her standards were not right, but some of them were. [01:55:50] Speaker C: Like, can you not drink for four days? [01:55:55] Speaker B: Four fucking days? [01:55:57] Speaker A: Her. Her mother saw in him a rubber bait. She was like, our money's good. Our money's gonna be gone. Yeah, she probably thought he was a gambler, too, and I don't think that was one of his vices, but honestly, she probably knew the type. She was an older woman. [01:56:12] Speaker C: She was protecting her. [01:56:13] Speaker B: Literally, mom. Like, if my. [01:56:18] Speaker C: That's what I'm saying. Like, as a. As a mom, I'm like, hard relate. Hard relate. Like, if my daughter was trying to run off with some degenerate, it's like, I don't care how beautiful his poetry is. [01:56:32] Speaker B: I don't care. I don't care. Four days. Four days without. Like, without drinking. Show me you could do it for four days. [01:56:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:56:40] Speaker B: It's not just that. [01:56:41] Speaker C: It's not just that. It's not just the drinking. I might overlook, like, one character flaw, but it's the drinking. It's the. It's the alienating himself from his entire like of contemporaries. It's the womanizing all her friends. It's the love bombing. Like, he's just red flag after red flag as far as a relationship goes. Like, as a mother, I also would want to protect my daughter. [01:57:05] Speaker B: It was like, hell, no. [01:57:07] Speaker A: You know, I agree with all these things, and I think that there was not much in the proposal for her to grab onto. I will say, however, that it is the stance of Death Wish Poetry magazine and the Demon to Us podcast that Edgar Allan Poe was not, quote, a degenerate through the. [01:57:24] Speaker C: Through the. Through eyes of the mother of Ms. Helen. Yeah, he was a womanizer, and he was. [01:57:35] Speaker A: I do agree that the mom was well within her rights to be, like, do not marry. [01:57:38] Speaker B: But here's the thing. He didn't even tell her daughter not to marry him. She was literally like, okay, I see you're totally enamored with this dude. You guys probably do have a connection. [01:57:50] Speaker A: If she probably thought it wasn't gonna work out and she'd come home and leave them and the money would all still be there. Mr. Put wouldn't have frittered away on alcohol and his debts, his stupid magazine. [01:58:02] Speaker C: She thought he would pass it. [01:58:04] Speaker B: I think she thought he would pass it because it was literally just four days. [01:58:07] Speaker C: She's like, it was four days. [01:58:09] Speaker B: Okay. [01:58:10] Speaker C: It was a pretty simple test. [01:58:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it's literally four days. [01:58:13] Speaker C: Like, but like, if prenups existed back then, she would have been like, girl, get you some. Get yourself a prenup. [01:58:19] Speaker B: And that would have been that. And it would have been fine. [01:58:21] Speaker A: I mean, this was a prenup. It essentially was. [01:58:24] Speaker C: That's what I'm saying. It's like they. That didn't exist. So this was the best she could finagle. [01:58:28] Speaker B: All she came up with, because she loved her daughter so much was four days. Like, four days. Like, she's not a monster. Like, as a mom. [01:58:38] Speaker C: So there. Therein lies the tragic tale of Helen Whitman, Mr. Poe, and our beloved Helen Whitman. [01:58:47] Speaker B: I love her. [01:58:48] Speaker C: Tragic, dude. Tragic. [01:58:50] Speaker B: It's the most tragical thing ever. [01:58:52] Speaker A: There's, you know. Yeah. And I mean, like, there are more poems. There's Our island of Dreams, which is exquisite. There's Annabel Lee, which we didn't look at either. Maybe we could do a part two at some point just to wrap things up. But frankly, it's a pretty brutal story. It hurts to read and it sucks. And good. [01:59:08] Speaker C: We were here. Yeah, good. [01:59:10] Speaker B: We were here as moms, too, because we're like. [01:59:13] Speaker C: I think we uncovered some really interesting things tonight, though. I'm proud of the research we all did, and we were able to make some connections. I don't think he's a degenerate. I just think that he wasn't right in the mind. In