QUOTH THE RAVEN CHALLENGE #41 - FOR THE LOVE OF POE

Good morning Peeps,
Here I am with my creation for our latest Challenge over at QUOTH THE RAVEN - #41 FOR THE LOVE OF POE.

Seeing as we have the dreaded Valentine's Day creeping up, this Challenge is all about Love. Love for POE, or one of his love poems, or one of the ladies he wrote love stories about... you get the idea. :-D

My piece is an illustration of one of POE's poems.... "FOR ANNIE"  (1849).
"For Annie" was written for Nancy Richmond (whom Poe called Annie) of Lowell, Massachusetts. Richmond was a married woman and Poe developed a strong platonic, though complicated, relationship with her. The poem was first set to be published on April 28, 1849 in the journal Flag of our Union, which Poe said was a "paper for which sheer necessity compels me to write." Fearing its publication there would consign it "to the tomb of the Capulets," he sent it to Nathaniel Parker Willis for publication in the Home Journal on the same day as Flag of Our Union.^[18] The poem talks about an illness from which Richmond helped Poe recover. It speaks about "the fever called 'Living'" that has been conquered, ending his "moaning and groaning" and his "sighing and sobbing." In a letter dated March 23, 1849, Poe sent the poem he wrote to Richmond saying, "I think the lines 'For Annie' (those I now send) much the best I have ever written." Nancy Richmond would officially change her name to Annie after her husband's death in 1873.

Synopsis:
A dying man gives thanks that his "lingering illness ".... life....  is finally over. He is now beyond pain and suffering. But no one, he says, should think pityingly of him. After all, everyone will lie in the same bed he does. Moreover, his death is not final. As his lover, Annie, looks on him and cries because she thinks he is dead, he declares that his heart and his thoughts are more alive than ever, for they are filled with the sight of Annie's love. Though dead, he lives on because of her love.

The poem reverses ordinary ways of thinking about death and life. Life is an illness and death is a cure rather then visa versa. Death is also not just a matter of body. The man's mind and heart are alive even though his body is quite dead. Poe expands on this theme in The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar

I have completed another double page in my altered mobile phone instruction booklet. I now only have one more double page to complete and it's finished :-D

I have used my FREEBIE POE backing paper, a heart die cut, The coloured digi is from IKEsART and is called "POE DEATHBED", and the frame is 'Wiseframe', which may be from Digital Two for Tuesday but I am really not sure. !! Sorry about that. Inside the frame is an excerpt from the poem....

If you would like to read the whole poem, then go HERE.

So, I hope you will come over to QUOTH THE RAVEN and play along with us this month. We have a great Prize for the Winner and you can snag yourself a coooool Winner or TOP 3 Badge :-D

Thanks for stopping by.