By Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) A Study Guide | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Study Guide Prepared by Michael J. Cummings...© 2005 Revised in 2011.© ......."To Helen" is a lyric poem extolling the beauty of a woman. Poe wrote the poem in 1831 and later revised it. The Southern Literary Messenger published it in March 1836 and Graham's Magazine in September 1841. The text on this page is the 1841 version. .......Edgar Allan Poe wrote “To Helen" as a reflection on the beauty of Mrs. Jane Stith Stanard, of Richmond, Va., who died in 1824. She was the mother of one of Poe’s school classmates, Robert Stanard. When Robert invited Edgar, then 14, to his home (at 19th and East Grace Streets in Richmond) in 1823, Poe was greatly taken with the 27-year-old woman, who is said to have urged him to write poetry. He was later to write that she was his first real love. .......The theme of this short poem is the beauty of a woman with whom Poe became acquainted when he was 14. Apparently she treated him kindly and may have urged him—or perhaps inspired him—to write poetry. Beauty, as Poe uses the word in the poem, appears to refer to the woman's soul as well as her body. On the one hand, he represents her as Helen of Troy—the quintessence of physical beauty—at the beginning of the poem. On the other, he represents her as Psyche—the quintessence of soulful beauty—at the end of the poem. In Greek, psyche means soul. For further information on Helen of Troy and Psyche, see the comments on the text of the poem. .......Poe
opens the poem with a simile—“Helen, thy beauty
is to me / Like those Nicéan barks of yore"—that
compares the beauty of Helen (Mrs. Stanard, Background)
with small sailing boats (barks) that carried home travelers in ancient
times. He extends this boat imagery into the second stanza, when he says
Helen brought him home to the shores of the greatest civilizations of antiquity,
classical Greece and Rome. It may well have been that Mrs. Stanard’s beauty
and other admirable qualities, as well as her taking notice of Poe’s writing
ability, helped inspire him to write poetry that mimicked in some ways
the classical tradition of Greece and Rome. Certainly the poem’s allusions
to mythology and the classical age suggest that he had a grounding in,
and a fondness for, ancient history and literature.
1841 Version By Edgar Allan Poe .
The meter consists mainly of trimeters and tetrameters, with a dimeter at the end. Following are examples. ......1..................2...............3..................4End Rhyme The end rhyme of the poem is as follows: First stanza, ababbNote that face and Greece (lnes 7 and 9) are similar only in that they have one syllable and the same ending, -ce. The vowels a and ee do not rhyme. Thus, face and Greece make up what is called half-rhyme, also known as near rhyme, oblique rhyme, and slant rhyme. The poem also contains internal rhyme. Here are examples: Helen, thy beauty is to me (line 1)
Figures of Speech .......Following are examples of figures of speech in the poem. For definitions of figures of speech, see Literary Terms. Alliteration The weary, wayworn wanderer bore (line 5)Anaphora Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,Personification On desperate seas long wont
to roam (line 6)
Simile Helen, thy beauty is to meBiogragphy .......Edgar
Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston. After being orphaned
at age two, he was taken into the home of a childless couple—John
Allan, a successful businessman in Richmond, Va., and his wife. Allan was
believed to be Poe’s godfather. At age six, Poe went to England with the
Allans and was enrolled in schools there.
Study Questions and Writing Topics
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