Posted on 11/01/2018 7:10:31 PM PDT by Western Phil
William Blake is my favorite but Poe is right up there.
My Daughter likes Poe and he is her favorite.
Once I was telling a 7th grade class about poetry. I mentioned “The Raven”. and told them I wished I had it right then to read to them.
A little boy raised his hand and said he could get it from the library which I had him do.
After I read it to the class, they all stood up and applauded. I would say they liked it.
What did I put into it? I said I liked the meter. I liked the message of dedicating yourself to a distant goal. That is plainly in there. I also didn’t go any deeper into it.
It’s about what Poe puts into it, “for goodness sake.”
I think I, too, have something which is worth the sacrifice of everything else, and I have dedicated my life to it.
My sixth grade class didn’t like it much. I think it was that half of them were english language learners.
Poe was the foremost god in the Bohemian pantheon. The 19th c. bohemians, that is.
I prefer Bierce, and nobody knows quite what happened to him either.
I thought he had developed a high fever and delirium before he died, ostensibly from a laudanum addiction.
Agreed.
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!
And each separate, dying ember
Wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Perfume from an unseen censer ...
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
If it’s Christ, then that involves some godly caution. No, not every imperfection can hurt you But it’s like trying to make no mistakes when playing a song. If you know about it, you put it in mind to try to avoid it.
Well, his last words were a prayer to Jesus.
I read that it took him five years to write The Raven.
Poe, strangely, was ambushed all most from the beginning of his life and sometimes never knew who was doing it.
A biographer wrote about him and savagely lied about him and it marred his reputation until the lies were finally discovered after Poe’s death.
It is somehow gratifying to know that Poe went after the pompous, insufferable Ralph Waldo Emerson.
God has purposes above our ken. It was necessary in His plan for Poe to be, macabre though his expressed sentiments were. One needs to watch one’s life if one is a believer, because it may be the more scandalous things that are remembered.
I thought Poe was a Laudanum addict. I had a great aunt. After her death, found lots of empty brown bottles of in the house. Laudanum 10% tincture of opium for nerves.
He also accused Longfellow of plagerism. Longfellow never acknowledged, he being in my belief a stand-up guy.
“Silence, A Fable”
Repeating the phrase, “and the night waned, and he sat upon the rock”.
Poe must have been in a drug-infused delirium. Read it, it’s spooky.
Yes, indeed.
Poe is great ... Kipling is the best.
T. S. Eliot has them both beat in spades ... so there!
Bkmk
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