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Edgar Allan PoeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The poem is delivered in five eight-line stanzas, or octaves. Each stanza follows a rigid end-rhyme scheme: ABABCBCB.
Despite that disciplined form or more appropriately within that disciplined form, Poe coaxes a sonic delight with his keen ear for how words work together to create an aural thrill. Poe never forgets this is theater and that the lines need to be theatrical. They need to dazzle. They need to shimmer.
The poem uses a variety of formal strategies to achieve this shimmer: consonance, the repetition of initial consonant sounds in a single line; assonance, the use of long or short vowels in a pattern within and between lines; the repetition of particular words or entire phrases to create emphasis; the stylish and idiosyncratic use of capitalization; the generous scattering of exclamation points or the deploying of obvious rhetorical devices such as the word “oh” or “Lo” or archaic words such as “returneth” or “bewinged” or “Wo” and, of course, “hither and thither” to encourage recitation to be over-the-top and excessively emotional; the use of enjambment, lines that move dynamically right into the next line without end-punctuation, which creates a breathless and excited recitation; and the deliberate shuffling of expected syntactical arrangements to create a jolting and jarring effect when, for instance, the subject of the sentence comes at the end of the idea or when sentences are embedded with descriptive details that create an elongated and sinewy feel to the lines, simulating the writhing worm itself.
By Edgar Allan Poe
A Dream Within a Dream
A Dream Within a Dream
Edgar Allan Poe
Annabel Lee
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe
Berenice
Berenice
Edgar Allan Poe
Hop-Frog
Hop-Frog
Edgar Allan Poe
Ligeia
Ligeia
Edgar Allan Poe
Tamerlane
Tamerlane
Edgar Allan Poe
The Black Cat
The Black Cat
Edgar Allan Poe
The Cask of Amontillado
The Cask of Amontillado
Edgar Allan Poe
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
Edgar Allan Poe
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Fall of the House of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe
The Gold Bug
The Gold Bug
Edgar Allan Poe
The Haunted Palace
The Haunted Palace
Edgar Allan Poe
The Imp of the Perverse
The Imp of the Perverse
Edgar Allan Poe
The Lake
The Lake
Edgar Allan Poe
The Man of the Crowd
The Man of the Crowd
Edgar Allan Poe
The Masque of the Red Death
The Masque of the Red Death
Edgar Allan Poe
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Edgar Allan Poe
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
Edgar Allan Poe
The Oval Portrait
The Oval Portrait
Edgar Allan Poe
The Philosophy of Composition
The Philosophy of Composition
Edgar Allan Poe