Edgar Allen Poe is a pretty emo guy, so my first thoughts reading this poem was “wow, this guy is an edge lord.” I mean lines like “dark thoughts of the gray tombstone,” “Be silent in that solitude,” this guy hasn’t left his Halloween phase.
I thought that the rest of the poem was going to follow suit to his first stanza, although, when I read the poem further, I found that Poe wasn’t only writing about dark imagery and ghosts, but also stars and religion; two pairs of things that seem like they’re on opposite sides of the spectrum. Even weirder, the spirits from the dead were associated with more comforting words than the stars. In the second stanza, Poe states that we are actually not alone, because the spirits of the dead are with us, and in death they are around us. Compare this to the third stanza, Poe writes that “the stars shall not look down from their high thrones in heaven,” indicating that these celestial beings that throughout history have been worshiped as good, have no care for us. He gives them a pompous nature, putting them on thrones that show they don’t even have an intention to be close to the speaker.
Another thing to notice is the structure of the poem; Poe follows an AABB rhyme form in the first stanza, and then an ABACC scheme, and then AABBCCDD and then AABB and AABBCC. Simple enough in rhyme, the punctuation seems to vary; hyphens and commas are interchanged with no pattern. Reading through the poem a second time, I wondered why Poe added so many hyphens into the poem- they seem to replace the commas at times, but there is no formula to when he would use commas or hyphens. Another pattern I noticed is Poe’s use of alliteration- for example, silent and solitude, visions and vanish, and breeze and breath. Each of these pairs reinforce the atmospheric imagery in the poem, e.g. silent and solitude emphasize the s sound, which is soothing but can also be unsettling to a reader. This is perfect as Poe emphasizes the companionship of death in the second stanza. Poe also uses assonance as in the first stanza, “thy soul shall find itself alone,” where the o sound is emphasized. Oftentimes opera songs or holy chants emphasize o sounds, which reinforces the ethereal atmosphere of this poem.
After my initial two reads of this poem, I decided to return to the main picture to better understand the theme of this poem. Since Poe states in the first line that there is a soul finding itself alone mid thoughts of a tombstone, I assume that the speaker is in a cemetery perhaps on the brink of death or already dead. In the cemetery, the speaker finds themselves amongst others deceased- but since they are dead, there is no sound or movement in the cemetery, hence “be silent in that solitude, which is not loneliness.” Poe then states that the speaker will be joined again with those who died in his life, in death: “the spirits of the dead who stood in life before thee are again.” In the third stanza the speaker becomes more removed from life, symbolized by the aversion the stars have towards them as well as the fact that the “light like hope” is weary as a burning fever. Oftentimes we think of stars and light as life and the absence of light as death, and in this stanza the stars do not “look down” onto the speaker, indicating the further spiral into death. The speaker also thinks of light as weary as a fever, demonstrating the fact that they find life perhaps tiring and want to succumb to death instead. In the fourth stanza, the speaker seems to have passed onto the afterlife as Poe states that they “now are visions ne’er to vanish,” which I assume means that the speaker is now a memory. Poe then writes that these deaths will come and go just like “dewdrop from the grass,” a natural process. Once the speaker has passed, Poe praises the mysteriousness of death, illustrating it almost as a separate realm. Poe writes that the “breath of god” is a mist; in death, many religions believe that you meet god, so thus this mist is probably related to the afterlife. Furthermore, he writes that this “mist upon the hill” is shadowy and unbroken- the use of shadowy emphasizing the dark imagery in the poem while unbroken illustrates the vastness of the shadow. This exemplifies that this misty hill is a realm of death, which is oftentimes thought of as neverending darkness in many religions. In the end of this stanza, Poe ends with an exclamation mark: “A mystery of mysteries!” The joyful tone contrasts with the earlier calm and serene tone of death, demonstrating that in death there is still good to be found.
So why did Poe write this beautifully goth poem? My best guess is that Poe wants to show his audience that death is not so bad, and it’s less tiring than living. His interweaving of holy assonance and serene alliteration further the beauty of death through his eyes. Sometimes we should just embrace things and find the beauty in it, just like Poe finds the beauty in the mystery of death.
