Term Paper on "Poe's Assertion That the Ultimate Subject"

Term Paper 7 pages (2548 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Poe's assertion that the ultimate subject for a work of art is the death of a beautiful woman. Poe's assertion that death begets art is certainly appropriate for many of the greatest works of fiction and poetry. "Romeo and Juliet," "The Awakening," and even the film "Moulin Rouge" all depend on the death of a beautiful woman to create art and texture in the works. Death than can be the lifeblood of art and Poe's poem "The Raven" is a shining example of this theme.

Edgar Allen Poe is one of America's most remarkable and recognized writers even today. His spooky stories of death, live burial, and other macabre topics also make him a favorite and memorable early horror writer. Death is a common topic in his work, and his poem "The Raven" is no exception. The death of the beautiful Lenore is both tragic and memorable, and it makes the poem even more remarkable and heartbreaking. The poem's dark, sinister aspects magnify with her death, leaving the reader to wonder what is more tragic - the death of Lenore or the life of the man left behind. This is one of the most important aspects of the death of a beautiful woman in art - she always leaves behind a miserable and morose lover. This reliance on death to create lasting art is not new; it is a common and recurring theme in fiction, drama, and poetry. Beautiful women who die are always sympathetic and heartrending to the reader, and so, this literary device clearly works. It worked for Shakespeare, and it works for Poe. However, what are the implications of this type of tragic death?

There is no doubt this poem is one of Poe's most well-known and recognized works, and it is certainly an unforgettable work of art. Who has not seen a raven and at least thought "Nevermore" in their minds? Many critics agree. Literary experts Richard Kopley and Kevin J. Hayes write, "If it [the poem] does not have the cachet of modernist or postmodernist poetry, it does have an alluring mix of accessibility and mystery that earns it enduring affection. It is a remarkable poem about remembering - and a work that readers never forget" (Kopley, and Hayes 191). However, the prime character in this poem no longer even exists, and that is another of the more memorable aspects of the poem. Lenore is constantly on the narrator's mind, as these lines indicate, "Wretch,' I cried, 'thy God hath lent thee -- by these angels he hath / Sent thee respite-respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! / Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!' Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore!'" (Poe). Just as the narrator can "never" forget his lost Lenore, neither can the reader. In fact, her loss makes the reader want to know more. How did she die? How long ago? Who was she really? The author never addresses these issues, and so, the poem seems incomplete somehow, just as the narrator's life is incomplete without his Lenore. This indicates just how important the death of Lenore is to this poem. There is something missing from the poem just as there is something missing from the narrator's own life.

Poe wrote this poem in 1845, close to the end of his life in 1849. Poe's own life was a tragic blend of art, success, failure, drugs, and addictions. He died young at the age of 40, leaving behind a legacy of strange tales, a tortured life, and a great talent shut down too soon. It would be interesting to see what the man could have accomplished had he lived a longer life. Nevertheless, "The Raven" is still one of Poe's most well-known works. Schoolchildren study it and recite it, and just about anyone understands the reference to "Nevermore." Even the Baltimore Ravens pro-football team takes their name from the work. Poe's work is memorable for a number of reasons; including his unique style of writing that creates such alliteration and rhyme sequences in the poem. Kopley and Hayes note the poem "is generally trochaic octameter. That is, the lines of each work are built of a series of paired syllables (feet), the first syllable of which is stressed and the second unstressed; there are eight feet to each line" (Kopley, and Hayes 192). This along with the rhyming meter of ABCBBB make the poem difficult to forget, because all the meter and rhyme lead to the haunting refrain "Nevermore." Nevermore will the narrator see Lenore, and nevermore will the Raven leave the narrator's door. Poe's style of writing is often as macabre as his subject matter, and this poem is no exception. He also uses a fair amount of alliteration to keep the meter and rhyme coherent and notable. Somehow, because of the style and meter, there is something sinister about the raven and something sinister about the narrator in his grief. Is this the reason Lenore is dead? Again, the style of the poem adds to the mystery and the questions, just as the death of Lenore adds to the overall tone of the poem.

Death is not an unusual topic for art, drama, and fiction. Many, many different works depend on the death of a beautiful woman to help get their particular message across to the reader. Shakespeare used the device; Kate Chopin used it effectively for her heroine in "The Awakening," and even the recent hit film "Moulin Rouge" depended on the death of the beautiful and exotic Satine to tear the audience's hearts in two. Lenore then is a device that Poe plants in his poem to make it more impressive and exotic. However, why is the death of a woman so much more tragic and memorable than that of a man? Is this a sexist and domineering from of artistic expression? It can be, or it can simply be a literary device that works. It seems clear that the women who die make an impression upon the reader or viewer. Would the stories be as tragic if the men had died? Hardly. The audience sympathizes more with a beautiful woman, despite her past or her motives. The audience cries when Satine dies because she leaves behind a man that loves and desires her. The readers sigh when they read of the beautiful Lenore because the narrator pines his life away in memories of her. Poe writes, "It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore- / Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore? / Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore'" (Poe). The narrator cannot remove her from his mind, and so the reader cannot either. Even though there is never any mention of actual attributes, the readers feel as if they know Lenore. This is also a very successful device Poe uses to make the poem stand out from other works, and it would not have been nearly as effective if the death concerned a man instead of a woman. Somehow, a woman's death, for the most part, is more tragic than a man's is.

In addition, a beautiful woman's death is far more tragic than an ugly woman's is, and this seems to be based totally on sexism and sexist theory. People are simply not as sympathetic to ugly or plain women. For example, Dickens created the hateful "Madame DeFarge" for his "Tale of Two Cities." She is an unattractive crone who knits the fate of others into her ever-present scarves. She dies in the end, and the reader is happy because she "had it coming." Granted, she is a totally unsympathetic and evil character, but she is also unattractive. Had she been beautiful, it would have been far more difficult to recognize her as a villain. This is obviously not a new idea in society and literature. Society has always been more interested and concerned about the beautiful woman rather than the plain one. Think of the case of the missing Lacy Peterson, or Natalie Holloway. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of women go missing in the United States each year, yet only a tiny fraction of them get national news attention as these two cases did. Many experts speculate that one reason cases such as these are so prominent in the news is because the women are beautiful, and they are more sympathetic to viewers because of this. Beautiful women always get more attention and approval from society and the media, and they make more agreeable tragic heroines, too. Society requires beauty much more than brains or brawn when it comes to women, and even tragic heroines must fit the mold. Thus, the artistic beauty of this poem is based, at least in part, on the physical beauty that society requires of its most famous and well-loved heroines. Society and the media build up beautiful women to be larger than life, just like Lenore is in this poem. While many feel Poe broke the mold and… READ MORE

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