Richard asks…
I need help understand "To Helen" by Edgar Allan Poe. wikipedia and google doesnt help!?
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!
I dont understand the poem.
questions
1. In the first stanza, what likeness does poe draw between Helen and the "Nicean barks"? What does this similie reveal about the speaker?
2. What meaning of "glory" does the speaer associate with Greece? To "the grandeur that Rome"? What meaning does Poe give to "holy land"?
i just need the poem explained to me. i know that the nicean barks a vessel.
admin answers:
"To Helen" is a poem relating Poe's desire for his friend's charming mother. Poe prototyped his friend's mother as being Helen of Troy, commemorated in literature and mythology as an ideal woman. "Helen, thy beauty is to me, like those nicean barks of yore," shows how attractive he thought Helen was, relating her to the Nicean barks of yore, meaning the barks of yore are elegant just like Helen is to be. In the 1800s a young boy would not look at a friend's mother as a beauty; that was odd in that day and age. Poe was extremely eerie and was not the everyday man, which brings me to the point that to understand Poe as a writer it is important to know him as a man.
"To Helen" is often praised as a near-perfect statement of the Romantics' idealized love of pure beauty. Poe claimed that the mother of a school friend was the inspiration for Helen. However, the poem is not about any actual woman but about an ideal of beauty that can exist only in the imagination.
Nicea: a town in Asia Minor near the Trojan War site. Poe may mean "victorious" or " traveling toward an Eden."
icean: Many interpretations. Most agree on its musical quality and classical associations.
Naiads: in classical mythology, nymphs of quite fresh water. "Naiad airs" probably suggest restfulness.
Psyche: a mortal loved by Cupid, she disobeyed his command not to try to find out who he was. He fled. Eventually reunited with him, she was changed into an immortal who personified " the breath of life, the human spirit or soul."
Lines 9 & 10 are the most famous lines. Rome and Greece represent the greatest achievement of civilization.
Poe never forgot the beautiful Mrs. Stanard and his pubescent romance with her. Her importance to us, though, lies in his later memory of her that inspired him to compose one of the greatest short lyric poems in the English language — the 1831-1843 "To Helen," in which he celebrated the kind of ideal beauty he had seen in her:
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
to his own native shore. (Mabbott 1: 165ff)
However much this opening stanza pertains to weariness and loneliness Poe felt after tossing on a sea of troubles in the Allan household and to relief and joy he experienced when he laid his head on Mrs. Stanard's bosom there is an impersonal and universal meaning here amounting to a philosophy of aesthetics: spiritual love pilots us through the difficult seas of life to far shores of the classical ideal of the good and the beautiful where we find rest and joy. Poe delineates the physical loveliness of Mrs. Stanard under the guise of the beautiful Helen of Troy, but this Earthly Love by the force and power of Heavenly Love transforms Helen into Psyche, who hails from "Holy-Land." Poe confided to Mrs. Helen Whitman, 1 October 1848, that he rote this poem in his "passionate boyhood, to the first, purely ideal love of my soul — to the Helen Stannard [sic] of whom I told you" (Mabbott 1: 164). [page 10:] He claimed to have written "To Helen" when he was fourteen — that is, immediately following Mrs. Stanard's death. This claim, however, is simply one of his romantic exaggerations designed to hoax. As Mabbott observes, far from evidencing any puerility, the poem displays a "mature and masterly style" (1: 165). Poe himself was no doubt surprised that anyone was gullible enough to believe him.
Http://www.eapoe.org/papers/psbbooks/pb19871c.htm
hope this helps
Thomas asks…
What does this Phrase translate to in To Helen...by Edgar Allen Poe?
Lo! In yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand
The agate lamp within thy hand!
what do those mean? i'm not sure..really i just need an analysis
admin answers:
Look, How bright the light is in the window seat
You stand as if you were a statue
Withe the kerosene lamp your holding
Nancy asks…
Are there any regulations for responsible website hosting?
I volunteer in helping AGATE to maintain their website.
The password was lost in a move, and has been requested umpteen million times, to no avail.
And the phone/fax numbers for Freespaces.com listed in the whois directory have been disconnected!
We have also contacted the underlying globalmedia.com to no avial, since the phone number is the same!
The underlying registrar for the above domains is moniker.com.
They have also been contacted to no avail.
