"What are some literary elements in Poe's "Alone"?

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Can you tell me some literary elements that are used in Edgar Allan Poe's poem, "Alone"?

-- Anonymous, March 19, 2003

Answers

Some intricate tructures upon close examination. The first section leading up to "I loved alone" deals with his apartness from childhood on- a sweep of time that deals first with his senses and then feelings. The overlapping verses(and overlapping internal alliterations and assonances) when all the chiefly octosyllabic lines are divided into two. A melancholy rhythm then a crushing finale where all talk of comparisons and others vanishes. The literary music thus binds and flows to the two climaxes.

"Then" defines the pivotal moment of revelation after these childhood discoveries of self. "in the dawn of a most stormy life") is more than symbolic. Here we have the vision of "the mystery that binds me still". Several "From" statements take you on a daylong spatial journey of grand and powerful imagery into the storm that prefigures his future as much as the image of day passing and autumn.

It is there he meets his Muse, his "daemon" in the solitary cloud marring the blue sky. And in that binding he now no longer alone, a sentiment hinted at in other early poems "To M___" ("I heed not") and future poems where he is forever haunted- by himself and his artisitic calling as well as the boy's vocation in "Tamerlane". Both these poems once held the name given to this untitled poem. There is usually some subtle doubling and parallelism both in Poe and in his structures. His references to other poets are merely a starting point for his own unique personal ideas and exquisite and intricate style. You don't get this much from grandiose poems of other Romantics on nature scenes and sentiment. The focus is always very much turned to the inner experience.

-- Anonymous, March 20, 2003


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