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Literary Terms

personification- is when a nonhuman object is given human characteristics. Poe gives the night and the stars human qualities, saying, "For the night- tho' clear - shall frown - And the stars shall look not down" (Line 9-10)

Imagery- is the descriptive language used in literature to recreate sensory experiences relating to sight, taste, touch, hearing and smell. "Thy soul shall find itself alone, Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone" (Line1-2). Poe uses imagery to set the scene for the poem, setting the mood as well in the process. by doing so he placed the reader into the poem with him.

Diction- is word choice. Diction can be formal or informal, abstract or concrete, plain or ornate, ordinary or technical. "Be silent in that solitude, Which is not loneliness" (Line 4). even though describing the setting to be one of solitude, Poe is sure to add that it can not be compared to loneliness, as the reader is surrounded by spirits. this ties in the entire plot, with Poe ensuring that the spirits will always be around.

Motif- is a recurring literary convention or element that is repeated within a literary work. the motif of this poem is that the reader is never truly alone, that spirits will follow wherever you go.

Anthropomorphism- the act of lending a human quality, emotion or ambition to a non-human object or being. "The breeze -the breath of God - is still." (Line 21). by giving the breeze a human quality, by calling it the breath of god and comparing it to the act of breathing, Poe creates an anthropomorphism.

Circumlocution- a form of writing where the writer uses exaggeratedly long and complex sentences in order to convey a meaning that could have otherwise been conveyed through a shorter, much simpler sentence. Poe's entire writing style can be called circumlocution, through his use of overly long sentences that can span an entire stanza of a poem. "And the stars shall look not down, From their high thrones in the Heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given - But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem,
As a burning and a fever
, Which would cling to thee for ever," (Line  10-16).

Edgar Allan Poe's poem 'Spirits of the Dead' was written in 1827, making Poe 18 at the time. though young, his writing style was very mature. this poem has five stanzas with varying amounts of lines per stanza. the poem talks about a person, insinuated to be the reader, sitting on his own. Poe goes on to explain how they are not truly alone, with spirits surrounding them. he talks about how the spirits are those of people once alive, but remain haunting the spot. using personification to give the stars and the night human qualities, Poe explains how they watch over the reader. his later lines warn the reader that the images, the visions, and the thoughts will not vanish, will not leave the reader alone. he talks about how the mist upon the hill (more imagery!) will always linger as a token of what was.

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Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave- there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

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Literary Terms

Diction- is word choice. Diction can be formal or informal, abstract or concrete, plain or ornate, ordinary or technical. "The melancholy waters lie," (Line 11) is an example of Poe's diction in the poem. "Melancholy" is a word exactly chosen by Poe to make sure the audience knows exactly what he means and so they can imagine what it is like.

Imagery- is the descriptive language used in literature to recreate sensory experiences relating to sight, taste, touch, hearing and smell. "But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine," (Lines 14-21) is an example of imagery in the poem. Poe paints a mental picture in the reader's head of what he's describing, which he intricately describes.

Metaphor- is a comparison between two unlike things without using "like" or "as". A metaphor in the poem is, "Along the wilderness of glass," (Line 37). Poe compares the water to glass to explain what the water is like.

Motif- is a recurring literary convention or element that is repeated within a literary work. The motif of "The City in the Sea" can be seen just in the first line,"Lo! Death has reared himself a throne (Line 1). Death is the motif of the poem; Death is mentioned throughout the poem and is a central part to the poem, too.

Paradox- a statement that seems to be contradictory but that actually reveals some element of truth. "On seas less hideously serene," (Line 41) is a paradox. Someone/something cannot be hideous and serene at the same time-- one word is positive (serene) and the other is negative (hideous).

Personification- is when a nonhuman object is given human characteristics. Death is personified in the poem as seen in the line, "Death looks gigantically down," (Line  29). Death is something that happens to people, it is not a person so it cannot look down, but Poe personified death in this poem.

Edgar Allan Poe's "The City in the Sea" was first published in 1831 as "The Doomed City" and then revised and published again in 1936 as "The City of Sin" and this version, "The City in the Sea", was first published in 1845. It is a gothic poem-- it is very dark and dreary, it is about Death and sin. The poem has a theme of sinning being a bad thing; the people of this city are being loomed over by Death because they have sinned. "But not the riches there that lie" (Line 32) shows that the people have been greedy and indulged. The poem is about a city that has palaces and temples for Gods among others, but the city is not being shined down upon from Heaven and so "Death has reared himself a throne," (Line 1). "The City in the Sea" clearly has some religious themes as well. The poem also has many structural devices; firstly, it is a lyric poem. "Lo! Death has reared himself a throne in a strange city lying alone," (Lines 1-2) shows the rhythm (a-b-a-b) of the poem, so it could very well be set to music. Poe also uses other structural devices like alliteration and anaphora. "...many and many a marvelous," (Line 21) is an example of alliteration as "m" is being repeated. An example of anaphora is, "Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls- up fanes- up Babylon-like walls- up shadowy long-forgotten bowers," (Lines 17-19) because the word "up" is repeated. "The City in the Sea" also uses tetrameter like, "In A strange CIty LYing aLONE," (Line 2).

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"Edgar Allan Poe". poets.org. Academy of American Poets. Web. 4 Apr. 2017.

"The City in the Sea". poestories.com. Web. 4 Apr. 2017.

"The City in the Sea". cummingsstudyguides.net. Web. Apr 4. 2017.

"Spirits of the Dead" poestories.com. Web. April 4. 2017.

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Thy soul shall find itself alone
'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone --
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy:
Be silent in that solitude
Which is not loneliness -- for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again
In death around thee -- and their will
Shall then overshadow thee: be still.

For the night -- tho' clear -- shall frown --
And the stars shall look not down,
From their high thrones in the Heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given --
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever :

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish --
Now are visions ne'er to vanish --
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more -- like dew-drop from the grass:
The breeze -- the breath of God -- is still
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy -- shadowy -- yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token --
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!

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Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809. Unfortunately, both of his parents died before he was even three years old; he was later adopted and raised in Richmond, Virginia. His foster father, John Allan, made good money and sent Poe to great boarding schools; Poe later went to the University of Virginia, but Poe was forced to leave due to Poe's gambling debts not being paid. After leaving the university, he enlisted in the Army in 1827 and shortly after, he published some of his poems for the first time. After being in the Army, he was accepted to the U.S. Military Academy but once again had to leave because of money problems. After that, he moved in with his Aunt and her daughter in Baltimore, Maryland. Around this time, Poe began to sell short stories and became the editor of a local newspaper in Richmond. A year later, he married 14-year-old Virginia and over the next ten years, he got a lot of editing experience and began to establish himself as a writer of poetry and short stories. Unfortunately, Virginia died from tuberculosis just after eleven years of being married, so Poe's struggled with alcohol and depression increased. In 1849, Poe was to go to Philadelphia for an editing job but strangely stopped in Maryland, which would later be explained by his situation of being in a semi-conscious state; Poe died only four days later of apparent acute congestion of the brain.