Edgar Allan Poe The Bells

Heavily onomatopoeic poem by Edgar Allan Poe

First 2 pages of Poe'southward handwritten manuscript for "The Bells", 1848

Additional stanzas of Poe's handwritten manuscript for "The Bells", 1848.

"The Bells" is a heavily onomatopoeic verse form past Edgar Allan Poe which was not published until afterwards his death in 1849. It is possibly best known for the diacopic use of the word "bells." The poem has four parts to information technology; each part becomes darker and darker equally the poem progresses from "the jingling and the tinkling" of the bells in part 1 to the "moaning and the groaning" of the bells in part 4.

Analysis [edit]

This poem tin can exist interpreted in many different ways, the most basic of which is but a reflection of the sounds that bells can make, and the emotions evoked from that sound. For instance, "From the bells bells bells bells/Bells bells bells!" brings to mind the clamoring of myriad church bells. Several deeper interpretations exist every bit well. 1 is that the poem is a representation of life from the nimbleness of youth to the hurting of historic period. Growing despair is emphasized aslope the growing frenzy in the tone of the verse form.^[1]

The sounds of the verses, specifically the repetitive "bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells," lie on a narrow line between sense and nonsense, causing a feeling of instability.^[two] Poe uses - and popularised - the word "tintinnabulation", often wrongly thought to be his ain coinage,^[3] based on the Latin give-and-take for "bell", tintinnabulum.^[4] The series of "bells" echo the imagined sounds of the various bells, from the silver bells post-obit the klip-klop of the horses, to the "dong, ding-dong" of the swinging golden and iron bells, to screeching "whee-aaah" of the brazen bells. The series are always 4, followed by iii, always first and catastrophe on a stressed syllable. The meter changes to iambic in the lines with repeated "bells," bringing the reader into their rhythm. Nearly of the poem is a more hurried trochaic tetrameter.^[5]

The bells of which he writes are thought to be those he heard from Fordham University's bong belfry, since Poe resided in the same neighborhood equally that university. He besides oft strolled about Fordham's campus conversing with both the students and the Jesuits.^[6]

Disquisitional response [edit]

Richard Wilbur characterized "The Bells" equally "altogether a tour de force".^[vii] Critics have analyzed the musical or audio of the verse form as opposed to its literary meaning. A. E. DuBois in "The Jazz Bells of Poe" places the accent on the musical quality of the poem which presages jazz and 20th century musical idioms.^[viii] DuBois sees the verse form every bit a dramatic song that is a precursor for Vachel Lindsay. DuBois makes comparisons to jazz music and places the verse form in the mode of musical and poetic "primativism" which was ahead of its time in the 1840s.

F. O. Matthiessen rejected the repetitive sounds employed and musical tone every bit "a case of onomatopoeia pushed to a point where it would hardly exist possible or desirable to go again".^[ix] Edward H. Davidson, withal, praised its utilise of repetitive sounds: "It has been rightly praised for its experimental and effective onomatopoeia; its theme is probably nothing more profound than the four ages of homo".^[10]

Poe biographer Jeffrey Meyers noted that "The Bells" is often criticized for sounding mechanical and forced.^[11]

Publication history [edit]

Championship folio for publication of "The Bells" circa 1881.

Poe is believed to have written "The Bells" in May 1848 and submitted it three times to Sartain'due south Union Magazine, a mag co-endemic by his friend John Sartain, until it was finally accepted.^[12] He was paid fifteen dollars for his work, though it was not published until after his death in the November 1849 issue. It was as well published in Horace Greeley'south the New York Daily Tribune newspaper on the front page of its Oct 17, 1849 issue equally "Poe's Last Poem".^[xiii]

Inspiration for the poem is often granted to Marie Louise Shew, a woman who had helped care for Poe's wife Virginia every bit she lay dying.^[12] One day, every bit Shew was visiting Poe at his cottage in Fordham, New York, Poe needed to write a poem simply had no inspiration. Shew allegedly heard ringing bells from afar and playfully suggested to get-go there, maybe fifty-fifty writing the first line of each stanza.^[14]

