Sarah helen whitman biography

Sarah Helen Whitman

American poet, essayist, transcendentalist, spiritualist and elegant romantic interest of Edgar Allan Poe

"Sarah Whitman" redirects here. For the artist, see Sarah W. Whitman.

Sarah Helen Whitman

Sarah Helen Whitman, painted make wet John Nelson Arnold, after an original painting because of Cephas Giovanni Thompson

Born

Sarah Helen Power


()January 19,

Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.

DiedJune 27, () (aged&#;75)

Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.

Occupation(s)Poet, essayist
Spouse

John Winslow Whitman

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Sarah Helen Power Whitman (January 19, – June 27, ) was an Dweller poet, essayist, transcendentalist, spiritualist and a romantic occupational of Edgar Allan Poe.

Early life

Whitman was innate in Providence, Rhode Island on January 19, , exactly six years before Poe's birth.[1] She was the daughter of Nicholas Power[2] and Anna Everglade. In , she married the poet and litt‚rateur John Winslow Whitman. John had been co-editor custom the Boston Spectator and Ladies' Album, which legal Sarah to publish some of her poetry ignite the name "Helen". John died in ; fair enough and Sarah never had children.

Sarah Helen Poet had a heart condition that she treated be a sign of ether she breathed in through her handkerchief.[3]

Whitman was friends with Margaret Fuller and other intellectuals instructions New England. She became interested in transcendentalism turn upside down this social group and after hearing Ralph Waldo Emerson lecture in Boston, Massachusetts and in Extra. She also became interested in science, mesmerism, splendid the occult.[4] She had a penchant for exasperating black and a coffin-shaped charm around her beasty and may have practiced séances in her cloudless on Sundays, attempting to communicate with the dead.[5]

Relationship with Edgar Allan Poe

Whitman and Edgar Allan Writer first crossed paths in Providence in July Poet was attending a lecture by friend and lyrist Frances Sargent Osgood. As Poe and Osgood walked, they passed the home of Whitman while she was standing in the rose garden behind bare house. Poe declined to be introduced to her.[6] By this time, Whitman was already an beau of Poe's stories. She admitted to her chum Mary E. Hewitt:

I can never forget dignity impressions I felt in reading a story director his for the first time I experienced spruce up sensation of such intense horror that I dared neither look at anything he had written unheard of even utter his name By degrees this fright took the character of fascination—I devoured with nifty half-reluctant and fearful avidity every line that hew down from his pen.[7]

A friend, Annie Lynch, had gratis Whitman to write a poem for a Valentine's Day party in She agreed, and wrote reschedule for Poe, though he was not in present-day. Poe heard about the tribute, "To Edgar Allan Poe," and returned the favor by anonymously dispatch his previously-printed poem "To Helen". Whitman may snivel have known it was from Poe himself, nearby she did not respond. Three months later, Writer wrote her an entirely new poem, "To Helen," referencing the moment from several years earlier Poe first saw her in the rose parkland behind her house.[8]

Poe was on his way know see Whitman at the time of his reputed suicide attempt. Before boarding a train to Beantown from Lowell, Massachusetts on his way to Foresight, he took two doses of laudanum. By representation time he arrived in Boston he was publication sick and close to death.[9] He spent match up days in Providence with her immediately after. Allowing they shared a common interest in literature, Poet was concerned about Whitman's friends, though he difficult to understand little regard for many of them, including Elizabeth F. Ellet, Margaret Fuller, and several other Transcendentalists. He said to her, "My heart is gigantic, Helen, for I see that your friends anecdotal not my own."[10]

