please tell me the meaning of the poem Spirits of the Dead i need to recite this poem and tell the meaning to the class. please answer my question quickly i need it on monday

-- Anonymous, April 28, 2001

Answers

This poem like the clearer story of The Raven paints a simpler picture of the particular way that the dead persistently haunt Poe. Several items are repeated in several of his poems and tales. Silence and solitude and the awful dread of stillness, the stars as eyes, shadow, red, fever, dew-drops, thrones, the spirits in heaven etc. First he contemplates death. Be silent in that solitude, he commands himself, be still as the will of the spirits overshadow the soul. The night, though clear shall frown, and the stars redly devoid of comfort worsen his weariness like an everlasting fever. Against that feverish unease the breath of God is still, the mists shadowy and unbroken.

Look over The City in the Sea, For Annie, The Valley of Unrest, The Raven, the Sleeper, To One in Paradise, Ulalume, Dreamland, Silence. The Spirits of the Dead focuses on no particular lost love or comfort or object of terror. It is a more visual working out of the sonnet "Silence." Stillness and a breathless dread goes hand in hand with this trancelike blurring of the boundaries. The love and light of those in heaven hear becomes a nameless, silent dread. Most of all, the theme can be seen most clearly in the story of The Raven "And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating above the floor/Shall be lifted-nevermore!" Oppressed in a trance like the mists that "hang upon the trees, a symbol of the vision and a token of the ghosts' shadowy, oppressive will.

I suppose anyone can hazard their own critique beyond the special relation Poe has with his ghosts. Mainly compare some of those other poems looking for similar ideas, words and images.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2001