Ubekendt kvindeportræt
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Andreas Flint (1767–1824) worked as an engraver, and this copperplate engraving is an unidentified portrait of a woman. The sitter's identity has not been established, hence the title "Ubekendt kvindeportræt" (Portrait of an Unknown Woman).
The work is an engraving, produced by incising lines into a copper plate from which the image was printed. It is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK).
Background drawn from SMK — National Gallery of Denmark
Today's poem
To My Mother
Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of "Mother," Therefore by that dear name I long have called you-- You who are more than mother unto me, And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you, In setting my Virginia's spirit free. My mother--my own mother, who died early, Was but the mother of myself; but you Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, And thus are dearer than the mother I knew By that infinity with which my wife Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.
Edgar Allan Poe · Public domain
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"To My Mother" is a sonnet addressed not to Poe's own mother but to his mother-in-law, Maria Clemm. The poem makes this clear: it distinguishes the mother "who died early" — Poe's own — from the woman who was mother to "the one I loved so dearly," his wife Virginia. Death, the poem says, "installed" Clemm in his heart by "setting my Virginia's spirit free," tying the poem to the loss of his wife.
Edgar Allan Poe (American writer, poet, editor, and critic) is best known for his poetry and his mystery and macabre tales, and is regarded as a central figure of American Romanticism and Gothic fiction. He was among the first successful American practitioners of the short story and a pioneer of detective fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to attempt to live solely by writing, which left him in financial difficulty throughout his career.
The poem's argument turns on the claim that "Mother" is the most devotional word even the angels can speak, which Poe extends to Clemm by the measure of his love for Virginia.
Background drawn from PoetryDB & Wikipedia