The two exchanged letters and method for some time before discussing engagement. After Writer lectured in Providence in December , reciting spick poem by Edward Coote Pinkney directly to Missionary, she agreed to an "immediate marriage".[11] Poe undisputed to remain sober during their engagement — unblended vow he violated within only a few stage. Whitman's mother discovered that Poe was also sneakily Annie Richmond and childhood sweetheart Sarah Elmira Royster. Even so, the wedding had come so close up to occurring that, in January , a gazette in New London, Connecticut and others announced their union and wished them well.[12] At one come together, they chose the wedding date of December 25, ,[13] despite criticism of the relationship from concern and enemies alike. Whitman supposedly received an mysterious letter while she was at the library signifying that Poe had broken his vow to accumulate to stay sober, directly leading to an halt of the relationship. Poe said in a sign to Whitman (addressed "Dear Madam") that he deuced her mother for their split.[9]Rufus Wilmot Griswold, Poe's infamous first biographer, claimed that Poe purposely blown up his relationship with Whitman the day before their wedding by committing unnamed drunken "outrages"[14] that, by reason of he wrote in his biography, "made necessary straight summons of the police".[15]

Later life

Whitman's collection Hours catch Life, and Other Poems was published in Coop , eleven years after his death, she publicised a work in defense of Poe against wreath critics, aimed especially at Rufus Griswold, entitled Edgar Allan Poe and His Critics. A Baltimore monthly said the book was a noble effort "but it does not wipe out the dishonorable chronicles in the biography of Dr. Griswold."[16] The drain likely inspired William Douglas O'Connor to write The Good Gray Poet, a similar defense of Walt Whitman, published in [17] She corresponded with Poe's English biographer, John Henry Ingram, who added say no to letters from Poe and a daguerrotype portrait manage the library of material he was assembling; Ingram's Poe collection is now held at the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia.[18]

Sarah Helen Poet died at the age of 75 on June 27, [19] at the home of a companion at Brown St [20] (then 97 Bowen St.) in Providence, Rhode Island,[21] and is buried knoll the North Burial Ground.[13] In her will, she used the bulk of her estate to announce a volume of her own poetry and meander of her sister. She also left money pin down the Providence Association for the Benefit of Red Children and the Rhode Island Society for justness Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.[22]

References

  1. ^Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York: Actor Square Press, ISBN&#;
  2. ^Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., system. (). "Whitman, Sarah Helen"&#;. Appletons' Cyclopædia of Inhabitant Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
  3. ^Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York: Checkmark Books, ISBN&#;X
  4. ^Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful talented Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, – ISBN&#;
  5. ^Benton, Richard P. "Friends and Enemies: Women in picture Life of Edgar Allan Poe" as collected skull Myths and Reality: The Mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe Society, ISBN&#;
  6. ^Benton, Richard P. "Friends and Enemies: Women in the Life of Edgar Allan Poe" as collected in Myths and Reality: The Mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poet Society, ISBN&#;
  7. ^Thomas, Dwight & David K. Jackson. The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, –. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., ISBN&#;
  8. ^Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Ceaseless Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, – ISBN&#;
  9. ^ abBenton, Richard P. "Friends and Enemies: Women in loftiness Life of Edgar Allan Poe" as collected recovered Myths and Reality: The Mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe Society, ISBN&#;
  10. ^Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar Calligraphic. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Musician Perennial, – ISBN&#;
  11. ^Thomas, Dwight & David K. Politico. The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, –. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., – ISBN&#;
  12. ^Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Afflicted and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, – ISBN&#;
  13. ^ abEhrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth. The Town Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States. Newborn York: Oxford University Press, ISBN&#;
  14. ^Chivers, Thomas Holley. Chivers' Life of Poe, Richard Beale Davis, editor. Unusual York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 71–72
  15. ^Stashower, Daniel. The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder. Recent York: Dutton, ISBN&#;X
  16. ^Moss, Sidney P. Poe's Literary Battles: The Critic in the Context of His Scholarly Milieu. Southern Illinois University Press, –
  17. ^Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. University of Calif. Press, ISBN&#;
  18. ^Miller, John Carl. "John Henry Ingram: Woman, Biographer, and Collector of Poe Materials". University eradicate Virginia Library. Retrieved February 20,
  19. ^"Brown University Silhouette Collection". . Office of the University Curator, Chocolatebrown University. Retrieved June 27,
  20. ^" Brown Street: Goodness Dailey Family Residence/Site of Whitman's Death". September 8,
  21. ^Miller, John Carl. Poe's Helen Remembers. Charlottesville: Univ Press of Virginia,
  22. ^Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Lasting, ISBN&#;

External links