ipl-logo

An Explanation Of Love In Edgar Allan Poe's Poetry

717 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Why is death a symbol in edgar allen poes stories

Harrison Marpole Mrs. Beaton English 30-1 September 17, 2014 Edgar Allan Poe Being one of the most well known horror writers of all time, Poe’s dark writing style has left its mark on readers internationally. Although mostly a practitioner of the short story, Poe delighted the world with his eerie poetry. Explanation of death and lost love were themes that Poe expressed during his short 40-year life. Such themes are present in Poe’s writing, due to, one, his love for his wife/cousin, and two, his late mother and run-a-way father. Death surrounds us. Poe experienced death’s path throughout his life. Much of his poetry was inspired from the feelings of knowing that we are all going to die. These feelings were evident in Poe’s piece, “Eldorado”, the protagonist seeks a city of vast gold and wealth. In the first stanza, the young knight seems optimistic about locating the city, and ending his quest. We see, as the man ages, he suspects he will never achieve his goal. Nearing the end of his life, the protagonist asks the “pilgrim shadow” for advice. He realizes his goal is completely unreachable, and accepts death, completing his life cycle. Poe paints the idea that death is truly the …show more content…

This isn’t necessarily the case with Poe, as lost love fuels a minority of his writing. Pieces of Poe’s writing depict a woman who has died in the prime of her youth. This is an obvious parallel to Virginia Clemm, Poe’s unhealthy and prematurely deceased wife, who was taken from him in middle of his writing career. Love for an innocent and young girl who has died, is depicted in such poems as: “Tamerlane”, “Annabel Lee”, and “ To Helen”. After the deaths of the woman in these poems, the reaction of many of Poe's protagonists is to stay emotionally dependent upon the late women to the point of constant compulsion. What at first seems like innocent love shows to be more of an eerie

Show More
Related
735 Words | 3 Pages

The stories “The Masque of the Red Death”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Man of the Crowd” by Edgar Allan Poe are similar in their setting, mood, main characters, and topics such as symbolism, conflict, and foreshadowing. Poe has a specific writing style that makes his works similar and easily identifiable. Poe tends to write about sickness and death. These topics reflect greatly on his life and show through in many of his works. When Poe was young he was adopted by a rich family, Mr. and Mrs. John Allen; he did not have a very good relationship with Mr. Allen.

Read More
930 Words | 4 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe’s frightening gothic style poetry and short novels about fear, love, death and horror are prominent to Gothic Literature and explore madness through a nerve-recking angle. The incredible, malformed author, poet, editor and novelist is recognized for his famous classical pieces such as “The Raven”, “Berenice” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”, pieces of work that mystically yet magnificently awakens readers with a gloomy spirit. Awakening the subject of madness through written work was viewed as insane during Poe’s times. Yet Poe published some of the worlds most magnificently frightening pieces of literature throughout history. In the following essay I will examine and cautiously analyze

Read More
1073 Words | 5 Pages

Final Macabre Essay: (500-600 words) The poem “Annabel Lee” is a poem of loss written by Edgar Allen Poe a 19th-century poet famous for writing macabre poems and uses literary devices in a multitude of ways to convey its theme to the reader. In this poem, a man falls in love with a woman named Annabel Lee, but one day Annabel Lee is killed by a storm. His love remains strong towards his wife even after her death, and the man finds peace because of this, showing that his love transcends death. In this macabre poem, Edgar Allen Poe uses metaphors, internal rhymes, and repetition to convey the theme that love can go beyond death.

Read More
280 Words | 2 Pages

The poem, “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe dramatizes the theme of everlasting love. The use of contrasting diction effectively conveys this message. For example, the speaker states, “That the wind came out of the cloud by night, / Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee” (26-26). Poe uses the wind to represent a disease, such as tuberculosis. In addition, the choice of the words, “chilling” and “killing” and the use of cacophony emphasize Annabel Lee’s death and the effect it had on the speaker.

Read More
873 Words | 4 Pages

Many people go through horrors in their life. However, most don’t record them in the way Poe did. From a young age Poe experienced death in his family. As Poe lived his life, he started using his feelings and life experiences in his work. He based his feelings in his poems such as Annabel Lee and Alone.

