A Comparison Of Helen In Poetry And Hilda Doolittle

All poems have different meanings. Helen, a character from Greek mythology, was someone that was hated by Greeks for leaving them and heading to Troy for Paris, causing a war to break out. Edgar Allan Poe, an American author and poet, and Hilda Doolittle, an American poet, both wrote poems describing Helen from different perspectives. These two poems mostly contrast, by showing different perspectives and both describing Helen in different ways. Though they do both compare by both acknowledging Helen’s beauty.

First of all, the poems contrast with each other because they show different perspectives, Hilda Doolittle writes in her poem “All Greece hates/the still eyes in the white face,” this is from the perspective of the Greeks after Helen left them. They were too bitter to think clearly, and started only looking at Helen’s flaws, ignoring all of her flawless traits. Though in Poe’s poem, he’s focusing on only Helen’s flawless traits, he says in his poem, “Helen, thy beauty is to me/Like those Nicean barks of yore,” Poe in writing from the perspective of the someone in modern time, admiring Helen. This is shown when he writes, “To the glory that was Greece/And the

grandeur that was Rome.” The speaker of Poe’s poem is admiring Helen in modern time after the Greeks have forgiven Helen for what she’s done.
Another difference is that one poem emphasizes Helen’s beauty, while the other focuses on her flaws. Poe’s poem emphasizes her beauty, as hey writes, “Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche/How statue-like I see thee stand,/The agate lamp within thy hand!/Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land!” Poe sees Helen as a goddess, he compares her to Psyche, and the agate lamp she holds, almost as if Helen is the light, that leads the Greeks. While Doolittle focuses on Helen’s flaws, when she says that “All Greece reviles/the wan face when she smiles,/hating it deeper still/when it grows wan and white,/remembering past enchantments/and past ills.” The Greeks hate Helen and look for anything to hate on her, so they revolt at her, as she smiles and slowly turns immortal, and are disgusted that they used to love her. This also shows how people can quickly turn on others.
Finally, the poems are similar in a few ways, both poets acknowledge Helen’s beauty, and they both poems compare Helen vividly to things in the real world.

Showing this, Poe writes “Helen, thy beauty is to me/Like those Nicean barks of yore,” Poe compares Helen’s beauty to beautiful boats, sailing across the ocean, and he shows that the speaker thinks that Helen is flawless. While in Doolittle’s poem, she writes, “Greece sees, unmoved,/God's daughter, born of love,/the beauty of cool feet/and slenderest knees.” Doolittle acknowledges Helen’s beauty and knows that Helen is one of the most beautiful characters in Greek mythology. She also says, “the still eyes in the white face, the lustre as of olives.” Hilda Doolittle compares Helen to the lustre of olives, which vividly describes how the Greeks hated

her.
By showing different perspectives and describing Helen differently the two poems differ, they’re similar in that they both talk about Helen and her looks. There are many points to this, as the Greeks viewed her as an enemy, while people modernly admire her for her beauty. By having more than one perspective, the reader has a better understanding of the poem, and because both poems acknowledge Helen’s beauty, it shows that Helen was undoubtedly beautiful, even to the people who hate her. Finally, having one poem showing Helen’s beauty and one focusing on her flaws, there is proof that our nature is being shortsighted. Poems can have different meanings, and all do have different meanings. This is important because the two poems show that different people can have different opinions.