Jump to content

Menu

Edgar Allan Poe


Recommended Posts

So why do you want to teach his poetry? He's mostly known for his short stories. I can't think that in my many years of taking lit classes I ever had anyone teach one of his poems.

 

That said, I would teach his poetry the same way I would anyone's poetry basic lit focused on poetry information can be applied to it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We did The Raven.... Wrote out the text and marked it for meter and rhyme, found alliteration and consonance/assonance, interesting word choices, etc. But then we did some interesting followup stuff too.

 

We compared it to a rewritten version without the letter E in A Void (Georges Perec), and talked about how much of the sound of the poem was retained even with very different words... We watched a youtube of a Simpsons Halloween episode with Bart as the raven (LOL).... We read a paper Poe wrote about his writing process, called "The Philosophy of Composition", and we read a critical (very critical) essay by T.S. Eliot called "From Poe to Valery".

 

I thought it was a good poem for discussing word choice (especially with Poe's self-analysis and Eliot's criticism), the significance of the sound of the poem (with Perec's rewriting), and issues of performance (The Simpsons). The performance discussion continued with other poems (Allen Ginsberg does a terrible job reading his own poetry!), and the overlap between poetry and song lyrics (Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen).

 

It's not the world's best poem, but it's well known, widely discussed, and accessible.... and I just like it. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We did The Raven.... Wrote out the text and marked it for meter and rhyme, found alliteration and consonance/assonance, interesting word choices, etc. But then we did some interesting followup stuff too.

 

We compared it to a rewritten version without the letter E in A Void (Georges Perec), and talked about how much of the sound of the poem was retained even with very different words... We watched a youtube of a Simpsons Halloween episode with Bart as the raven (LOL).... We read a paper Poe wrote about his writing process, called "The Philosophy of Composition", and we read a critical (very critical) essay by T.S. Eliot called "From Poe to Valery".

 

I thought it was a good poem for discussing word choice (especially with Poe's self-analysis and Eliot's criticism), the significance of the sound of the poem (with Perec's rewriting), and issues of performance (The Simpsons). The performance discussion continued with other poems (Allen Ginsberg does a terrible job reading his own poetry!), and the overlap between poetry and song lyrics (Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen).

 

It's not the world's best poem, but it's well known, widely discussed, and accessible.... and I just like it. :)

 

Thanks for the info!

 

And, I know, I like it too :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does anyone have any ideas about how to teach his poetry? Any helpful resources or ideas for projects or ways to analyze it? I'm drawing a blank.

 

Figuratively Speaking utilizes excerpts from a few of Poe's poems (offhand I remember The Bells, The Raven) to discuss literary terms. Perhaps you could use it as a springboard to analyzing his other poems?

 

A couple more Poe-related resources:

Poe Museum

An essay on The Raven

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Figuratively Speaking utilizes excerpts from a few of Poe's poems (offhand I remember The Bells, The Raven) to discuss literary terms. Perhaps you could use it as a springboard to analyzing his other poems?

 

A couple more Poe-related resources:

Poe Museum

An essay on The Raven

 

Thanks for these links!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...