I'm doing a project in english class on Romanticism and I am analyzing To the River by Poe. I have a lot of it analyzed but i need help with: "Her worshipper resembles" "For in my heart - as in thy stream - Her image deeply lies" "The playful maziness of art In old Alberto's daughter - " and "The heart which trembles at the beam, The scrutiny of her eyes" If anyone can help me out it would be great thank you so much! - kate

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2003

Answers

Thmas Mabbott's book "Edgar Allan Poe- Complete Poems" sis good for the details and history. The Alberto reference is very likely from the tenth novella of the first day of Boccaccio's "Decameron". The poem may have been intended to imitate Byron's "Stanzas to the Po" a pun on Poe's own name. Transparent brightness in the water and in the story are linked. the winding river "wandering" the playful flirtation of the girl's "maziness of art".

What follows this wonderful combination is a description of the fatherly Alberto as a disturbed wave, the revealing looking within water and heart, for when she looks in the water she see's her image in the trembling of the brook. Playful itself it nonetheless is a minor masterpoiece of intricate conceit and a strong conveyal of love and beauty in the intimacy and counterpoint of the imagery.

Look for the progress, the divisions, the back and forth and the poetics for Poe's highly structured sonnet style poem. There is a lot to examine and appreciate in this gem.

-- Anonymous, October 02, 2003