Edgar Allan Poe's Use Of Symbols In The Raven

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Symbolism is one of the milestones of poetry. Symbolism by the definition is “the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense.” A symbol has two layers. At outside, it has the meaning of itself, at inside it hides something deeper. Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven is based on a memory of persona facing its obsessions and fears caused by them. On the other hand, in Sonnet 64, William Shakespeare converts the feelings he has about time, his worries and fear about what it is capable of showing to words written with ink. Poets faced their external and internal fears by giving a second meaning to concrete objects with symbolism.

Poe’s use of symbolism relies heavily on …show more content…

The fear he is facing is “change”. Time symbolizes change in the sonnet by the effect of it on nature and history. As long as it continues to flow, it creates changes. He uses personification by saying “Time’s fell hand”. It claims that the hand of cruel time, “defaced the rich proud cost”. Defaced is a symbolic word to make connotation to power of change even defeated the power of the Church. ““defaced" was an almost technical term for the destruction of "images" in churches.” By the usage of the word, Shakespeare tells that nothing can resist to change, even the things people tied and believed strongly. He gives place to “religious reference” by saying “lofty towers” and “brass eternal”. He uses “hunger ocean” to symbolize the greatness of the effect of the change causes on nature. He says hungry ocean “gain advantage” which is a human feature, by personification. He witnessed that even change caused nature to fight within itself. He again admires the power of change. The more he witnesses the power of change, much he is scared of it. He makes a symbolism by “state” to things people say wouldn’t happen. He says he has seen the biggest states decaying and nothing can last forever. He concludes with a point by the things he has witnessed, which is change will take away his love from him someday, when “the time” comes. He

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