Adaptations [edit]

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) composed a choral symphony The Bells, Op. 35, based on a Russian accommodation of the verse form by Konstantin Balmont. The symphony follows classical sonata course: first movement, ho-hum movement, scherzo, and finale, thus honoring the poem'southward four sections.^[15] (The work is sometimes performed in English, using not Poe's original, but a translation of Balmont's adaptation by Fanny Southward. Copeland.) The Scottish composer Hugh S. Roberton (1874–1947) published "Hear the Tolling of the Bells" (1909), "The Sledge Bells" (1909), and "Hear the Sledges with the Bells" (1919) based on Poe'south poem.^[16] Josef Holbrooke equanimous his "The Bells, Prelude, Op. 50" on Poe'due south verse form, and American folksinger Phil Ochs composed a tune to the poem recorded on his 1964 anthology All the News That'southward Fit to Sing.

Eric Woolfson, musical partner to Alan Parsons in the Alan Parsons Project, has written two albums based on the writings of Poe. His second, Poe: More Tales of Mystery and Imagination includes a song entitled "The Bells", for which he fix Poe's words to music. This album was too the ground for a musical stage production that was performed in England, Austria, and other European countries. Pink Floyd have referenced the verse form in the last verse of their song "Time" on the album The Nighttime Side of the Moon (1973). In 1993 Danish composer Poul Ruders wrote a piece "The Bells" for high soprano and ten instruments, using Poe's text in its entirety although in Dutch.^[17] The slice was premiered in London, and has appeared on a CD from Bridge Records, New York. MC Lars, a Nerdcore Hip hop musician sang a complete version of the verse form on his 2012 Edgar Allan Poe EP titled "(Rock) The Bells". The song may be listened to freely on his Bandcamp page.^[xviii]

References [edit]

^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-catastrophe Remembrance. New York City: Harper Perennial, 1991. ISBN 0-06-092331-8 p. 403
^ Rosenheim, Shawn James. The Cryptographic Imagination: Cloak-and-dagger Writing from Edgar Poe to the Cyberspace. The Johns Hopkins University Printing, 1997. p. 125. ISBN 978-0-8018-5332-6
^ "Tintinnabulation". World Wide Words. December 29, 2001.
^ tintinnabulation, Oxford English Lexicon, 2d edition, 1989; online version, December 2011; accessed 09 January 2012. Earlier version starting time published in New English Dictionary, 1912.
^ Analysis: Grade and Meter.
^ Schroth, Raymond A. (2008). Fordham: A History and Memoir. New York: Fordham University Printing. pp. 22–25. ISBN9780823229772.
^ Wibur, Richard, Poe The Laurel Poetry Series, (New York, 1959), p. 37.
^ DuBois, A.Due east. "The Jazz Bells of Poe," Higher English, II (December, 1940), 230-244.
^ Matthiessen, F.O., Literary History of the Usa, (New York, 1948), I, 339.
^ Davidson, Edward H. Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, (Boston, 1956), p. 498.
^ Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. (Cooper Square Press, 1992.), p. 223. ISBN 0-8154-1038-7
^ ^a ^b Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York: Checkmark Books, 2001. p. 25. ISBN 0-8160-4161-Ten
^ The New-York Daily Tribune, Wednesday, October 17, 1849, "Poe'southward Last Verse form", From the Union Magazine for November, front folio.
^ E. A. Poe Society of Baltimore
^ AmericanSymphony.org Archived 2007-07-01 at the Wayback Machine
^ Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York: Checkmark Books, 2001. p. 212. ISBN 0-8160-4161-Ten
^ The New Danes [Streaming Audio]. (n.d.). Span. Retrieved October 5, 2014, from Music Online: Classical Music Library.
^ "MC Lars » Lyrics » Edgar Allan Poe EP". Archived from the original on 2015-07-07. Retrieved 2015-07-20 .