The Sleeper, by Edgar Allan Poe, was first published in the Poems of 1831; this poem has since been revised from its current version which was printed in 1845. This poem was written during the Romanticism Period. This time period is defined as a time in which poets began to “rebel against the Neoclassical restrictions and dominance of reason as poetic aim. Romantic poetry celebrated the imagination over rationality, passion, and dreams over reason and external reality, and isolated individuality over collective humankind. Romantic poetry looked to celebrate both the supernatural and elevate the commonplace.” (Henriksen) Poe’s imagination prevails in this lyric poem. The speaker of the poem experiences an internal conflict while mourning the death of a loved one.
The relationship of the speaker to his surroundings is introduced into the main narrative in the opening of the poem, and is specific to when this occurrence is taking place, “At midnight, in the month of June”. June is the month in which the summer solstice takes place, in the Pagan culture of this time “Midsummer was thought to be a time of magic, when evil spirits were said to appear. The pagans often wore protective garlands of herbs and flowers.” (chiff.com) Today this concoction is used by modern herbalists as a mood stabilizer. Midnight is also known as the witching hour when ghosts are considered to have their most power. Black magic is also thought to be infallible at this hour as well. The speaker of the poem describes himself as standing beneath the moon, this sublunary expulsion is pertinent to the narrative of the poem, and he is admitting his mortality in this line. The moon is personified in the fourth line “Exhales from her out her golden rim”, which is ...
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... be casting stones, or holding a conversation. The speaker of the poem does not move on from this emotional torment, yet I do feel as if in his quest for closure he does resolve some of the tumultuous feelings he does have in regard to losing his love.
Works Cited
1. Coviello, Peter. “Poe in Love: Pedophilia, Morbidity, and the Logic of Slavery.” ELH, 70.3 (2003): 875-90.
2. Peeples, Scott. “Life writing/Death writing: Biographical Versions of Poe’s Final Hours.” Biography, 18.4 (1995): 328-338.
3. Folks, Jeffrey. “Poe and the Cogito” The Southern Literary Journal, 42.1 (2009): 57-72
4. chiff.com summer solstice 1999-2010.1st November 2010. http://www.chiff.com/a/summer-solstice.htm
5. Henricksen, John. Poetry Spark Chart. USA. Spark Publishing, 2003.
6. Poe, Edgar Allan. The Fall of the House of Usher and other writings. London: Penguin Books, 2003.
Kennedy, Gerald J. A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2001
In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe establishes a new type of literature, he emphasizes sides of Empiricism as well as the idea of Transcendence.
Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Fall of the House of Usher". R.V.Cassill, ed. The Norton Fiction. New York, London, 1995.
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,” (“The Raven” 1). “The Raven” arguably one of the most famous poems by Edgar Allan Poe, is a narrative about a depressed man longing for his lost love. Confronted by a talking raven, the man slowly loses his sanity. “The Haunted Palace” a ballad by Poe is a brilliant and skillfully crafted metaphor that compares a palace to a human skull and mind. A palace of opulence slowly turns into a dilapidated ruin. This deterioration is symbolic of insanity and death. In true Poe style, both “The Raven” and “The Haunted Palace” are of the gothic/dark romanticism genre. These poems highlight sadness, death, and loss. As to be expected, an analysis of the poems reveals differences and parallels. An example of this is Poe’s use of poetic devices within each poem. Although different in structure, setting, and symbolism these two poems show striking similarities in tone and theme.
Walker, I. M., ed. Edgar Allen Poe: A Critical Heritage. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986.
New York: A.C. Armstrong & Son., 1884. xv-xxvi. EPUB file. Sova, Dawn B. "Poe, Edgar Allan.
Meyers, J. (1992). Edgar Allan Poe: his life and legacy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons Frank, F. S. (1997). The Poe encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press..
Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1992.
Death can both be a painful and serious topic, but in the hands of the right poet it can be so natural and eloquently put together. This is the case in The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe, as tackles the topic of death in an uncanny way. This poem is important, because it may be about the poet’s feelings towards his mother’s death, as well as a person who is coming to terms with a loved ones passing. In the poem, Poe presents a speaker who uses various literary devices such as couplet, end-stopped line, alliteration, image, consonance, and apostrophe to dramatize coming to terms with the death of a loved one.
Edgar Allan Poe’s haunting poems and morbid stories will be read by countless generations of people from many different countries, a fact which would have undoubtedly provided some source of comfort for this troubled, talented yet tormented man. His dark past continued to torture him until his own death. These torturous feelings were shown in many of his works. A tragic past, consisting of a lack of true parents and the death of his wife, made Edgar Allan Poe the famous writer he is today, but it also led to his demise and unpopularity.
Shulman, Robert. Poe and the Powers of the Mind. Vol. 37. N.p.: The John Hopkins
The poem that I am analyzing is called “Alone”, written by Edgar Allan Poe. He was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts and passed away on October 7, 1849 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was a poet who works of fiction and horror majorly impacted literature. He is also an American author, editor and literary critic. His death remains a mystery, there are different stories about how he died but no one really knows the truth behind his death. This poem “Alone” is a powerful lyrical poem that has portrayed Edgar Allan Poe’s tough and suffering childhood. The poet is the narrator of this poem. He talks about his strange and tough childhood throughout the poem with a dark tone along with wickedness, which makes it obvious that this poem’s theme is not about living a happy and wonderful life.
Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991. book.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The American Tradition in Literature. Ed. George Perkins and Barbara Perkins. ___________________: McGraw Hill., 2008. Pg-pg. Print.
During the American literary movement known as Transcendentalism, many Americans began to looking deeper into positive side of religion and philosophy in their writing. However, one group of people, known as the Dark Romantics, strayed away from the positive beliefs of Transcendentalism and emphasized their writings on guilt and sin. The most well-known of these writers is Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was a dark romantic writer during this era, renown for his short stories and poems concerning misery and macabre. His most famous poem is “The Raven”, which follows a man who is grieving over his lost love, Lenore. In this poem, through the usage of tonal shift and progression of the narrator’s state of mind, Poe explores the idea that those who grieve will fall.