Artistic peculiarities of short stories by E.A. Poe — страница 8

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poem, “Le Refus” by the French poet, Beranger (1780-1857). The song embodies Poe’s wish for a beauty superior to that of earth, more approaching the divine. The final stanzas voice the poet’s despair at the restritions of his environment. The poem first appeared in Poe’s Poems (1831) and was carried several times in later editions. 2.3 Israfel “And the angel Israfel , whose heart- Strings are a lute, and who has the Sweetest voice of all God’s creatures,”- Koran. In Heaven a spirit doth dwell “Whose heart-strings are a lute”, None sing so widely well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell), Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute. Tottering above In her highest noon, The enamored moon Blushes with love, While, to

listen, the red Levin (With the rapid Pleiades, even, Which were seven,) Pauses in Heaven. And they say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israfeli’s fire Is owing to lyre By which he sits and sings- Of unusual strings. But the skies that angel trod, Where deep thoughts are a duty, Where Love’s grown-up God, Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which we worship in a star Therefore, thou art not wrong, Israfel, who despisest An unimpassioned song; To thee the laurels belong, Best bard, because the wisest! Merrily live, and long! The ecstasies above With thy burning measures suit- Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervor of thy lute- Well may the stars be mute! Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours;

Our flowers are merely-flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours. If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky” Selection 2 This poem, which was the last on Poe wrote, is believed by many critics to be an idealization of his wife, Virginia Clemm, who died in 1847. It was published posthumously in the New York “Tribune” of October 9, 1849. In six stages of alternating four and three stress line, the poem has been called “the culmination of Poe’s lyric style in his recurrent theme of the loss of a beautiful and loved woman” 2.4 Annabel Lee “It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a

maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee;- And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. She was a child and I was a child, In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love than was more than love- I and ma Annabel Lee- With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven Covered her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud by night Chilling my Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsmen came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulcher In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, Went envying her and me: Yes! That was the reason (as all men know: In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud chilling And killing

my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of course who were older than we- Of many far wiser than we- And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise I see the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And also, all the night ride, I lie down by the side Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, In her sepulcher there by the sea- In her tomb by the side of the sea”. Now what Edgar Poe wrote about himself in his “The Philosophy of Composition”, “There is a radical error, I think , in the usual mode of constructing a story. Either history

affords a thesis or one is suggested by an incident of the day or, at best, the author sets himself to work in the combination of striking events to form merely the basis of his narrative designing, generally, to fill in with description dialogue, or authorial comment, whatever crevices of fact, or action, may, from page to page, render themselves apparent. I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so readily attainable a source of interest I say to myself, in the first place, of the innumerable effects, or impressions of which the heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall, I , on the present occasion, select?” Having