The correct answer is - Both the speaker and Poe suffered mental anguish and misery on losing their companions.
In the poem, the protagonist's loved one, Lenore, has died, and he cannot cope with the fact that he will never see her again. In real life, Poe's wife went down with tuberculosis, and died a couple of years before Poe did. So both the character and Poe has tragedy and loss in common which is why Poe often wrote about sad topics.
