Tonight we bring you one of the narrator's favorite poems, of course for your amusement but also (for those who have never read it), as a test of your deductive skills. The poem you see is an allegory, and your job is to decipher what this "Haunted Palace" really represents. The poem is a part of Poe's famous short story "The Fall of the House of Usher," and rather than spoil the ending I shall hush up and let the following speak for itself. Curtain, please:
The Haunted Palace
By E. A. Poe, ESQ
In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace --
Snow-white palace -- reared its head.
In the monarch thought's dominion --
It stood there!
Never Seraph spread his pinion
Over fabric half so fair.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow --
This -- all this -- was in the olden
Time long ago --
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the rampart plumed and pallid,
A winged odour went away.
All wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well tuned law,
Round about a throne where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The sovereign of the realm was seen.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door ;
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
But evil things in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate!
Ah, let us mourn -- for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!
And round about his home the glory,
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door;
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh -- but smile no more.
I doubt this cozy place has any chance of being included in the next edition of Romantic Getaways of the European Forests. Didn't I say, though, that the palace represents more than a joint besieged by the "hideous throng"? If you think you know the answer to the riddle, then click below.
Congrats to all who discovered the secret, namely that the Palace is a metaphor for a formerly sane individual who has become unglued, if not a total psycho. The most obvious interpretation of "The Haunted Palace" is that it represents the mind of Roderick Usher, protagonist of the story and unfortunate victim of enough neuroses to gain him a lifetime of appearances on the Dr. Phil show. Others have concluded that the victim is meant to be (no surprise here) Poe himself, who suffered from depression and alcohol abuse.
If you didn't pick up all the allusions in "The Haunted Palace," below is a glossary of the allegorical clues as to how Poe created a disturbed man out of an eerie mansion. Thank you and good evening...
tenanted: inhabited
palace: the palace is a metaphor for a person. For additional information, see The Palace: Symbol of an Ill-Fated Man
Thought's dominion: reason and common sense ruled
seraph: highest order of angels, each having three wings
pinion: wing or a section of a wing
Banners . . . golden: hair
roof: top of the head
ramparts: walls; fortification
two luminous windows: eyes
lute: Stringed instrument, plucked like a guitar, with a long neck and a pear-shaped body. It was developed in Europe on an Arabic model called an 'Ud' (spelled oud in Balkan countries).
Porphyrogene: Possibly a reference to Baldwin II Porphyrogenitus (1217-1273), a Latin emperor of Constantinople who was overthrown in 1261. His father and brother had previously ruled as emperors of Constantinople. He was of French ancestry on his father's side and Flemish ancestry on his mother's side. His forebears had gone to the Middle East during the Crusades. In French, Baldwin II Porphyrogenitus was known as Baudouin Porphyrogénète, a royal epithet meaning "born to the purple" -a color long associated with emperors, kings, and other rulers.
pearl and ruby: teeth and lips
palace door: mouth
sparkling . . . Echoes: perhaps an example of synesthesia, a figure of speech in which one sensory experienced is described in terms of another. