I was wondering how Poe watched his love suffer and die. I keep reading about how he saw her die. If you can tell me how she died I will be very grateful. Also I was wondering if in his poem "For Annie" if he was talking about Annie dying. Who was the poem directed to? The reader? or Annie?

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Answers

Virginia died of tuberculosis, a lingering long decline with occasional false recoveries. Poe was intensely distraught which made Virgina worry for him. Some of his worst(and most guilty) drinking bouts derive from this period. "For Annie" has been attributed to Nancy Richmond. If that is a surprise then consider Poe trying to attribute Annabel lee to other of his desperate courtships after Virginia's death. Personally I agree with Sarah Whitman(another doomed courtship) that whether Poe even intended it or not these poems reflect upon his continuing love of Virginia.

Previous romantic melancholy poems predated Virginia and deal with his loss of other women through death or rejection as if they were dead- whether they were or not. So in two ways, immediate memory and lifelong petic themes Poe couldn't help himself but write this way. The death of Virginia made all these kinds of poems cruelly more personal or prophetic.

Annie seems to describe both poet and his love as dead but the poet himself in denial and in rapture at being united to his love.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001