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Edgar Allan PoeTo My Mother
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1849A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Biographical Context
The poem “To My Mother” is one of Poe’s most intimate and deeply personal poems. Though the reader cannot assume that the poet is the speaker of a poem, this poem can be uniquely understood considering the personal details of Poe’s life. The poem was published in 1849, and Poe’s wife, Virginia, died two years earlier from tuberculosis, a long-standing illness that she suffered from for years before she passed. The statement that Virginia’s spirit was set “free” (Line 8) when she died alludes to the pain and suffering that Virginia experienced for so many years due to her debilitating respiratory illness. Though the poem is an ode to mothers and a tender expression of the idea that motherhood means far more than blood relation, the poem is also a sorrowful expression of loss over the death of his young wife at the age of 24.
Maria, Poe's aunt on his biological father’s side, was an important figure in Poe’s life before he wed Virginia: When Poe sought refuge in Baltimore in 1831, he stayed with Maria. Though Poe never knew his biological father, Maria gave him a place to stay. While Poe and Clemm had some disagreements (one issue was the fact that Poe’s father’s family criticized Poe’s deceased biological mother for her profession as an actress, which was considered disreputable at the time), Maria was there for Poe and supported his marriage to Virginia.
Some commentators view the poem as a cynical act on Poe’s part: Following Virginia’s death, Poe began courting many wealthy women through letters and became engaged. The poem was published when Poe was engaged to Elmira Shelton, which has added to the skepticism about the poem’s tender emotionality. However, Poe wrote the poem a year earlier, following an unfortunate engagement to Helen Whitman. After the engagement did not work out, Poe sought refuge by staying with his aunt. While these controversies cast a less romantic light on the poem, they also provide additional context for understanding the complicated issues the poet faced during the final few years of his troubled life. It is certain that, despite their differences, Poe felt gratitude toward Maria for being his family during some of the most difficult parts of his life.
Literary Context
A key figure in the 19th-century Romantic movement in literature, Poe’s work is known for its exploration of dark and morbid themes. Poe’s poetry develops the idea of the primacy of emotion over reason. The Romantic movement was a reaction against the Neo-Classical movement, which looked to the ideals of Rome and Greek ancient literature and elevated reason over emotion, favoring symmetry, clarity, and logic. Poe was a famous proponent of “art for art’s sake,” which meant that the foremost goal of art was not moral or political but was to create the most beautiful aesthetic effect. Poe argued in essays, such as “The Poetic Principle,” that poetry’s purpose was to please rather than educate its readers. In “To My Mother,” Poe exhibits a lighter tone with the tenderhearted and seemingly simple depiction of love, yet death and the tragic nature of life inevitably appears in the poem’s final couplet in which Poe explores the painful aspect of love. Though the poem is to his mother-in-law, the poem is also about death and how he can continue honoring the dead Virginia by expressing love and appreciation to her mother.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Keats strongly influenced Poe. However, Poe was highly innovative in the way that he developed Dark Romanticism, in contrast with the Romanticism of contemporaries, such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with whom Poe fought bitterly.
Related Titles
By Edgar Allan Poe
