Alone Poem Response
Melissa Hoang
3Poetry#1
Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Alone” is the real reflection of how his life had been. The poem is about how Poe led a life much different from those of the same age around him; and how he could never fit in. It is a clear representation of his feelings of sorrow that he went through due to being the “odd one out” or a “misfit”. The first few lines of the poem emphasize on how he missed out on his childhood since he never really got a chance to live a normal life, “From childhood's hour I have not been As others were; I have not seen As others saw; I could not bring.” He observed how kids around him lived a normal life and compared his life to theirs and realized that he could never match it.
In the lines “My sorrow I could not awaken, my heart to joy at the same tone; and all I loved, I loved alone.” Poe expresses his crying of being unable to let go of the grief and rekindle the spark of happiness and joy. He is so bogged down by the events in his life that he feels that he is destined for such a doomed life where he’ll never manage to fit in. He wants to love and be loved but he feels incapable of doing so.
The first thing I noticed about this poem is the style, it is all one sentence. It emphasizes what he has to say, like it is a long rant from someone trying to prove a point, also while there is only one stanza, each couplet rhymes with the scheme a,a,b,b,c,c. The dashes help to emphasize a point, the over use of these help to show that, at least in his mind, each idea is more important than the last. Like he is digging deeper within himself and having revelation after revelation, like he is putting a puzzle together.
According to, www.eapoe.org the author had a very sad childhood; both of his parents died at an early age which might help explain the feelings of solitude expressed in this poem and in his other poems as well. The traumatizing events of his life as a child and how it changed him to become unlike the other children and
3Poetry#1
Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Alone” is the real reflection of how his life had been. The poem is about how Poe led a life much different from those of the same age around him; and how he could never fit in. It is a clear representation of his feelings of sorrow that he went through due to being the “odd one out” or a “misfit”. The first few lines of the poem emphasize on how he missed out on his childhood since he never really got a chance to live a normal life, “From childhood's hour I have not been As others were; I have not seen As others saw; I could not bring.” He observed how kids around him lived a normal life and compared his life to theirs and realized that he could never match it.
In the lines “My sorrow I could not awaken, my heart to joy at the same tone; and all I loved, I loved alone.” Poe expresses his crying of being unable to let go of the grief and rekindle the spark of happiness and joy. He is so bogged down by the events in his life that he feels that he is destined for such a doomed life where he’ll never manage to fit in. He wants to love and be loved but he feels incapable of doing so.
The first thing I noticed about this poem is the style, it is all one sentence. It emphasizes what he has to say, like it is a long rant from someone trying to prove a point, also while there is only one stanza, each couplet rhymes with the scheme a,a,b,b,c,c. The dashes help to emphasize a point, the over use of these help to show that, at least in his mind, each idea is more important than the last. Like he is digging deeper within himself and having revelation after revelation, like he is putting a puzzle together.
According to, www.eapoe.org the author had a very sad childhood; both of his parents died at an early age which might help explain the feelings of solitude expressed in this poem and in his other poems as well. The traumatizing events of his life as a child and how it changed him to become unlike the other children and