Edgar Allen Poe's Poem The Bells

The everlasting state of loneliness can overwhelm a person’s mindset almost to the point of insanity. The death of a loved is a difficult hardship to endure, and Poe does his best at capturing the speaker’s feelings towards the death of his beloved Lenore. The death of his beloved lady affected him greatly, to the point of insanity. Poe’s selection of words like “bleak” and “ghost” goes to show the grief, as well as the miserable tone of the poem. Overall, the intense choice of diction, the somber setting in winter, and the frantic tone all aid in overall theme of the poem, the act of losing a loved one is a hard event to

The poem, "The Bells," by Edgar Allan Poe, reveals the theme of changing seasons through word choice, symbolism, and poetic elements, like onomatopoeia, alliteration, and metaphors. Each stanza represents a different season with different meanings. The first stanza represents spring; a jolly, happy season. This stanza includes multiple samples of onomatopoeia and words that indicate mood. Lines that indicate this include lines 1, 3, 8, 11, and 14. These lines say, "Hear the sledges with the bells... what a world of merriment their melody foretells... With a crystalline delight... To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells... From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells." The words, "sledges," "merriment," "crystalline delight," and "melody" all mean happiness. The calm and joyful sound of the bells that are "jingling and tinkling" indicates the joyfulness and calmness of the beginning. Spring is a joyful season, with blossoming flowers and being able to enjoy the sun after winter. Then, the second stanza mostly relates to summer, an also happy and enjoyable season. The second stanza represents an also jolly and harmonizing mood. Lines 15, 17, 19, and 35 show characteristics of onomatopoeia and symbolism. The lines show, "Hear the mellow wedding bells... what a world of happiness their harmony foretells... how they ring out their delight... to the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!" This indicates the "mellow wedding bells," an iconic example of symbolism. The wedding bells show a time of happiness, as it's usually a memorable and joyful event for many. Then, the "world of happiness their harmony foretells" and how they "ring out their delight" shows examples of onomatopoeia, which lets the reader realize that it's a harmonizing and peaceful sound. This stanza resembles the season of summer; a time to relax and have memories and fun. Then, as the poem progresses, it reaches a more dark state. The third stanza represents a sad and somewhat scary mood. Examples of alliteration and onomatopoeia are present throughout this stanza, like on paragraph 38, 40, 45, 58-59, and 69 have numerous examples of this. The lines indicate, "What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells... how they scream out

Unnerving, spooky, disturbing, frightful… All common characteristics of a hauntingly terrific tale by the famous Edgar Allan Poe. His story “The Masque of the Red Death” brought a grotesque taste to the horror genre throughout the 19th century with the use of literary devices. To summarize, Poe’s story discussed, in detail, the horrifying inevitability of death, which reveal the value of a device known as symbolism used by Poe in this literary work. As people are familiar with, Poe’s psychological weaknesses spurred his creativity to which he poured his problems into Gothic Literature, and he produced these unforeseen symbols as pawns of his life. In this popular short story, subtle objects are manipulated to reflect Edgar Allan Poe’s misfortunes. Symbolism is used throughout his short years of living as a narrative device for his eerie publications. Within this composition, I will be justifying how Poe’s influence on the use of symbolism constructed a disturbed and almost misleading

fleeting of life and time, and the nearness of death, Poe reminds the reader that between the

Good morning everyone, today I will be discussing Kenneth Slessor’s poem, Five Bells in relation to its message about mourning and mortality.

     Edgar Allan Poe, the first master of the short story, had written many short stories from mysteries to morbidity. Edgar was born on January 19,1809 in Boston, Massachussettes. Edgars Parents, David and Eliza, were both in the acting business. Poe also had a sister, who is rarely spoken of. When Edgar was young his father fleed from the family, leaving Edgar, his mother, and sister alone. At the age of two Edgar's mother died of tuberculosis. Edgar was then placed in a foster home with John and Fanny Allan.

There are a lot of difference between Poe's "The Bells" to Carrie Underwood's song "Church Bells". The first difference is that “The Bells” poem has a lot of symbolism of bells as silver bells, golden bells, iron bells and breeze bells but “ Church Bells” had only one symbolism of bells which were church wedding bells which they are a clue of gaiety and joyful. “The Bells” poem had a creepy, scary, joyful meanings, that means not only one meaning. The imagery were the same at some points in both of them like the sound. For instance (To the swinging and the ringing” II 17) and ( She could hear those church bells ringing, ringing III 1).

