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Edgar Allan Poe Isolation

Decent Essays

Poetry is like painting what is felt rather than seen, such as painting is vise versa. They are both considered art in different ways. “Art is an isolation. Every artist should seek to isolate others, to fill their souls with a desire to be alone” (Pessoa “Book of Disquiet”). Edgar Allan Poe had followed the advice of fellow poet Fernando Pessoa and had shown it through his years of writing. As all poets do, Poe had used literary devices to bring his poetry alive and had shown how alone he had been in his lifetime. “Alone” is one of the his well known poems that explains his emotions. The most stressed literary devices throughout the poem, “Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe, are tone, imagery, and personification which affect the interpretation of …show more content…

In the line “My sorrow- I could not awaken” (Poe 6), sorrow is an example of words that show the tone in the poem “Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe. The term sorrow indicates distress caused by loss or expressing grief, disappointment, sadness and anything in relationship with the words before. All these words are antonyms to joy, therefore, making the term, sorrow, capable of expressing darkness. Other examples of words that creates a sulking mood are “thunder” (Poe 19), “storm” (Poe 19) and”stormy” (Poe 9). Storms and thunder correlate together and they create almost a feeling of caution, a feeling to find some closure. Storms often depict sadness, which goes along with the tone. Finally, Poe clarifies the tone as brooding when he uses the closing lines as “When the rest of Heaven was blue- Of a demon in my view” (Poe 21-22), using the word demon in emphasis in the final closing line. Demons are stereotyped with dark colors, horns, and pointed tails; a symbol for evil and is presented as a glooming figure in heaven, since they were once angels. The way they are symbolized helps the word create the darkness in the tone. By the tone, in this poem, leaves the reader with a feeling of emptiness and isolation, which is assisted by another literary device: …show more content…

The first example of imagery used in “Alone” was “Stormy life” (Poe 10). The reason he chose the words “Stormy life” was to explain the whirlwind of events that had occurred in his life and was very dark which can be compared to a storm, which is also a metaphor. A major example of imagery was when Poe is describing the scenery, “From the torrent, or the fountain- From the red cliff of the mountain- From the sun that roll’d- In its autumn tint of gold” (Poe 13-16). Poe is describing how he has searched high and low to solve the mystery of his life as he chooses to describe his low points as springs and to the highest points as mountains. Poe also makes note of the blue sky and how it should associate with Heaven in the lines “And that took form- When the rest of Heaven was blue” (Poe 20-21). Although, the way Poe describes the cloud on the blue sky, was not a cloud moving on a heavenly sky, but a demon, which was something that separated him from what others saw. Along with imagery and tone used in the poem by Poe, on many occasions, personification was also

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