Edgar Allan Poes Eleonora - Essay Example

?Edgar Allan Poe’s Eleonora: Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most illustrious litterateur’s to have graced the art in the United s of America. Hisshort stories and poems were enjoyed by the public during his own life time as they are still relished contemporarily. His two greatest artistic gifts are his perceptiveness of psychological nuances and his ability to illustrate it in lyrical prose. Both these qualities are seen in his numerous critically acclaimed short fiction and poems. This essay attempts to make a close reading of one of his short stories – Eleonora – and attempts to identify in it some of the recurrent themes in Poe’s works and place them in socio-cultural context. It will pay attention to the influences of the Romantic Movement in literature as well as the bearing of popular psychological theories such as The Uncanny presented subsequently by Sigmund Freud. The short story Eleonora is lyrical testament to the power of romantic love. A story without any plot whatsoever, its aesthetics lies in the portrayal of depths of passion and the glory of love. It is as much a eulogy to love as it is an excuse for breaking off past promises. Yet, there is no contradiction here, as the promises made to the protagonist’s previous lover have eroded in relevance in the narrator’s ‘second epoch of life’ as he calls it. German physician Friedrich Anton Mesmer’s (1734-1815) scientific method of delving into the human psyche is of help in analyzing the story, for it provides a medium with access to the subject’s inner world and secrets that lay beyond human existence. i This then novel scientific approach “became the cutting-edge development in scientific research to approach the mysteries of the spiritual world and the dark side of the human mind. The Romantic poet, therefore, employed the motif of the double as the chance to investigate the passions and illnesses of the human mind and to examine the presence of a supernatural world.” ii The storyline in Eleonora is quite simple. The unnamed narrator (probably Poe himself) recollects two distinct periods or chapters in his life. The first one ends with the premature death of his beloved cousin Eleonora. The second one ends with his marriage to Ermengarde, his heartthrob of late. During the first phase, the narrator recollects all the wonderful moments he spent with his cousin Eleonara, whom he was about to marry if not for her terminally declining health. This morbid stipulation of time only heightens their love for each other. Instead of dousing interest in the relationship, it serves as a catalyst in consolidating the lovers’ bond. At one such heightened moment of heart-felt love, the narrator promises to Eleonora that even after her death he would remain loyal to her. By remaining loyal to the memory of their love, he believes, he will retain his beloved’s spiritual grace from the heavens, where she would watch over him for the rest of his life, till he joins her eventually one day. Thus ends the first phase of his life, with the promise to and death of Eleonora. In the second phase of the narrator’s life, having been discouraged by the emptiness of life without Eleonora, the narrator decides to seek a livelier atmosphere by participating in worldly affairs. Idealistic and endearing an idea this was, it would be severely tested and defeated in the face of the charms of Ermengarde. The author’s endeavor is to reconcile these apparently contradictory actions on part of the narrator. Poe is able to achieve this goal by stylized application of the best features of Romantic Movement in literature, which was in vogue in the early decades of the 19th century. Although Poe preceded Freud, there is evidence of some of the latter’s theories in Poe’s works, including Eleonora. One of the theories articulated by Sigmund Freud is that of Cognitive Dissonance. We can witness this at play as the narrator justifies his abandonment of the promises made to the deceased Eleonora in the face of the compelling romantic pull of Ermengarde. It is fair to claim that the cognitive dissonance felt by the narrator is a necessary mental conflict, just as much as his eventual resolution of it is justifiable. His decision to break his promise to Eleonora is justified on the grounds that it has lost its relevance. The promise’s breach is not a measure of the sincerity of intention at the point of making such a compact. But such is human nature that some promises lose their utility beyond a certain time. In the case of the narrator’s life after Eleonora, he has done nothing unethical or immoral in being drawn to natural worldly temptations, especially in the form of the feminine allure. iii Freud’s theory of ‘The Uncanny’ can be brought to bear on the short story. Though Freud’s life and career succeeded and not preceded that of Poe’s, there is a strong foreshadowing of the former’s theories in the latter’s literary works. This can be deduced through derivative logic, where we evidence the influence of German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann in the works of Poe. That Freud acknowledged how ‘the uncanny’ was at play in Hoffmann’s works helps us infer how they were also applied by Poe in his own distinct social and cultural milieu. For example, “Poe was well acquainted with publications by European writers and even accused other American authors of plagiarizing their ideas. Some critics have noted the similarities between "William Wilson" and The Devil's Elixirs...” iv Poe exposes the manifestation of the uncanny in Eleonora through his depiction of the ecology of the hills of Many Colored Grass. For example, when the narrator’s romantic involvement with his cousin Eleonora was at a peak, the surrounding natural beauty brimmed in its splendour to reflect their relationship: “From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away, at length, through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called it the "River of Silence"; for there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at all...” v Likewise, after Eleonora’s death, when his mind is withdrawn from pleasure and heart ailing from loss of love, the atmosphere of the Many Colored Grass turns dull and dour to reflect the inner condition: “The star-shaped flowers shrank into the stems of the trees, and appeared no more. The tints of the green carpet faded; and, one by one, the ruby-red asphodels withered away; and there sprang up, in place of them, ten by ten, dark, eye-like violets, that writhed uneasily and were ever encumbered with dew. And Life departed from our paths; for the tall flamingo flaunted no longer his scarlet plumage before us, but flew sadly from the vale into the hills, with all the gay glowing birds that had arrived in his company. And the golden and silver fish swam down through the gorge at the lower end of our domain and bedecked the sweet river never again…” vi The concept of the ‘divided self’ is of salience to the discussion of Eleonora, for the narrator expresses his two distinct selves across the two epochs of his life. The ‘divided self’ also plays out in the authorial process, where the Romantic poet (both Poe and Hoffman can be classified as such) is always struggling with himself to reach beyond his own existence. Since Poe is strongly influenced by German Romanticism, and by extension the ideas and style of Hoffmann, we see a cognitive dissonance in the authorial mind, just as it is projected outward through the conflict experienced by the narrator Eleonora. Fitchean Idealism is central to the idea of the ‘divided self’ or the ‘double’. According to this, “the ego creates and projects itself onto the world, and in Schelling's concept of "identity" as developed in his philosophy of nature, which illustrates the interaction of the individual with its counterpart in nature.” vii The contrasting descriptions of the splendor and gloom in the mountains of Many Colored Grass is congruent with the states of mind experienced by the subject/narrator before and after the death of Eleonora respectively. This evidence of the ‘double’ signifies “the Romantic poet's continuous longing for the infinite, which can never be fulfilled. Since the Romantic ego is continuously striving for something higher than itself, the Romantic poet finds himself divided into two parts: one is rooted in his mortal existence, the other pursues a higher transcendental harmony with the infinite. Typically, Romantic literature abounds with references that illustrate the discrepancy between the "real" and the "ideal," that seek to express the sublime, the longing for mystical and spiritual unity, and the interaction between man and nature.” viii In Eleonora, we find the author’s aspiration for the infinite in the usage of lofty metaphors and idealization of experience. Edgar Allan Poe’s works were also a product of the times in which he lived. In this sense, the social, political and cultural events that occurred in the United States of early nineteenth century have shaped his thought and style. Conversely, his popularity as a writer handed him the opportunity to be a social critic which he used responsibly to address pressing social problems of his era. Hence the realism found in his works helped offer pragmatic solutions to socio-cultural frictions. But this did not stop Poe from embracing the Romantic Movement, where idealism and fantasy were key to the literary art. In this mode, Poe went beyond the practical and pragmatic to the fantastical and exciting as two different methods of addressing a particular issue. The genius of Edgar Allan Poe lies in his deft mixing of these approaches that he brings to his art. Here, the uncanny is shown in the unfamiliarity of the familiar landscape. The same landscape that he once loved and cherished would become ‘uncannily’ familiar, whereby he is both attracted to it (because of past pleasurable association) and repulsed by it (due to its appalling present condition). The rich poetic language that Poe employs in the narrative further accentuates this sense of the uncanny. Consistent with the characteristics of the Romantic Movement, Poe’s stories often showed interest in “supernatural or unexplained phenomena such as hypnosis, telepathy, sleepwalking, insanity, drives, and in the subconscious also contributed to the motif of the double in Romantic literature”. The strong resonance of the supernatural or the divine could be found in the concluding lines of Eleonora. Here, the narrator is offered a divine sanction to go ahead pursuing his newfound love. He is absolved of any offense with respect to the earlier promise and is blessed with peace. “I wedded;-nor dreaded the curse I had invoked; and its bitterness was not visited upon me. And once-but once again in the silence of the night; there came through my lattice the soft sighs which had forsaken me; and they modelled themselves into familiar and sweet voice, saying: "Sleep in peace!-for the Spirit of Love reigneth and ruleth, and, in taking to thy passionate heart her who is Ermengarde, thou art absolved, for reasons which shall be made known to thee in Heaven, of thy vows unto Eleonora."” ix Bibliography Ellison, David. Ethics and Aesthetics in European Modernist Literature: From the Sublime to the Uncanny. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Jacobs, Robert D. "The Seven Faces of Poe." The Southern Literary Journal 6, no. 2 (1974): 107+. Labriola, Patrick. "Edgar Allan Poe and E. T. A. Hoffmann: The Double in "William Wilson" and the Devil's Elixirs." International Fiction Review 29, no. 1-2 (2002): 69+. The News Letter (Belfast, Northern Ireland). "Arts: Living Horrors of Edgar Allen Poe." July 18, 2001. The Washington Times (Washington, DC). "From a Master of the Uncanny." July 6, 2008. Poe, Edgar Allan, Eleonora, (1850), retrieved from < http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/eapoe/bl-eapoe-eleonora.ht> on 18th Dec, 2012 Endnotes: Read More