Cummings Study Guide

......."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

.......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. "But evil things, in robes of sorrow, / Assailed the monarch's high estate." These evil things may have been in the form of immorality, disease, or any other destructive force that corrupts, subverts, or sickens a human being." Now the palace is haunted with 

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.

.......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.  

.......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)

.......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. 

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