I don't understand the 8th and 9th lines of the poem "To Hellen" I also want you to help me admire the symbolism features of this poem. where is the mysteriousness of this poem? and where its musicaltality and suggestiveness?

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2004

Answers

The musicality is languid, restful, exotic with careful teasingly brief classical allusions that add Greek words like musical notes rather than story references. Onomatopaeia and rhytyms of the sea abound in alliteration like "the weary wayward wanderer bore". The rhymes with the long o are the much used groans of the soul.

How easy to miss the importance of the opening, the longest sustained simile for Poe who used them so rarely. There we have the emotional core of Poe's following explanation which is also a cover image trying to bring out the pure emotional effect of a childhood experience of the Ideal revisited. Context is very interesting. The mood moreso, for it is what he carries in his heart that is the treasure, not the memory or the actual experience itself which introduced him to that haven. In Poe's highest poems the woman is not named or specifically described. These Beatrice figures are his path to Beauty, the Ideal, that peculiar poetic Muse that means in fact more to Poe than anything(the later version of "The Lake").

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2004