My interpretaion of ¨The Bells¨ is about how Poe´s relationship with his wife from marriage to death. To begin with, the bells in the poem seem to represent his life and how he feels. For instance, the first stanza states, ¨What a world of merriment their melody foretells! ¨(3) This shows that the bells in the first stanza is about cheerfulness and it gives off a holiday feeling. This is the begginning of Poeś new relationship with his significant other, which is filled with love and joy. Furthermore, the bells from the second stanza represent when Poe and his wife get married. In stanza two it states, ¨What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!¨ I could assume that he is extemely happy and this is the highest peak in Poeś life because

describes the terrible moments before and after his death with vivid language. He uses the words “shrieking” and “whistling dirges” to describe his painful cries which adds on to the sadness in the beginning of the poem (Stern lines 6-7). Shrieking is usually applied to someone who is in pain or afraid while dirges refers to funeral songs or someone in mourning. The dog is mourning for his own life and the suddenness of his death. With these choices of words, the tone darkens. For the lover of dead things, the dog describes the poet looking terrified by stating, “ I think his pencil must be jerking and the terror of smell- and- sight- is overtaking him” (l. 15-16). Jerking is a strong verb for shaking violently and with “terror” added in the statement, the tone comes close to fear. The dog’s tone changes

Each stanza of "The Bells" deals with a particular type of bell and seeks to establish a specific mood. the first stanza suggests courtship, while the second speaks explicitly of marriage. The third section then darkens the mood, suggesting an inevitable descent into terror and despair, and finally, the poem and the human lifetime end in the iron bells of death. Poe associates the silver sledge bells in part 1, Hear the sledges with the bells-- Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! , with merriment and excitement. While the golden wedding bells in part 2, Hear the mellow wedding bells-- Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! , are a celebration and a promise of joy. Then with the next two

brow. Poe gradually recovered enough to begin writing. He wrote "The Bells," which was a poem of strong, varying emotions. During this time, he also wrote the dark and depressing "Ulalume."

Furthermore, Poe shows that he longs for the reader to be with Annabel, because she was adored and loved by all. This diction gives the poem a romantic feel, which is outside of its gloomy morbid tone, showing his true love for his deceased. This shows that Poe wants the reader to feel a different side of the poem, most of the tone of the poem is dark and extremely morbid, but by saying this he adds a bit of relief to the readers, showing them that it’s not all bad. The most dramatic illustration of this poem is when Poe uses the lines in the poem that suggest imagery such as “For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee” “and the starts never rise, but I feel the bright eyes” This imagery shows the reader what Annabel Lee was like, it glamorizes her showing the reader that she was an incredibly amazing and beautiful person. The diction in Annabel Lee cannot be any more applauding; by doing this he sets the tone for the whole poem, which makes the poem so wonderful in the first place.

Edgar Allan Poe was a popular American author during the Romantic Era. During this era, authors wrote with emphasis on emotion and imagination, and Poe fits this stereotype perfectly. John Chua describes his reasons for writing by saying, “Poe’s writing aims at a concentrated affection or emotional response from the reader.” In many of his poems, Poe uses characters and plots that touch both the reader’s heart and imagination. These characters were often modeled after actual people in his life, such as his mother and many lovers. His poetry became even more famous after his death because of the “evil” persona that was adopted to his name (Meyers 263). In fact, two of Poe’s most famous poems, “Annabel Lee” and “The Bells,” were published after his death in 1849 (Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe). He achieved this reaction by using many different literary devices. Edgar Allan Poe’s biographical background contributed to the theme of death, role of women, and the use of doppelgänger to produce an emotional response from the reader.

He is concerned for Irene, asking her if she is afraid of being in this place. He wonders why she is dreaming in this place, and of what. The speaker says that she must be from a far away land, because even the trees are left to wonder about her. He comments on the peculiarity of how white her skin is, how strangely she is dressed, as well as the length of her hair is off setting to him. He is addressing her as if she will respond to him, which is another use of apostrophe. He is seemingly disoriented by her lack of courteousness; she will not answer his questions. The introduction to Irene being placed in the second stanza is important because it allows for a mood to be created, for the poem to establish an emotional investment for the speaker; we must first get a vivid image of the external surroundings. Poe constructs a mystical setting for his poem which conveys the music in the speaker’s soul. He does this by using alliteration in the first stanza, “And, Softly, dripping, drop by drop. The sensuality of these descriptions conveys how he feels about Irene. Once we are introduced to the slumbering beauty we can see he is concerned for her soul. His probing questions with an expectation of an answer haunt us into the realization that his love transcends through the confines of death. Poe uses iambic tetrameter in this poem, which allows the flow of the poem to captivate the reader into this fantastic setting. The rhyme scheme of

Furthermore, Poe's two breaks in the alternating rhyme scheme signify two important emotions typical of this late stage of his life. The first couplet ("older than we" "far wiser than we") is bitterly mocking in tone, showing undeniable resentment towards “his distinguished foes and oppressors” (Regan, 1967), or the angels in heaven.