“To Helen” from Edgar Allan Poe and “Helen” by H.D. are two poems with drastically juxtaposing views of Grecian legend Helen of Troy. Helen was despised for being the cause of the Trojan War, but her beauty stole the hearts of numerous men of the time and those of many men today. These two poets express their views through the use of literary elements such as speaker, imagery, and form.
Two different speakers offer two very different opinions of Helen of Troy. Poe’s speaker in “To Helen” has a very high regard for Helen and her beauty. They speak of “Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,/ Thy Naiad airs have brought me home” when talking about their title Helen. Adoration is very present in these lines. The speaker is explaining their love of
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Poe incorporates only imagery of things of beauty and fragility. He speaks of Helen’s welcoming qualities and looks when he writes that her looks are “Like those Nicean barks of yore.” This means that her looks are welcoming like a homey, paradise city in Ancient Greece of the past. Speaking further, the speaker exclaims, “How statue-like I see thee stand,” to point out her statuesque person. It is a reference to her being perfect and flawless in her physicalities. Visions of a statue in Poe’s poem are a stark contrast to those in the poem from H.D. The speaker in “Helen” uses imagery that mostly refers to white and statues. They use the word white multiple times and refer to her “still eyes in the white face” and the “beauty of cool feet” that are present in this speaker’s Helen. Statue imagery here is not used to say that she is flawless, but to say that Helen is a cold, dead woman. She is loathed for causing the Trojan war because of her cold-hearted and careless motives. Helen is like a statue because she is cold and hard, and she had no regard for anyone else. These are reasons that all of Greece hates her. The form of the poems is the final element that pulls the others