Analyzing Edgar Allen Poe's To Helen

Hook: In the words of Edgar Allan Poe himself, “ With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion”

“Annabel Lee” is the shared named of a poem and a song based off of it. Edgar Allen Poe wrote the poem “Annabel Lee” in 1849. The poem is about a man who has lost his love and is in mourning. Tiger Army wrote a song based on the poem in 2001. There are many similarities in the two pieces as well as some differences.

There is a common theme of young women dying in Poe’s works. In short stories and poems such as, “Annabel Lee, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Oval Portrait”, etc.., a young, innocent woman dies in a strange and horrible way. There is a direct connection to Poe’s life in this theme. His mother, foster mother, and wife were the three woman who he truly loved dearly, and they passed on before him. Poe’s wife was very pretty and died at a young age, just like the characters in many of Poe’s stories.

The poet, Edgar Allan Poe, wrote from influences in his life such as his grief, being an orphan and drugs. Poe, born in Boston, spent 3 years with his family until he was orphaned after his mother’s death and his father’s abandonment. Poe was adopted by the

Edgar Allan Poe’s work has been admired for centuries. One of his most famous works, The Raven is one many people gravitate towards. This 108 line poem consists of assonance and religious allusions to contrast many different types of religion including Christianity and Hellenism. This gives the audience an inside view on Poe’s religious views, or lack thereof.

Edgar Allan Poe had experienced a loss multiple times. Poe married his cousin when she was 13, he was 27. Both of Poe’s parents died in 1811 and so he was raised as a foster child. In the poem “Annabel Lee” he talks about how his love Annabel Lee passed away. In the poem “The Raven” he talks about his love, Lenore passing away and The Raven comes to him and is repetitive. “Annabel Lee” and “The Raven” are similar because they both have the same mood and topic; however the two poems are different because the speaker felt differently about both of his lost girls.

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. After Poe was honorably discharged from the military, he married his 12 year old cousin who died shortly of tuberculosis. These events heavily contributed to his writing style by giving events to base stories as well as a viewpoint on the world. Overall, Edgar Allan Poe’s twisted and ominous writing style focuses on using physical imagery and connotative syntax to show imagery.

As one of the most controversial American literary figures, Edgar Allan Poe has always attracted considerable attention from both critics and readers alike. Due to his allegedly eccentric personality and the dubious circumstances surrounding his death, the public perception of the writer has often been somewhat mythologized. When it comes to his works, Poe has been both critically acclaimed and disparaged, both acknowledged and disputed, but rarely ignored. As he left behind a significantly influential literary legacy, his place among the most important writers in American literature is today undeniable.

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. When Poe was older and a struggling writer, Mr. Allen refused to financially support Poe. Many people died in Poe’s life including his mother,

In many stories and poems; such as the Tell Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Raven, Annabel Lee, The House of Usher, and so many more timeless works, Edgar Allan Poe has been captivating his audiences with spine tingling thrillers through the words and style of his own twisted ways. The only way to describe where Poe’s writing belongs in history, would be classified as gothic genre. From the start of the 1800’s to present day and the future of literature, through irony, repetition, imagery, and symbolism Poe has been bewitching readers with his gore and insane writings.

However, for Poe, death is poetical. And not just any death, but rather the death of a beautiful woman— by beautiful we will assume he refers to the women he admires, the women he found beautiful on the inside, because death is also the end of all external appearances. In any case, if one is familiar with Poe’s style, we will know that the death motif was nothing new in his stories, neither was the death of his female characters. Nevertheless, to understand why he had the audacity of presenting the death of a woman as something poetical, it is necessary to know more about his personal life.

‘Annabel Lee’ by Edgar Allan Poe is an eminently beautiful yet tragic poem centred around the theme of a forbidden love between two people, and the many obstacles that they overcome in order to be together. At the same time the poem relates back to a man’s undying love for his wife in which even death is unable to hinder.

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most notable poets as he has had many powerful and creative pieces that became very popular. As a young boy he had many problems growing up Poe lost his mother when he was only sixteen and left to fend for himself. Throughout his life he was a hopeless romantic who got into a lot of relationships. One of the most known relationships that he got into was with Annabel Lee in which he had created as his last poem before his unexpected death, Annabel Lee. At the time he wasn’t only mourning the death of Annabel Lee but also the death of his wife a few years back which is the reason that he wrote The Raven. 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.

Despite Edgar Allan Poe and H.D. 's respective poems "To Helen" and "Helen" dealing with the same subject matter, their unique usage of subtle literary techniques allows them to communicate two very different messages. Poe 's "To Helen" is a sentimental piece that alludes to imagery commonly associated with Helen and classical works in general. H.D., on the other hand crafts a much darker picture of Helen and the tragedy she instigated. How the two poets manage to do this by focusing every aspect of their poems, from the title to the conclusion and everything in between, at communicating a specific theme.

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. His ways of witting these thrilling narratives made him one of the most famous authors in the English language.