I have to write an essay on how Poe achieved to write the bells in such a melodic way through structural organization and imagery. I started off fine i wrote an opening paragraph, one about the structural oranization, one on the imagery and one summaraizing the poem. Now I don't know how to close it. Help asap?

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2003

Answers

You might try Mabbott's book "Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Poems" forthe historical background ofhow he came to write it. He greatly expanded it to its final form, for example, and was one of those works meant for a disitnct literary purpose incorporating sound. Also it discusses the actual bells that inspired the idea. Like many works it starts out in beauty and proceeds to dread(El Dorado). That downbeat is well into that curious region where Poe draws his strongest mystical inspiration, as dread and deadly as it might seem to us. The ages of man, the plot always leads to that land just before the tomb. As for your paper it is difficult even to provide an idea without more knowledge of your work.

-- Anonymous, February 01, 2003