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  • Essay / Literary Analysis of the Poem “To Anne” by Edgar Allan Poe

    Edgar Allan Poe continues his tradition of creating beautiful, dark poetry demonstrated in “For Anne.” The author depicts Anne as a symbol of earthly love and mourning. Use it to display keeping the memory of loved ones alive. How death can be easy but living can be difficult, and how death is the ultimate cure for life. The purpose of this poem is to bring comfort to the audience facing grief. Poe demonstrates the cyclical structure for this entire poem by repeating rhymes in the last half of each stanza. In addition to the repetition of lines and the slight morphology of lines by a single word. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Overwhelmed by an overwhelming sense of relief, the poem begins with the narrator exclaiming “Thank God! the crisis/ The danger is past,/ And the lingering illness/ Is at last over—.” This encourages readers to sit down and listen to the chronicle that the narrator has just given up on. The flight from danger arouses curiosity before revealing that the character has just “overcome the fever of living”. Here Poe implies that living is the real battle, but dying is peaceful and grand. The punctuation here indicates that the man has more to say but gives enough pause for a cliffhanger. This is noticed in many places in future stanzas conveying the same objective. Now the anonymous man sets the scene by scrutinizing important sensory signals that support the idea that he is physically dead. If the man were placed differently, he might not appear deceased. The man has lost all his strength and remains very still in his bed, but explains that he "finally feels better." This could mean that he feels much better, or that he feels better presented by lying on his back – for a long time. “And I rest so peacefully/Now, in my bed,/That any spectator/Might think me dead—”. This statement cements in the mind that this man is indeed dead, but that there must be an existence beyond death since he is still coherent. He is bedridden and looks dead. He must have died. The narrator adds that this horrible pain he felt while alive is finally over. However, he makes an interesting reference to thirst when he says: "Torture of thirst/ For the mothballed river/ Of the cursed Passion:—/ I have drunk of a water/ That quenches all thirst:—". Here the author is referring to naphthalene which is a known chemical. This could mean that the character is once again referring to life as a toxin, or that the constant need to satisfy doomed passions over the course of life is toxic. In the next stanza, a cure is revealed. It is water coming from an underground cavern which is not very far away (Poe, 44). Here is yet another cyclical reference to death being the cure of all cures, as generally people are buried only a few meters underground. Whereas usually, the caverns are much more underground. Suddenly, the narrator changes the subject: “And ah! let it never be said / Let my room be dark. (Poe, 45-47). Poe lightens the atmosphere by giving this man a positive outlook on his departure. To which he then goes on to show that he has no regrets and that he truly feels at peace (Poe, 49-52). He goes on to say that to be truly at rest, one must die. Poe then uses the symbolism of flowers to separate the anguish of life and the holiness of death. For this, he uses myrtles and roses to contrast the flowers and rosemary flowers. “Forget or never / Regret your roses - / Your old agitations /.