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Notes and Annotation by Michael
J. Cummings..©
2006
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Type
of Work and Date of Publication
"The
Haunted Palace" is a poem, a ballad. It was published in American Museum
in April 1839. In September of the same year, it was published in Burton's
Gentleman's Magazine as part of "The Fall of the House of Usher," one
of Poe's most famous short stories. In the story, mentally unstable Roderick
Usher sings the ballad while playing a guitar.
Summary
and Theme
Once, there was a majestic
palace from which a great king ruled his dominion with reason and common
sense. So good and beautiful was this place that angels abided there. On
occasion, the palace halls resounded with wondrous voices singing the praises
of the monarch.
The
Palace: Metaphor for an Ill-Fated
Man
The palace and the king represent
a man who falls to mental and physical ruin after an unspecified evil possesses
him. The lines that metaphorically present the palace as a human are as
follows:
Line 4: Reared its head
(the person's head)
Lines 8, 9: Over fabric
half so fair! / Banners yellow, glorious, golden (blond hair)
Line 18: Through two
luminous windows (eyes)
Line 25: Pearl and ruby
(teeth and lips)
Line 26: Palace door
(mouth)
Who
Is the King?
The ill-fated king, identified
in Line 22 as Porphyrogene, could refer to any or all of the following:
-
Any human being who has had
a good life but one day falls to ruin in the form of insanity or another
form of mental illness, as well as physical and material material ruin,
as in Poe's short story "The Fall of the House of Usher." In this story,
Roderick Usher, master of a mansion, suffers mental deterioration because
of an evil that has been at work in the House of Usher (the mansion itself
and the family) for generations, befouling the residents of the mansion
and causing the mansion itself to decay. Roderick Usher's illness is "a
constitutional and family evil . . . one for which he despaired to find
a remedy," the narrator reports. The narrator hints that the evil is incest.
In one scene, Roderick sings the words to "The Haunted Palace" while playing
a guitar. For an analysis of the "The Fall of the House of Usher" and its
themes, click here.
-
Baldwin II Porphyrogenitus (1217-1273),
a Latin emperor of Constantinople who was overthrown in 1261. His father
and brother had previously ruled as emperors of Constantinople. He was
of French ancestry on his father's side and Flemish ancestry on his mother's
side. His forebears had gone to the Middle East during the Crusades. In
French, Baldwin II Porphyrogenitus was known as Baudouin Porphyrogénète,
a royal epithet meaning "born to the purple"–a color long associated with
emperors, kings, and other rulers.
-
Edgar Allan Poe himself. He
was known to suffer melancholy, which he attempted to relieve with alcohol.
Theme
How evil (whether in the
form of immorality, disease, or any other destructive force) can corrupt,
subvert, or sicken a human being.
Figures
of Speech
Following are examples of
figures of speech in "The Haunted Palace":
Alliteration: Banners
yellow, glorious, golden,
/ On its roof did float and flow,
Personification:
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty / Was
but to sing
Simile: While, like
a ghastly rapid river, / Through the pale door / A hideous throng rush
out forever
Metaphor: And all
with pearl and ruby glowing / Was the fair palace door
(pearl: teeth, ruby: lips,
door: mouth)
Atmosphere
and Word Choice
The atmosphere of "The Haunted
Palace" is at first idyllic, dreamlike, angelic. Then it becomes nightmarish.
To create the idyllic atmosphere, Poe uses uses words and phrases such
as greenest of our valleys, fair and stately, seraph, glorious, golden,
gentle, sweet, and luminous. To create the nightmarish atmosphere,
he uses words and phrases such as evil, robes of sorrow, mourn, desolate,
dim-remembered, entombed, discordant, ghastly, and hideous.
Author
Information
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. After he returned with the Allans to the U.S. in 1820, he studied
at private schools, then attended the University of Virginia and the U.S.
Military Academy, but did not complete studies at either school. After
beginning his literary career as a poet and prose writer, he married his
young cousin, Virginia Clemm. He worked for several magazines and joined
the staff of the New York Mirror newspaper in 1844. All the while,
he was battling a drinking problem. After the Mirror published his
poem “The Raven” in January 1845, Poe achieved national and international
fame. Besides pioneering the development of the short story, Poe invented
the format for the detective story as we know it today. He also was an
outstanding literary critic. Despite the acclaim he received, he was never
really happy because of his drinking and because of the deaths of several
people close to him, including his wife in 1847. He frequently had trouble
paying his debts. It is believed that heavy drinking was a contributing
cause of his death in Baltimore on October 7, 1849.
.
The Haunted Palace
By Edgar Allan Poe
Written and Published
in 1839
.
Text of the Poem |
Notes |
1
In the greenest of our valleys
By good
angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately
palace –
Radiant palace – reared
its head.
In the monarch Thought's
dominion –
It stood there!
Never seraph
spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!.................................8
2
Banners
yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof
did float and flow,
(This – all this– was in
the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that
dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts
plumed and pallid,
A wingèd odor went
away...........................16
3
Wanderers in that happy
valley,
Through two
luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's
well-tunèd law,
Round about a throne where,
sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was
seen..................24
4
And all with pearl
and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace
door,
Through which came flowing,
flowing, flowing,
And sparkling
evermore,
A
troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing
beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their
king.................32
5
But evil
things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high
estate.
(Ah, let us mourn! – for
never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home,
the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered
story
Of the old time entombed...........................40
6
And travellers now, within
that valley,
Through the red-litten
windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid
river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out
forever
And
laugh – but smile no more...................48 |
tenanted:
inhabited
.
palace:
the palace is a metaphor for a person. For additional information, see
The Palace: Symbol of an Ill-Fated
Man
.
Thought's
dominion: reason and common sense ruled
.
seraph:
highest order of angels, each having three wings
.
pinion:
wing or a section of a wing
.
Banners
. . . golden: hair
.
roof:
top of the head
.
ramparts:
walls; fortification
.
two
luminous windows: eyes
.
lute:
Stringed instrument, plucked like a guitar, with a long neck and a pear-shaped
body. It was developed in Europe on an Arabic model called an 'Ud (spelled
oud in Balkan countries).
.
Porphyrogene:
Possibly a reference to Baldwin II
Porphyrogenitus (1217-1273),
a Latin emperor of Constantinople who was overthrown in 1261. His father
and brother had previously ruled as emperors of Constantinople. He was
of French ancestry on his father's side and Flemish ancestry on his mother's
side. His forebears had gone to the Middle East during the Crusades. In
French, Baldwin II Porphyrogenitus was known as Baudouin Porphyrogénète,
a royal epithet meaning "born to the purple"–a color long associated with
emperors, kings, and other rulers.
.
pearl
and ruby: teeth and lips
.
palace
door: mouth
.
sparkling
. . . Echoes: perhaps an example of synesthesia,
a figure of speech in which one sensory experienced is described in terms
of another. Here, the Echoes (sound) sparkle (sight).
.
evil
things: evil in the form of immorality, disease, or any other
destructive force corrupts, subverts, or sickens a human being.
.
morrow:
morning, the next day, tomorrow
.
red-litten
windows: red eyes, bloodshot eyes; windows emitting a red light.
Litten is an archaic word for lighted or lit.
.
laugh
. . . more: an interesting paradox. |
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