i need a critasism of vally of unrest

-- Anonymous, February 11, 2003

Answers

This dreamland landscape poem does bear some of the hsitorical meaning analysis done by Thomas Mabbott in his book "Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Poems". Based on poe's youthful trips to the Hebrides, on the old song "Over the Hills and far away". See the variants also at www.eapoe.org("The Valley of Nis"). Far away and in the past is the realm of nature Poe like's because it is not the real beauty or force that Poe wishes to commune with but as it relates to the imagination and his own soul.

Poem is structured in the parts of Once.. and Now with a conclunding analysis. The past is the departure of the inhabitants, the present a sad ghostly restlessness, a movement without external cause. As in other Poe poems the valley is a permanent mourning in the final analysis, a peaceful scene but not at rest, not at peace as the flowers that have remained eternally weep. Compare to "Silence- A fable" and the other dreamscape "The City in the Sea". "The Haunted Palace" too.

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2003