I need to know what porphyrogene means in Poe's story Fall of the house of Usher it is located in the poem stanza3 in () plz e-mail me if you know.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2000

Answers

Sean,

Edgar Poe's use of this word (Porphyrogene) in the poem "The Haunted Palace", was intended to be suggestive of royal issue or, perhaps, the progeny of a sovereign monarch. Strictly speaking, that portion of the word, Porphyro, recalls the poem "The Eve of St. Agnes" written in 1819 by John Keats.

Keats' poem deals with a Shakespearean like drama reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet where a young woman, Madeline, falls in love with Porphyro, a young man of nobility or, at the least, some high position in the aristocracy that is suggested by the origins of his name. The word Porphyro is Greek for purple, a color traditionally recognized in the Victorian era as a color reserved for royalty. Porphyro, then, used with the suffix gene or gen, would then suggest a descendant or an offspring of royalty. Robert Frost also used a variant of this name in his 1842 poem "Porphyria's Lover."

Regards,

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2000

Sean,

Please accept my sincere apologies. That was Robert Browning that wrote "Porphyria's Lover", not Robert Frost.

Regards,

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2000