Note: This post originally appeared on my discontinued website maartensity.com. The published date and time has been adjusted to mirror the original.
When Edgar Allan Poe revised his childhood poem “To Helen”, he must have known it had enough potential to be added to his catalog of more mature and well-known works. Two oft-quoted lines, from the second stanza, are in fact from the revised edition:
They are an obvious improvement over the earlier version. Compare the naïve descriptive style of the following, with the much more striking statement above:
In the revised version, Greece and Rome become symbols, metaphors for glory and grandeur. The comparisons compel the reader to draw on known associations of Greece and Rome, and revise their hitherto held notion of those two concepts. A nostalgic sense of what grandeur and glory is supposed to mean is evoked because of the distance in time and space between the reader and those civilisations. After all, the reader has no first hand experience, and most readers would not have read any significant book of history to authorise (or cast doubt) on that statement.
The combination of limited knowledge and nostalgia allows the reader to project an imaginative presence of Rome and Greece onto the more abstract canvas of the concepts of glory and grandeur.
The statement suggests a definitive measure of those two concepts, and the remoteness of those measurements (Rome and Greece) makes it all the more plausible. The reader's imagination is given free reign. In this sense the poetic statement relies much on what the reader doesn't – can't – know, giving the poet a privileged status and authority as having a more direct and intuitive understanding.
While 20th century philosophy has sought to prove, at times, the inability of language to accurately reflect truth, these lines – in particular when contrasted to the less effective, albeit pleasant enough, original version – is a keen reminder that language does not always seek to clarify or explicitly delineate truth. Instead, the reader may be enticed by suggestion, and given a lead to explore without a firm factual conclusion being drawn.
The poet's endeavour in this case is a form of mythmaking, or myth enhancement, but its value should be sought in context: it lends the Helen of the poem--its proper subject--higher status and credibility.
When Edgar Allan Poe revised his childhood poem “To Helen”, he must have known it had enough potential to be added to his catalog of more mature and well-known works. Two oft-quoted lines, from the second stanza, are in fact from the revised edition:
On desperate seas long wont to roam,Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,Thy Naiad airs have brought me homeTo the glory that was Greece,And the grandeur that was Rome.
They are an obvious improvement over the earlier version. Compare the naïve descriptive style of the following, with the much more striking statement above:
To the beauty of fair Greece,And the grandeur of old Rome.
In the revised version, Greece and Rome become symbols, metaphors for glory and grandeur. The comparisons compel the reader to draw on known associations of Greece and Rome, and revise their hitherto held notion of those two concepts. A nostalgic sense of what grandeur and glory is supposed to mean is evoked because of the distance in time and space between the reader and those civilisations. After all, the reader has no first hand experience, and most readers would not have read any significant book of history to authorise (or cast doubt) on that statement.
The combination of limited knowledge and nostalgia allows the reader to project an imaginative presence of Rome and Greece onto the more abstract canvas of the concepts of glory and grandeur.
The statement suggests a definitive measure of those two concepts, and the remoteness of those measurements (Rome and Greece) makes it all the more plausible. The reader's imagination is given free reign. In this sense the poetic statement relies much on what the reader doesn't – can't – know, giving the poet a privileged status and authority as having a more direct and intuitive understanding.
While 20th century philosophy has sought to prove, at times, the inability of language to accurately reflect truth, these lines – in particular when contrasted to the less effective, albeit pleasant enough, original version – is a keen reminder that language does not always seek to clarify or explicitly delineate truth. Instead, the reader may be enticed by suggestion, and given a lead to explore without a firm factual conclusion being drawn.
The poet's endeavour in this case is a form of mythmaking, or myth enhancement, but its value should be sought in context: it lends the Helen of the poem--its proper subject--higher status and credibility.