WE HAD TO MOVE TO ANOTHER HOST IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN THE SITE!!!! 2 YEARS AGO!!!
Meanwhile, the 2-year old site is still up, and confuses our audience.
Is there any means to have this old site taken down by a government authority?
admin answers:
Yeah you'll have to contact the internic directly. They will require your original documentation and receipts.
Chris asks…
Can i get what these quotes mean and whom is speaking to who?
ACT ONE
1.Tell me, briefly, can you accept Paris as a lover?
2.I will look at him with the intention of liking him, if looking can make me like him, but I won’t look any further than you wish me to look.
3.Is love a tender thing? It’s too rough, too rude, too rowdy, and it pricks like a thorn.
4.If love is rough with you, be rough with love. If love pricks you, prick it back, and you’ll beat love down.
5.Oh, I see that the fairy, Queen Mab, has been with you. She delivers babies for the fairies, and she is no bigger than an agate for a ring on the forefinger of a magistrate.
6.Uncle, that man is a Montague, our enemy. He’s a villain who has come in hatred to mock our banquet tonight.
7.O, then, dear saint, let lips touch as hands do. Lips pray, you know, so faith won’t turn to despair.
8.You kiss as though you researched the subject.
9.My only love springs from my only hate!
ACT TWO
10.But wait! What light is coming from that window? It is the eastern light and Juliet is the sun. Rise up, beautiful sun, and make the jealous moon invisible.
11.Reject your father and refuse his name. Or if you will not, just swear to be my love, and I will no longer be a Capulet.
12.If I have to use a name, I don’t’ know how to tell you who I am. My name, dear saint, is hateful to me because it’s the name of your enemy.
13.O, don’t swear by the moon, the fickle moon that changes monthly in her circular orbit, for feat that your love should prove equally changeable.
14.Will you leave me so unsatisfied?
15.Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow that I could say goodnight through tomorrow.
16. Violent passions have violent ends
ACT THREE
17. I protest, I’ve never harmed you. I love you more than you can understand until you know the reason for my love.
18. I’m wounded! A curse on both your houses! I’m mortally wounded.
19. O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio is dead! His noble soul has climbed to the clouds. He was too young to leave the earth.
20. Alas, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead! We’re ruined, lady, we’re ruined!
21. Tybalt is dead and Romeo is banished. Romeo killed Tybalt and he is banished.
22. My lord, I wish Thursday were tomorrow.
23. Are you gone? My love, my lord, my husband, and my friend? I must hear from you every hour of the day, for just one minute will be like many days.
24. I think I see you, as you are now, but like a dead person in the bottom of a tomb.
25. I’ll never be satisfied with Romeo until I see him – dead – is my poor heart, so upset am I about my cousin’s death.
26. Hang you, you minx! You disobedient wretch! I’ll tell you now: go to the church on Thursday or never look on my face again.
ACT FOUR
27. How happy I am to see you, my lady and my wife.
28. What must be shall be.
29. Love ill give me strength, and strength will help me through. Goodbye, dear father.
30. Look! I think I see my cousin’s ghost looking for Romeo who stabbed him with a rapier. Stay there, Tybalt! Romeo, I’m coming. I drink to you!
31. Alas! Help! Help! My lady is dead!
ACT FIVE
32. Dead man, lie there, buried by a dead man.
33. Here’s to my love! O faithful pharmacist! Your drugs are quick. With this kiss, I die.
34. O comforting friar, where is my lord? I remember quite well where I am supposed to be, and here I am. But where is my Romeo?
35. Noise! Then I’ll be brief. What luck – a dagger! This is your holder. Rest there and let me die.
36. There never was a story of more sorrow than this one of Juliet and her Romeo.
admin answers:
Do your own homework. If you had a question about one quote where I could believe that you read the play but forgot the context of a single line, I would help you. As it is, you need to do your own work. Them's the rules.
Further, your questions should read: Can I get what these quotes mean and WHO is speaking to WHOM?
Clearly, English is not your favorite subject. But suck it up. You deserve no credit for work you ask others to do for you.
George asks…
any good books??
hi does anyone know any good boox, i mainly like boox 4rm jane austen or something like "on agate hill" or "a place to call home" those are wonderful, i love books w/ meaning to them and wen ur finished u get something for yourself out of life, well answers r very appreciated thnk u 🙂
admin answers:
Maybe Wuthering Heights by Emily Brönte or Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brönte...
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