THE BELLS (1849) (II)

THE BELLS (1849) (II)

1. Autobiographical Content

   • Poe wrote an earlier version while living in a cottage in the village of Fordham (NY) -> moved there to improve the health of Virginia due to the rural atmosphere and climate (1846)
   • manuscript of this early version: "Mrs. M. L. Shew" -> had been nursing Virginia
   • inspiration: bell ringing at nearby St. John's College, now Fordham University

2. Form and Meter

   • Trochaic Meter: pairs of syllables, first syllable in each pair being stressed/emphasized and the second one not ("DA-dum")
     • however: the word "bells" hangs out by itself at the end of each line with no unstressed syllable following it -> ending stressed
   • Irregular Rhyme
     • Stanza 1: AAABCBBCDDAAAA
     • Stanza 2: AAABBCDCCDAAAAAAEAAAA
     • repeating rhyming sounds in each stanza: "bells", "night", "time"
   • Poe spaced out the lines in a careful order -> "bell-shapes" in each section
     • draws attention to particular lines: the short lines like "Golden bells" (l.16) stands out on the page
     • sections get longer (14, 22, 33, 44) as the poem goes on and picks up more speed -> emphasizing the dark nature of the message by lengthening as they approach death -> emphasis that merry memories are usually forgotten quickly and often last a short time -> sadder memories cling on to a person and are sometimes unforgettable

3. Lyrical I

   • unlike "The Raven": no strong presence
   • untypical for Poe: not freaky, delusional, ranting about a lost lover -> rather: personality-less
   • not talking about himself or speaking in the first-person
   • likes nighttime (all four sections take place at night), he pays a lot of attention to small details, he really likes sounds, he likes sharing sounds with us (beginning of each section: "Heart the [insert description] bells")

4. Setting

   • every section takes place after the sun has gone down -> maybe the "merriment" and "happiness" are ironic (take place at night)
   • same setting, but the feel completely changes

5. Sounds

   • A Symphony of Sounds
     • each part own distinct sound like different instruments woven together into a concert (a harmonious whole)
   • Onomatopoeia: words that resemble in sound what they represent -> different types of bells and their sounds
     • jingling, tinkling, clash, clang, tolling, rolling, knelling, sobbing, jangling, tinkling, swinging, rhyming, chiming
   • Repetition: "bells, bells, bells" -> like the repeated tolling/chiming of a bell
     • used to emphasize the profound effect of events: Stanza 4: the word "bells" is repeated heavily -> author cannot bear to hear bells any longer -> stuck in his memory due to a horrible/sad incident that had happened to him
       • used near the termination of every other stanza, but not as much as in stanza 4

6. Genre

   • Irregular ode
     • without any formal rhyme scheme and structure
     • seperate sections similar to each other in terms of central concepts/general poetic form, but different as the sections vary from one another in length and purpose