Read More
1273 Words | 6 Pages

Death is inevitable is the overall theme of the story because death has been and still is a mystery that has generated both fear and horror. The fear and horror generated is an inspiration in subject that may involve topics of the infliction of death, the prevention of death even resurrection from death. Poe is greatly influence by death and one of his characters in the story Prince Prospero took drastic steps to avoid and escape from death. Symbolism is a figure of speech used when an author wants to create a certain mood or emotion in a work of literature; it is the use of an object, person, situation or words to represent something else like an idea in literature(Gill,2006;182).’’Symbolism plays an important role in literature’’(Knowles,

Read More
935 Words | 4 Pages

One of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous poems, Annabel Lee, was created in 1849; the last poem written by Poe before his death, speaks of a young woman that the narrator is infatuated with and is mourning the death of. Using romanticism techniques, Poe creates an ideal interpretation of a relationship that faces both love and loss. Edgar Allan Poe’s vivid imagery of the love that the narrator has for Annabel Lee is used to parallel Poe’s unconditional affection he feels toward his deceased wife, Virgina. Upon the introduction of Annabel Lee, Poe describe the narrator’s relationship with his bride, Annabel Lee, as a compassionate mutual bond. The relationship is presented as genuine with both the narrator and Annabel Lee have undeniable affection

Read More
883 Words | 4 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe, the poet of Annabel Lee and The Raven, is an American writer who is known for his mysterious and gothic themed poems and short stories. Themes of love and death appear quite often in his poetry, commonly beginning with love and generally ending with death. In both The Raven and Annabel Lee, the speakers narrate about how much they loved a young woman and how happy they were, however, near the end of the poems they narrate about how the women dies, and how their life becomes without them. Edgar Allan Poe explores the themes of love and death quite strongly in Annabel Lee and The Raven. This is achieved through describing the love, the effects of their death, and the discussion of afterlife and reunion

Read More
731 Words | 3 Pages

Death can never be escaped no matter what. In “The Masque of the Red Death” Edgar Allan Poe shows the theme of death, a suspenseful mood, and an ominous tone. Through Poe’s use of literary devices, the reader can discover tone, theme, and mood. Throughout Poe’s life he experienced death with two of his mother’s and his young wife. Death is shown how inevitable it is with Poe’s writing and experiences combined together.

Read More
908 Words | 4 Pages

From not even knowing who he was to being introduced and engrossed in a whole new world which was only known to him and his love, which he now shared with all his readers. The ending of this poem- from my point of view- was tragic yet strangely engaging for the audience. I can only simply accept that their love was not one to be long-lived , as it was forbidden. Although Annabel died in the end I cannot fault the poet, because even though she didn’t live a long life in which I pictured her growing old with Poe, I came to realise it didn’t matter. Poe would still continue to love her as he did before and to me, that was the beauty of it all, that he was able to love her regardless of her death.

Read More
855 Words | 4 Pages

Though Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories like, The Cask of Amontillado, to his poems like, The Raven, Poe’s shows his writing style to use physical imagery and connotative syntax to show ,imagery in his writing. Throughout his life, Poe had always lived through the most chaotic and evil of time. His parents died while he was 3 years old. After his parents died, he lived with another family member who never accepted him as their own son. Later on in life, Poe had served in the military and at that point he started writing poems.

Read More
810 Words | 4 Pages

Despite the belief that one can live forever, death is certain. Edgar Allen Poe wrote his short story, “The Masque of the Red Death” with a greater meaning than simply the Red Death, or plague. He wrote this story, symbolizing the stages of life. In “The Masque of the Red Death”, Poe uses the symbols of the hallway, the rooms, and the braziers, to enhance the allegory, and to show how death is inevitable and one can not spend their life worrying about it.

Read More
1553 Words | 7 Pages

Learning about how all of the people that he loved, and cared for died will show just about anyone that it was not an easy life for Poe. A critic once said that Poe wrote and knew that any type of love had to come with loss (Kennedy). This showed a lot about Poe’s life as everyone that he loved he actually did lose. This made it a lonely life that made him very depressed. In his poems, Edgar Allan Poe, portrayed that his loneliness has came from the love, and loss of his most important people.

Read More
2063 Words | 9 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author; he mainly focused in genres such as short stories and poems. Poe didn’t have much of an academic background in literature but, he excelled in it. Some people believe that his success was mostly due to the fact that his life was very sad, filled by a series on misfortunate events, such as being an orphan, suffering from poverty and being constantly surrounded by death. In his works, Poe portrays narratives that are characterized by their mystery and macabre. The topic of death was ever present in his work, constantly describe with dark moods and somewhat terrifying settings.

Read More
703 Words | 3 Pages

I suppose it has always been customary for many ordinary readers to expect nothing but a potent sense of inescapable despair emanating from each and every line of Poe’s poetry. Though I am not personally in favour of such generalization, it is not uncommon for that to be the case. Figuratively speaking, Poe can easily satisfy a soul longing to be submerged in darkness, yet at first glance, Eldorado seems to offer solace should we choose to interpret the poem accordingly. Of course, one could argue that this idea of consolation stems purely from the fact that the poem does not explicitly state that Eldorado cannot be found, and the only thing keeping me from disillusionment is a missing stanza. Having said that, the solace I am clinging on to is by no means as satisfactory as it ought to be.

Read More

More about An Explanation Of Love In Edgar Allan Poe's Poetry

Related Topics

Open Document