a lot of ways, he was sabotaging, but he was just such a self sabotager. And that's sad. I did. [01:59:34] Speaker A: Got it. Got it. Got to do. Works I did. And shout a few things out. [01:59:37] Speaker C: Do it. Let's go. [01:59:38] Speaker B: Let's go. [01:59:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So I want. I wanted to shout out my. You know, our social media sorceress Ashley Sweeney, and her. And her social media company, Tucks In Media, which is Greek for luck. She handles the Instagram page right now, all those images she makes. She's incredibly talented. If you have something you want help promoting, I mean, she's done marvelous work for us here at Death Wish. So do check her out. She's incredibly talented. Horror to culture, which Adrienne writes for. She reviews movies. She interviews fucking novelists and movie stars. [02:00:14] Speaker B: They just published my thing with Arian like just now. [02:00:18] Speaker A: Really? [02:00:19] Speaker C: Yes. [02:00:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I read it before. It's really good. It's really good. He gives. [02:00:23] Speaker B: I think it's really good. [02:00:25] Speaker A: He wrote Warm Bodies. Right? [02:00:26] Speaker B: He wrote the four books that. [02:00:31] Speaker A: Which are not stupid teen novels like the movie is. [02:00:34] Speaker B: No, my daughter was obsessed with those with the movie and we watched it and it was great. And she like had a red hoodie to be like R and it was super cute. But like I got the first book from the library and I started to read it to her and it was. [02:00:51] Speaker C: Like mistakes were made on another level. [02:00:55] Speaker B: Uh huh. Yeah. No, not teen. Not teen appropriate at all. [02:01:01] Speaker A: Check out Unlearned. By the way, that's CA's sorry podcast. It's great. It's about life skills. It's about deal being a rational human in an unrational world. It's great. It's excellent. Ca. Do you want to give a description of it or is that. [02:01:17] Speaker C: Yeah, we just, we. We kind of like explore top more critical sort of lens. Right. Instead of just sort of defaulting to narratives and social constructs that were placed upon all of us. It's just. That's why it's called Unlearned. Right. So we're unlearning what was just handed to us and giving a critical look at moving forward in a way that is grounded in authenticity within ourselves. [02:01:41] Speaker A: There you go. And I rate, you know, in addition to editing Death Wish, which you should Definitely check out, deathwishpoetry.com we published some incredible stuff. We're currently taking submissions for our winter edition which is due out sometime in December. So do check out our webpage. But you know, I also write fantasy books. Demonlandbooks.com if you like. Demons, monsters and. [02:02:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not fantasy, it's horror novels. You're rocking it. [02:02:12] Speaker A: Horror, fantasy, horror, fantasy, whatever. Yes, all the characters are monsters and demons. [02:02:17] Speaker B: They're mad. [02:02:17] Speaker A: Check that out. Or don't. I'm probably releasing the re releasing the first book hopefully sometime this month with a new title. So that's a thing. But at any rate, I also wanted to just cite my sources. Last Flowers by Brett Rutherford. A Mystery of the Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark dewidciak, Edgar A. Poe, Mournful and Never Ending remembrance by Kenneth Silverman. And finally American A History by Philip F. Gura. That book sucks. Don't read it. [02:02:45] Speaker B: You should read the poetry book by Elizabeth Tarbaul. [02:02:51] Speaker C: Oh, let me also include what. What I was reading from All Night Long basically was the last Letters of Edgar Allan Poe to Sarah Helen Whitman. Edited by James A. Harrison. So that's what I was. Just a collection of all those letters. [02:03:08] Speaker A: There you go. Read all those books. That's a great source, too. I did not have that book. [02:03:14] Speaker B: So you know, it's because CA is the coolest. [02:03:18] Speaker A: Pretty great operation. [02:03:24] Speaker B: Okay. [02:03:27] Speaker A: Stay spooky, everyone. [02:03:28] Speaker C: Stay spooky. [02:03:30] Speaker A: Thomas Sa It.