Poetry for a New World Walt Whitman Emily Dickinson Edgar Allen Poe.
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Transcript of Poetry for a New World Walt Whitman Emily Dickinson Edgar Allen Poe.
Poetry for a New World
Walt Whitman
Emily Dickinson
Edgar Allen Poe
EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809 – 1849)
The most controversial and most misunderstood literary figure in the history of American literature
Poe was born the son of an American actor and English actress;Poe was orphaned and adopted;Poe attended West Point Military Academy but was discharged;At the age of 27 he married his cousin who was half his age;He loved her dearly but lost her to tuberculosis;He died at the age of 40.
Some facts:
Best known for his poems and short fiction,Edgar Allan Poe, born in Boston, Jan. 19, 1809, died Oct. 7, 1849 in Baltimore, deserves more credit than any other writerfor the transformation of the short story from anecdote to art.He virtually created the detective story and perfected the psychological thriller. He also produced some of the most influential literary criticism of his time -- important theoretical statements on poetry and the short story -- and has had a worldwide influence on literature.
Poe embraced Romantic agony. He offered Romantic decadence.( to image despair, decadence, decay)
A master of exploring and employing psychological abnormality. a 19th Freud psychoanalysis
A precursor to modern detective story and horror story
Art for art’s sake (being absolutely independent, emphasis on the poem’s own integrity)(be opposite to Bryant: expresses moral ideas by poetry)
Major Themes Love ---- usually of a mourning man for his deceased beloved. Beauty ---- of a young woman either dying or dead. Death ---- a source of horror. Disintegration, decadence, despair, isolation, boredom, anxiety, the lack of communication---- recurrent themes of 20th century literature
The Achievements of Poe
Poe - a critic with insight
Poe - a great writer of fiction
Poe - a great poet with genius
Poe as a Critic
Poe’s Principles for Short Story Poe’s Poetic Theories
Poe’s Principles for Short Story
The short story must be of such length as to be read
at one sitting----brevity.The very first sentence ought to help to bring out the
“single effect” of the story.A tale should reveal some logical truth and should end with
the last sentence, leaving a sense of finality with the reader.
Poe’s Poetic Theories
The poems should be short , readable at one sitting.Its chief aim is beauty, to produce a feeling of beauty
in the reader. Beauty aims at exciting the sensitive soul
to tears. Thus melancholy is the most legitimate of all
the poetic tones.Poe stresses rhythm, defines true poetry as “the
rhythmical creation of beauty.”
Poe as a Short Story Writer
Theme : disintegration of the selfCharacter: neurotic, dislocated, alienated
Poe, Horror and the Supernatural
A writer of horror stories
Ligeia(1838)Ligeia(1838) "The Masque of the Red Death" "The Black Cat" "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839)"The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839)
Poe, Father of Detective Fiction
Poe is the unchallenged creator of the modern detective story. Virtually all of the conventions we recognize today originated in his writings. Arthur Conan Doyle himself acknowledged his debt to Poe.
"Murders in the Rue Morgue" "The Purloined Letter"
Poe as a Poet
To HelenThe RavenAnnabel Lee
To Helen
To Helen
Helen, Thy beauty is to me
like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gentle , o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, Thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! In yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the region which
Are Holy-land!
To Helen
To Helen
A near-perfect statement of the
Romantics’ ideal love of pure beauty.
Helen
of Troy
Golden Apple
Golden Apple “for the fairest”
Golden Apple
“for the fairest”
Hera - Queen of Olympus
Athena - Goddess of war
Aphrodite - Goddess of love
Paris - Prince of Troy
Helen - Queen of Sparta
The Title of the Poem
The First Allusion
The Unifying Force
AllusionAllusion----references to the ancient beliefs or stories
What does the title of the poem mean to you? What ancient story could it refer to? What words or phrases are direct or indirect references to ancient beliefs and stories? Look up "Naiad"(line 8) and "Psyche"( line 14) in your dictionary. What do these allusions contribute to Helen's meaning in the poem?
To HelenHelen, Thy beauty is to me
like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gentle , o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
Nicean Bark
Odysseus (Ulysses) the way-worn wanderer
Odysseus and Fairy
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, Thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Hyacinth
Naiad - Water Nymph
Greece
Rome
Lo! In yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the region which
Are Holy-land!
Statue
Agate lamp
Psyche - “Goddess of Soul”
To HelenIn the first stanza , Helen is compared to a ship.
In the second stanza , Helen is compared to a water nymph.
In the third stanza , Helen is compared to the statue
of Psyche.
Do you think the three comparisons are in consistence?
