if it is at all possible (once again) could you please send me the symbolism on poe's evening star and poe's spirits of the dead. i would really appreciate if you could give me as much info about these two poems as possible considering i have to do a speech on one of the following i i am not good at all with poetry and the symbolism and how to find the irony or any of that. thank you extremely much!!! i really do appreciate this!!!

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2001

Answers

early poems about same time? 1827,1828. Evening Star has the misummer, midnight gazer turning away from the cold, dominant moon to the proud evening star which gives him hope instead of gloom and terror. The same tension in many of Poe's works between the certainty of death versus the angelic beacon of hope signed in the skies. The poet stands on the shore looking up for the star's friendly guidance.

Spirits of the dead. As in other poems the spirits become a presence in the stillness. The stars no longer give hope, for the dead are here in person. The mind has more fully joined to the hearafter. The stars are dimly red, dissipating as the dew into the mist of ghosts that hangs upon the tree, a symbol and a token of the individual taken into the mystery and communion of spirits. A blended, shadowy and not altogether attractive haunting in this gray borderland, the sleepy nighttime joining both this world the one beyond.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001