Quoth The Raven - Poe Poetry Blog

Charlie Chaplin and Virginia Cherrill in City Lights (1931) If you ever doubted that “less is more,” consider this very short poem by Edgar Allan Poe: I heed not that my earthly lot  Hath little of Earth in it,  That years of love have been forgot  In the hatred of a minute:  I mourn not that the desolate  Are happier, sweet, than I,  But that you sorrow for my fate  Who am a passer-by. Originally titled “Alone” when it was first penned in 1827, it was subsequently called “To M—,” and sometimes simply “To —” in later publications.   Little is known about this poem, penned when Poe was 19, including the identity of Poe’s Muse or the back-story of their relationship. The poem is, to my mind, an elegant and concise example of Poe’s mastery of meter and poetic devices; in the words of editor Thomas Ollive Mabbott, “ worthy of the term ‘perfect’ .” The lines are alternatingly eight and six syllables long.   The rhyme scheme is A-B-A-B (“ lot ,” “ in it ;” “ f

Edgar Allan Poe never visited L.A. But, the Father of the Detective Story would have been at home in the city of Dragnet and L.A. Confidential .  L.A. might as well have been the “ desert land enchanted ” in which Poe set his melancholy masterpiece, “The Raven,” and its goth house of purple curtains and velvet-lined cushions could have been some grunge rocker’s mansion in the Hollywood Hills.  Poe foreshadows the West Coast entertainment Mecca in his poem “Dream-Land,” in which he seems to describe a C.G.I. vision a century ahead of its time, as an imaginary landscape of “ Mountains toppling evermore/Into seas without a shore .”   The place in Poe’s vision, like our City of Angels, is different things to different people: “ For the heart whose woes are legion/’Tis a peaceful, soothing region —/For the spirit that walks in shadow/’Tis — oh ‘tis an Eldorado! ” Poe’s dream-scape is true to La-La Land, down to the brooding waifs finding solace behind their designer shades: “ A

Georges Méliès, A Trip to the Moon , 1902 Pagans, poets, and prognosticators have all marveled at the captivating allure and beauty of the full moon in the sky, but don’t count Edgar Allan Poe among the moon-worshipers. While others rave about the great moon this Tuesday (called both a “super moon” because it will be full at its closest point to Earth along its slightly elliptical orbit, and a “snow” moon because Native Americans and Europeans associated the February moon with wintry weather), Poe might grouse under his breath as he did in his poem “Evening Star” (1827), Too cold — too cold for me Even though it is a cliché for Gothic horror classics to have the full moon set the stage for vampires and werewolves to activate, Poe never contracted their full moon fever.   In fact, rather than triggering magic and supernatural activity, Poe found the earth’s natural satellite to be a big yawn.   Literally. In “The Sleeper” (1831), An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,  Exhales

When I was 14 years old, I caught a late-night TV airing of The Raven (1963) , starring Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Jack Nicholson and Hazel Court.   This was a period in my life when I had carved out a niche alone and away from the world, when I would binge-watch classic horror movies, stay up for lunar eclipses, and generally engage in mysterious, anti-social behavior—like any normal teen! Four years before, I had arrived in the United States from El Salvador and I hadn’t yet figured out exactly where or how to fit in, so I had created this space at the margins of American culture.   The Roger Corman flick is a campy, B-horror yarn: “ That motley drama—oh, be sure It shall not be forgot! ”   I am sure that I got sleepy as the storyline progressed, and I barely remember that final, over-the-top battle-of-the-wizards finale.   But what grabbed me and I always remembered was the opening sequence in which Vincent Price recites “The Raven.” The next day, I ran to t

