TITLEIsrafel is said to be a Koranic angel who has the "sweetest voice of all God's creatures." He is the angel of resurrection and song in Arabic folklore. He will blow the trumpet on judgement day. Edgar Allan Poe uses the angel Israfel to bring the idea of misery on earth by building up the idea of perfection in this angel. He does this in the first five stanzas of the poem "Israfel." In the last three stanza's Poe compares heaven and earth to show the reader the vast differences in the two places .
In the first five stanza's Poe creates the idea of perfection in Israfel. In the first stanza Poe write how "none sing so wildly well" as Israfel .Meaning he has a perfect or beautiful voice. It's so beautiful that it makes the .
" giddy stars (so legends tell).
Cease their hymns, attend the spell.
Of his voice, all mute." (Poe, "Israfel" line 5-7).
Poe continues the idea of stars and objects of the sky stopping there tasks at the sound of Israfel singing. In the fourth stanza Poe describes the heaven of Israfel. He writes of the Muslim virgins who have perfect beauty and are believed to live in Koranic paradise. Poe writes that; .
" the Houri glances are.
Imbued with all the beauty .
Which we worship in stars." (Poe, "Israfel" line 26-27).
Saying that these heavenly bodies hold the beauty of the stars (which are objects) in just there glances. Poe continues to describe the angel Israfel writing things like "to thee the laurels .
Richards 2.
belong," Laurels are wreaths given for honour " in ancient times [to] poets , heroes and victors in athletic contests." In this stanza it Poe could be paralleling himself to Israfel In they way he mentions the laurels which could be presented to poets and also bard which is a poet. He calls Israfel the "Best bard- By paralleling himself in the poem the poet sets the reader for what the main them of the poem is. .
Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was orphaned at the age of three, due to the death of both his mother and his father. Both of his parents were traveling theatrical performers. Poe was taken in ...
It is the goal of this research paper to reveal symbolic facts about his life and define these hidden maxims in a way that is easy to understand and beneficial to the reader. Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19th, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts ("Poe, Edgar Allan,"" Encyclopedia Britannica 540). P...
"This volume contained the famous To Helen and Israfel, poems that show the restraint and the calculated musical effects of language that were to characterize his poetry", says Wells. (212) Poe next took up residence in Baltimore with his widowed aunt, Maria Clemm, and her daughter, Virginia, and turned to fiction as a way to support himself. ...
Edgar Allen Poe Edgar Allan Poe has cast a long shadow. He has probably had a greater influence than any other American writer through his short stories, tales, and poetry, and his many different techniques and genres. Although Poe's tales and poems range from masterful to ludicrous, Poe exert...
EDGAR ALLAN POE Many authors' literary works are often influenced by their own personal life experiences. Among these authors is Edgar Allan Poe, one of the most inventive writers of prose and poetry in the nineteenth century. The juxtaposition of Poe's life and work is most evident in the mo...
Edgar Allan Poe, the American Writer Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809, to David Poe Jr. and Elizabeth Arnold. Both were actors and his mother was so determined to act that she did not leave the stage until ten days before his birth, and returned just three weeks later. Poe's father's acting career was going down the drain and in the summer of 1809 he left his acting career and his family forever. Elizabeth, better known as Eliza, died just one month before Poe's third birthday. When she died, she left three children, William Henry, R...