February 16th, 2023 at 8:29 pm
Hey Rin! I just so happened to also have done a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, so I thought it would be fun to see if his theme of dark and somber also applied to your poem. After taking a look at the title of your poem, I think the theme is pretty clearly prevalent. I found your analysis in the beginning extremely interesting, where you talked about Poe’s inclusion of both the idea of spirits of the dead as well as religious beings and how they are two ideas that contrast each other. Like your poem, mine also had a plethora of hyphens strewn throughout it, and I found that it was because they’re supposed to make you take pause, and often times they take the place of a period. With the rest of your analysis, I definitely agree that Poe has gravitation toward the darker ideas, and especially with his history and growing up, it doesn’t quite surprise me (even if it’s a little strange at times). His history definitely helps in understanding why he wrote this poem and made it seem like he was almost content with death and didn’t think of it as such a bad thing versus being alive. I thoroughly enjoyed reading through your analysis!
February 16th, 2023 at 10:09 pm
Hey Rin!
As I was reading the title of your blog post, I really thought to myself, “omg how did Rin manage to misspell Edgar Allan Poe’s name wrong that’s so silly.” I now recognize I was the silly one here who didn’t get the joke but I am glad I was able to grow from this experience.
I read through the poem before reading through your analysis, and I feel like it radiates a pretty dark, mystical feeling, and now I’m just hoping Edgar was okay. I almost immediately realized how the first stanza had four lines, the next had six, then eight, then four, then six. This pattern makes the end feel incomplete, like there should be another eight line stanza, which I feel could relate to how death ends stories a bit early, but they seem to conclude just fine. I had a general idea of the meaning after reading the poem a few times but felt greatly lost on the exact meaning behind many phrases. Fortunately, your analysis did a great job helping with this issue. Although this poem gives off a somewhat eerie feeling, it’s nice to see how Poe was able to utilize this feeling and change the audience’s perspective on the common connotation of death. Your analysis was really eye opening; keep up the great work!
February 16th, 2023 at 11:21 pm
Rin,
What were the odds that this poem matched your aesthetic so perfectly? I like how right off the bat you established the contrast between the darkness and ghosts and then stars and religion. This explains where the initial confusion for this poem comes from and also ties into your point about the significance of how opera emphasizes words with the o sound just like the words in your poem. When I read the poem, the connection to religion seemed fairly strong that I believed that the third stanza the stars were representative of something else. You referred to it as a “celestial being” while I thought that these stars were more specifically angels due to their status in Heaven. The part about their “red orbs” is what threw me off. The red eyes could be from crying possibly or could indicate that these stars aren’t angels but actually the devil as Lucifer is said to have red eyes while all the other angels have blue eyes. The second idea ties nicely into the last 3 lines of this stanza as receiving something from the devil such as curse would result in someone having “a burning” and “fever” forever. Writing this now, made me realize this eternal burning could mean this person is actually going to Hell. Reading your interpretation allowed me to have my own realization about the poem despite being confused after the first read, so thank you.
February 21st, 2023 at 2:13 pm
Hi Rin. Before reading your analysis of “Spirits of the Dead” by Edgar Allen Poe, I first took the time to read through the poem myself before going on to compare our two interpretations. The first thing that stood out to me was that the third stanza broke away from the dark and ghostly theme to one about heaven and the gods. To me, it felt like Poe was trying to tell a story of how the speaker had lost someone close to him and was then blaming fate and religion and the silence of the gods. It was almost as if Poe ws trying to say that the goodness we often perceive god to behold is false because in reality, god does not care for who lives and who dies. I feel like you also had a similar interpretation since you mentioned how Poe is atempting to do the unconventional by contrasting religion and death, specifically that being how the gods are not perfect and that the mysteries of death do not make it bad. I also wanted to mention your analysis with how the word “alone” is read with a greater emphasis on the “o,” much like how an opera might sound. I feel like how Poe related his words to the opera was essentially just a weird way of saying that his words ought to be preached and sung just like song and prayers.