Conclusion
Poe’s “To Helen” is a controlled lyric cry which
evokes in the mind of every sensitive reader an
idealization of pure, ageless beauty in art.
Rhythmical Pattern and Rime Scheme
The poem is deceptively simple in rhythmical pattern and rime scheme.
Iambic tetrameter
Trimeter
Dimeter
Annabel Lee
Annabel Lee
Written in 1849, two years afterthe death of his wife, the last poem Poe wrote, it has since become one of Poe's most popular works and the culmination of Poe’s lyricstyle in his recurrent theme of theloss of a beautiful and loved woman. An elegy An idealization of Poe’s wife: Virginia
Questions for Consideration
Different from the sense of beauty in To Helen, in Annabel Lee, there is a sense of mournfulness, a sense of idealization of the girl Annabel Lee and her love with the speaker, which is the dominant mood throughout the poem. How is it achieved?
IT was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee;And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.
Annabel Lee
I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea,But we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee;With a love that the wingèd seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea,A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee;So that her highborn kinsmen came And bore her away from me,To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me;Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea)That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we, Of many far wiser than we;And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea,Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea.
AssonanceResemblance or similarity in sound between vowels followed by different consonants in two or more stressed syllables. Assonance differs from RHYME in that RHYME is a similarity of vowel and consonant. "Lake" and "fake" demonstrate RHYME; "lake" and "fate" assonance.
ConsonanceThe repetition of consonants in words stressed in the same place (but whose vowels differ). Also, a kind of inverted alliteration, in which final consonants, rather than initial or medial ones, repeat in nearby words.
Internal Rhyme: (Rhyme of words within a line of verse. In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud Whiles all the night through fog-smoke white)
It is strengthened by the tension between the sense of idealization and the tragic fate of the girl, the coexistence of opposite, contrary elements.
the Ballad quality
Devices of sound are used to govern the mood within the poem and unify the poem.
Analysis
The Ballad QualityThe opening of the poemRepetition of phrasesIt suggests that the love is such an ideal one that it has become a popular legend which is cherished by people for generations.
Devices of Sound -- the Unifying Force
RepetitionAlliterationConsonanceRhyme
The echoing sound effect---- meaningful and suggestive. (the speaker’s haunting memory of his beloved girl)
Intermittent repetition creating the effect of a lyric refrain (A phrase, verse, or group of verses repeated at intervals throughout a song or poem)
The Use of End Rhyme: The even numbers of line in most stanzas rhyme with a long vowel sound /i: /. It produces a sense of monotony and strengthened the sense of solemnity in the poem. It suggests the inseparableness of the love between speaker and the girl.
The Use of Internal Rhyme: The speaker’s lingering memory of his beloved
Rhyme
Rhythmical Pattern
AnapestIambSpondee
Rhythmical Pattern
alternation of anapestic and iambic rhythms (imitative of the waves of the sea)
Themes
Memory and ReminiscingLove and Death
Style
Six stanzas ranging from six to eight lines each,
with the rhyme pattern differing slightly in each one. Repetition and rhyme creating the qualities of
unity and a pleasing musicality
Using a melodious narrative form, the speaker laments the death, many years ago, of his beloved young bride Annabel Lee. His loss moves him to state that envious angels caused the girl's death to "dissever" (separate) the young marriedcouple. He tells briefly of her funeral and entombment "in her sepulchre ... by the sea." The narrator then reveals that he has been unable to accept their separation. Since her death, he has spent night after night at her tomb. It is an astonishing example of the immortality of young love.
The Raven
This poem has been considered to be one of Poe’s best poetical works and maybe his most famous narrative poem. In the 108 lines, the poet creates an unhappy , unresolved young man, who sits in an elaborately furnished room, trying to find peace from sorrow in his books and conducting acurious dialogue with his midnight visitant, a black , deathlike symbol---- the raven, which is used consciously to convey the bitterness, distress and desperation in the poem.
Features of The Raven
Allusions and imagesVariation of toneRepetition
Poe uses allusions to some classical places, as well
as certain kinds of images to create an unforgettable,
yet inaccessible lover “lost Lenore”, who is often identified
as Virginia, his wife.
Allusions and images
Variation of tone
The Poem is characterized by its dramatic variation
of tone, which starts from mournfulness, and then
progresses to delight , and eventually to madness
under the steady one-word repetition of the talking bird.
Poe also likes to use insistent or cumulative repetition
for effect. In this poem the raven’s repetition “nevermore”
reflects a basic anapestic rhythm that becomes stronger
and more pronounced like a drumbeat as the poem
reaches its emotional climax.
Repetition