Poe derived the title from the name of an angel in Islamic literature. According to Islam, an archangel named Israfel, also spelled Israfil, will blow a trumpet to awaken the dead for final judgment on the Day of Resurrection at the end of the world. The connection between Poe's Israfel, who plays a stringed instrument, and the Islamic Israfil is that both play a musical instrument and both are servants of God.  

Type of Work

"Israfel" is a lyric poem. It is unlike most other Poe poems--which dwell on gloom, loss, sadness, darkness, and death--in that it is positive, cheerful, bright.

Date of Publication 

"Israfel" was published in 1831 in the Southern Literary Messenger and in a collection entitled Poems. The latter was published in New York by Elam Bliss. 

Theme: Poe's Theory of Poetry

The poem presents a guiding principle of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry: Like the music of the angel Israfel, a poem must please the ear while expressing genuine emotion, or passion. Israfel performs so well on his stringed instrument (and on the "heart strings" of the audience) that the stars and the moon, indeed all of the heavens, listen attentively. Even the lightning (levin, in Stanza 2) pauses to listen. The speaker, or narrator, says Israfel deserves praise as the best of the bards because he plays with such passion.      

How Poe Develops the Theme

To underscore and develop his theme--that a poem should be musical and passionate--Poe uses rhyme, rhythm, and alliteration to create pleasing sounds and personification and other imagery to suggest deep emotion. 

Rhyme

Each stanza contains end rhyme. For example, in Stanza 1, the first line rhymes with Lines 3, 4, 5, and 6; Line 2 rhymes with Line 7. In Stanza 2, the first line rhymes with the fourth, the second with the third, and the fifth with the remaining lines. In addition, he uses internal rhyme, as in Line 4 of Stanza 1 (As the angelIsrafel) and Line 5 of Stanza 4 (imbued with all the beauty).

Rhythm

The meter of "Israfel" varies. Nevertheless, the poem flows rhythmically, mostly with lines of either iambic or anapestic feet or with lines combining both types of feet. Note the varying but pleasing cadence of the first stanza (with stressed syllables in capital letters):

In HEA ven a SPIR it doth DWELL
"Whose HEART-strings ARE a LUTE;"
None SING so WILD ly WELL
As the AN gel IS ra FEL

To further enhance the cadence of the poem, Poe use alliteration to create pleasing sound patterns. Following are a examples in the first four lines: 
 

........In Heaven a spirit doth dwell	Black: h sound
........"Whose heart-strings are a lute;"	Red: s sound
........None sing so wildly well	Green: d sound
........As the angel Israfel	Blue: w sound
	Brown: z sound

Personification 

To highlight the importance of emotion, Poe uses personification to animate the heavens. Following are two examples of personification in the second stanza. 

Tottering above
In her highest noon, 
The enamoured Moon 
Blushes with love,
While, to listen, the red levin
(With the rapid Pleiads, even,
Which were seven,)
Pauses in Heaven

To stress the brilliance of Israfel's emotional performance, Poe uses a combination paradox, hyperbole, and metaphor when he says in the two lines ending Stanza 7 that the shadow Israfel casts is sunshine: 

And the shadow of thy perfect bliss 
Is the sunshine of ours. 

Paradox: contradictory statement that is true
Hyperbole: exaggeration
Metaphor: comparison of one thing (shadow) to an unlike thing (sunshine)

Poe also uses single words suggesting deep emotion, such as the following: heart-strings (Stanza 1), blushes (Stanza 2), fire and trembling (Stanza 3), and ecstasies, burning, grief, joy, hate, love, and fervor (Stanza 6).