Selections from American poetry Part 42

8. Naiad: a nymph presiding over fountains, lakes, brooks, and wells.

14. Psyche, a beautiful maiden beloved of Cupid, whose adventure with the lamp is told in all cla.s.sical mythologies.

ISRAFEL

Israfel, according to the Koran, is the angel with the sweetest voice among G.o.d's creatures. He will blow the trump on the day of resurrection.

2. The idea that Israfel's lute was more than human is taken from Moore's "Lalla Rookh," although these very words do not occur there. The reference will be found in the last hundred lines of the poem.

12. levin: lightning.

26. Houri: one of the beautiful girls who, according to the Moslem faith, are to be companions of the faithful in paradise.

LENORE

13. Peccavimus: we have sinned.

20. Avaunt: Begone! Away!

26. Paean: song of joy or triumph.

THE COLISEUM

10. Eld: antiquity.

14. See Matthew 26: 36-56.

16. The Chaldxans were the world's greatest astrologers.

26-29. Poe here uses technical architectural terms with success.

plinth: the block upon which a column or a statue rests.

shafts: the main part of a column between the base and the capital.

entablatures: the part of a building borne by the columns.

frieze: an ornamented horizontal band in the entablature.

cornices: the horizontal molded top of the entablatures.

32. corrosive: worn away by degrees; used figuratively of time.

36. At Thebes there is a statue which is supposed to be Memnon, the mythical king of Ethiopia, and which at daybreak was said to emit the music of the lyre.

EULALIE.--A SONG

19. Astarte: the Phoenician G.o.ddess of love.

THE RAVEN

41. Pallas: Greek G.o.ddess of wisdom.

46-47. Night's Plutonian sh.o.r.e: Pluto ruled over the powers of the lower world and over the dead. Darkness and gloom are constantly a.s.sociated with him; the cypress tree was sacred to him and black victims were sacrificed to him. Why does the coming of the raven suggest this realm to the poet?

50. relevancy: appropriateness.

80. Seraphim: one of the highest orders of angels

82. respite and nepenthe: period of peace and forgetting.

89. balm in Gilead. See Jeremiah 8: 22; 46: 11 and Genesis 37: 25.

93. Aideen, fanciful spelling of Eden.

106. This line has been often criticized on the ground that a lamp could not cause any shadow on the floor if the bird sat above the door. Poe answered this charge by saying: "My conception was that of the bracket candelabrum affixed against the wall, high up above the door and bust, as is often seen in English palaces, and even in some of the better houses of New York."

What effect does this poem have upon you? Work out the rhyme scheme in the first and second stanzas. Are they alike? Does this rhyme scheme help to produce the effect of the poem? Have you noticed a similar use of "more" in any other poem? Point out striking examples of repet.i.tion, of alliteration. Are there many figures of speech here?

TO HELEN

This Helen is Mrs. Whitman.

15. parterre: a flower garden whose beds are arranged in a pattern and separated by walks.

48. Dian: Roman G.o.ddess representing the moon.

60. elysian: supremely happy.

65. scintillant: sending forth flashes of light.

66. Venuses: morning stars.

THE BELLS

"The Bells" originally consisted of eighteen lines, and was gradually enlarged to its present form.

10. Runic: secret, mysterious.

11. Why does Poe use this peculiar word? Compare its use with that of "euphony," 1. 26, "jangling," 1. 62, "moLotone" 1. 8'3.

26. euphony: the quality of having a pleasant sound.