Madeleine Heath – Eleonora Introduction
In this project I have attempted to abridge Eleonora by Edgar Allan Poe as much as possible while retaining the plot structure and some of the more artistic elements.
Eleonora is considered to be semi-autobiographical to Poe’s life, a contemplation of his relationship to his dying wife, Virginia, and what he was going to do after her death. It deals with loss, sanity, life, and beauty, and is very short compared to many of Poe’s other works, but still, in my opinion, a little longer than it needed to be. I cut Eleonora by almost 60 percent, from 2400 words to about 950. The most comfortable length seemed to be about 1200 words, just under half that of the original.
Poe isn’t necessarily known for his brevity, but writing exercises I have done in the past have challenged me to express big concepts (such as those Poe explores in Eleonora) with as few words as possible, or with an increasingly limited vocabulary. This gave me the tools I needed to read through Eleonora and find unnecessary passages. Some details, such as the fact that Eleonora is the narrator’s cousin, that they live with her mother, or how much younger Eleonora is than the narrator, are not superfluous, but the story can function without them. I cut more forgettable details like the opening quote by Raymond Lully, which didn’t add much to the story, and similarly decided that the Poe’s machinations about the human condition, and the references he makes to God/Gods and mythology, which are not useless to the original themes of the story, but the abridged version can work without them.
Most of all I used the the themes explored in the story to guide my editions. The beautiful dead or dying young woman is a common motif throughout Poe’s work, and especially in Eleonora. I focused most on this aspect in my edition. In contrast, I cut most of what Poe says about sanity and truth, which I felt that he brought up and on which he didn’t really follow through, despite it being arguably the most quintessentially “Poe” part of the story. The most unique element of Eleonora is perhaps the setting, which is frequently compared to the beauty of the titular character, the narrator’s cousin and love interest Eleonora (yet another aspect taken from his real life). I did my best to preserve the most important and memorable descriptions of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, while still making some stark revisions.
Whether you like or dislike my edition, we can agree that the original version of Eleonora and my abridging are quite distinct. While they share a framework, a central idea, the abridged version goes quite a bit faster than its counterpart, with much less time spent on the details. Read one then the other. Which do you prefer? Did I cut too much? Not enough? Do you think the story loses something from being cut down so much? How would you abridge Eleonora differently?
In the main text, the material I decided to keep is highlighted, with some explanations as to why I cut specific sections. A the end of the section will be the full abridged version of the story as well. I have also included some visuals that may aid in understanding the plot and themes, and a link to one of the audiobook versions of the story.
Works Cited:
Mancelos, João de. “How to Murder a Young and Beautiful Woman: Death in Edgar Allan Poe’s Gothic Tales”. Atas do XXI Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Estudos Anglo-Americanos. Org. Ana Maria Lopes et al. Viseu: 2002, APEAA, https://ubibliorum.ubi.pt/bitstream/10400.6/4535/1/howtomurderayoungandbeautifulwoman.pdf
Poe, Edgar Allan, “Eleonora,” 1842, https://poestories.com/read/eleonora
Robinson, E. Arthur, Poe Studies (1971-1985), Vol. 9, No. 2, December 1976, pp. 44-46, https://www.jstor.org/stable/45296817
Artwork Used:
Noemi-Sarzotto, “Eleonora.” Deviantart.com, 2015.
Shaw, Byam, “Eleonora.” 1909.