Chilling and Killing: Poe’s Poetics and Trauma Theory

SHANE MORIN USES THE UPCOMING HOLIDAY, AND EDGAR ALLAN POE’S GRIEF, TO ADDRESS TRAUMA THOERY.

It’s that time of year, for those that don’t celebrate horror tropes on a daily, to immerse themselves in Hocus Pocus (1 &2!), horror movie marathons and scary tales and Poe’s poems that remind humanity of the unknown. Whether it’s The Raven’s memory of the Lost Lenore, the subfloor beating of The Tell Tale Heart, or the drunken burial of Fortunato in The Cask of Amontillado, Poe’s stories and verses stick in our subconscious, scratching at the perceived safety from guilt or extraordinary loss. But, what about the women in Poe’s biographical life, and how he portrays his loss of love in his bibliographies?

Well, to answer this, let’s first introduce trauma theory, as it relates to literary studies. Historically, trauma theory has been associated with what Nadal describes as “consequences of victimization and war.” However, this isn’t enough to explain Poe’s obsession with the death of women in his life and his works. So, Ted Morrisey elaborates on this idea, tapping Freud on the shoulder, noting “If Freud turns to literature to describe traumatic experience, it is because literature, like psychoanalysis, is interested in the complex relations between knowing and not knowing.” Essentially, the intersection of psychoanalysis and leveraging language and imagery in literature provide a very unique set of relationships between the author, the reader and the characters within any given literary work. In this light, trauma theory, as it interacts with literature, provides deeper insights into the why of Poe.

So, how does this explain Poe’s Raven or Annabel Lee? Well, we have this Raven, “rapping, rapping” and “still is sitting, still is sitting” upon the Pallas bust, which can be derived to be Pallas Athena. Ok, cool, got a Raven that sits upon the bust of Pallas Athena, repeating “Nevermore.” Of course, we already know that the lost Lenore is what the Raven refers to, essentially. Yet, the poem, in its entirety, isn’t about just the lost Lenore, but also the pain and trauma of memory, in this case, remembering a lost love. The memory of Lenore is further nuanced with the avoidance of remembering, creating a cognitive dissonance between the persona and the Raven’s insistence of Lenore’s memory. The poem describes keenly this clash, while the persona “sat divining, my head at ease reclining / On the cushions velvet lining… / But whose velvet-violet lining…/ She shall press, ah, nevermore.”

Having no way to push away the memory of lost love, the persona of the poem turns to substance use: “thy God hath lent thee-by these angels he has sent thee / Respite-respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;” At this, he acknowledges the loss of Lenore, yet pleads for “respite and nepenthe,” seeking a numbing to the emotional trauma by way of drug or inebriation. Notably, the reference to “nepenthe” hearkens back to Homeric poetry, as The Odyssey includes nepenthe as a drug that contains properties of “bringing, or supposed to bring, forgetfulness of trouble or grief.” Being written way before psychotherapy was a thing, or even prior to electroshock therapy, what else was there but self-medication?

Poe, notable poet and creator of detective fiction, unaccustomed to emotional trauma or loss in his personal life. The loss of maternal figures along the course of his life and career have impacted his use of Gothic aesthetics as a means of coping with these personal losses, most notably in The Raven. There was no medical terminology to diagnose Poe with, as there is today. Were he alive, I imagine that he would be diagnosed with PTSD, as well as abandonment complications. Since access to psychiatric or psychological methodologies of handling trauma and PTSD were medically non-existent, there was no healing for Poe. The phraseology of medicine and its intersections with mental health only allowed for the term “insanity” to be applicable, leaving Poe to self-medicate with alcohol and opiates, and with creative writing as an outlet for the trauma that had been unresolved throughout his life. The trauma of loss and remembrance of women who passed are integral to the understanding of Poe’s prose and poetry, as well as the suffering that he attempted to capture via literature.

Shane Morin is an urban poet living in Dover, New Hampshire. After a loss of parental time due to divorce, he began writing as a grief process.. Since then, he has honed his craft to blend post-modernity with speculative concepts and topics of contemporary horror. Shane identifies as a cis-gender male feminist and LGBTQIA++ ally. He is currently completing his Master’s in Literature at UNH, and hopes to earn a PhD. In his spare time, Shane binges Farscape and anything Star Trek.