Pondering Poe

In Detroit at the modern art exhibit (Jan. 25 column) I met a man who told me he went to Philadelphia to see Edgar Allan Poe's house. That was embarrassing: I have lived here since 1976 and never patronized it.

So yesterday my daughter and I took a ride to the erstwhile Poe residence at Spring Garden and Seventh streets and had a delightful time. Our Philadelphia claim on Poe is fairly slim, since his sojourn at that particular rented domicile was brief. Nevertheless, it was a thrill to walk through the very rooms where he wrote "The Telltale Heart," "Murder in the Rue Morgue," and "The Fall of the House of Usher."

I noticed that the tour guide who spouted Poe's history said nothing about his alcoholism, so I brought it up in the form of a question, and then felt embarrassed because the tour guide was embarrassed. Our intro to Poe was not quite a hagiography, but was presenting a certain view, as all history does.

On the ride home, my daughter, a big fan of "The Raven" (my own favorite is "Annabel Lee"), said she wondered what Poe was really like. She wished she could have had five minutes in his living room to see his interactions with his wife and mother-in-law. We had read a few experts on Poe, but it dawned on us that no one ever truly knows what goes on in another's head:

"For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him?" (1 Corinthians 2:11)

What were his thoughts when he was found delirious in the street in Baltimore, not even in his own clothes? What was he trying to say when he kept repeating the word "Reynolds"? Or did they misunderstand him?

It did not escape my attention that Poe's dates (1809-1849) coincided with those of the Second Great Awakening (1790-1840s). It would appear that this revival of religion bypassed him completely, to read Poe's works.

And yet, and yet, one never knows: The attending physician who last saw the mysterious dying poet in his sequestered hospital room in October 1849, a Dr. John Joseph Moran, reports that Poe's final words were:

"Lord, help my poor soul."