Untitled , Carrie Filetti on Pinterest In two earlier blog posts, we were talking about (1) how Edgar Allan Poe tells us that his childhood holds the key that unlocks “ the mystery which binds me still ” and (2) how Poe often depicted his youthful self as a “ child of nature .”   In this post, we will complete an infancy triad by looking at Poe’s depictions of childhood as a haunted time. In various poems, Poe describes moments of epiphany or revelation from his youth that foreshadow his interest in the supernatural and the occult that would come later.   The descriptions of these experiences vary, running the gamut from simple sensations to outright visions. For example, in “The Lake” (1827), Poe describes the feeling of being suddenly overcome by “ terror :” And the mystic wind went by  Murmuring in melody —  Then — ah! then I would awake  To the terror of the lone lake. If we read it literally, the episode is not out of the realm of everyday experience.   Y

Frances Sargent Osgood Here is Poe’s only Valentine ’s poem, appropriately and simply called “A Valentine” (1846), which was just a mechanism to contain an acrostic in tribute to fellow poet Frances Sargent Osgood, as revealed in the encoded letters: F or her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,  B r ightly expressive as the twins of Lœda,  Sh a ll find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies  Upo n the page, enwrapped from every reader.  Sear c h narrowly the lines! — they hold a treasure  Divin e — a talisman — an amulet  That mu s t be worn at heart. Search well the measure —  The word s — the syllables! Do not forget  The trivi a lest point, or you may lose your labor!  And yet the r e is in this no Gordian knot  Which one mi g ht not undo without a sabre,  If one could m e rely comprehend the plot.  Enwritten upo n the leaf where now are peering  Eyes scintilla t ing soul, there lie perdus  Three eloquent w o rds oft uttered in the

Print of Shepherd Boy, After Thomas Gainsborough, Late 18th Century I n addition to consistently portraying his childhood as a contented, formative period , Edgar Allan Poe also resorts to a poetic device commonly used by Romantic poets, the “child of nature.” Poe actually labels the depiction as such in an early version of “Tamerlane,” wherein he calls this image “ The child of Nature, without care .” In the early poem “Stanzas” (1827) Poe quotes Lord Byron, whom Poe admired, for a succinct summation of the Romantic fascination with humanity’s relationship with nature, which Poe then seeks to claim for himself (here, speaking of himself in the third person): In youth have I known one with whom the Earth  In secret communing held, as he with it,  In day light, and in beauty from his birth:  Whose fervid, flick’ring torch of life was lit  From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth  A passionate light-such for his spirit was fit Like the English Romant

Edgar Allan Poe tells us several things about his childhood in a few of his poems.   Most importantly, in “Alone” (1829), Poe tells us that, Then — in my childhood — in the dawn  Of a most stormy life — was drawn  From ev’ry depth of good and ill  The mystery which binds me still Poe was a sensitive and precocious child.   In “Romance” (1829), he describes his boyhood self as, “ A child — with a most knowing eye .” His intellect and insights, however, made Poe feel different.   He saw the world differently from the way others saw it.   Again, in “Alone,” he tells us that, “ From childhood’s hour I have not been / As others were — I have not seen / As others saw .” Poe describes his childhood as tempestuous —perhaps, even, volatile — charged with heartfelt passion.   In “Dreams” (1827), Poe describes his heart as “ A chaos of deep passion, from his [i.e. his own] birth .”   In “Tamerlane” (also from 1827), Poe writes, “ My passions, from that hapless hour [i.e

Our Lady of Walsingham, which Poe may have seen in England as a child. Of the approximately seventy poems penned by Edgar Allan Poe, only one contains an overtly religious motif, the remarkably Marian-themed “Hymn,” which reveals the powerful appeal of Marian spirituality over the most hopeless of hearts. At morn–at noon–at twilight dim– Maria! thou hast heard my hymn! In joy and woe–in good and ill– Mother of God, be with me still! When the Hours flew brightly by, And not a cloud obscured the sky, My soul, lest it should truant be, Thy grace did guide to thine and thee Now, when storms of Fate o’ercast Darkly my Present and my Past, Let my future radiant shine With sweet hopes of thee and thine. The specification that the hymn is repeated at “ morn ,” “ noon ” and “ twilight dim ” refers to the recitation of the Angelus .   The “ Hours ” referenced are the Liturgy of the Hours, prayed eight times daily.   The last lines of the second and third quatr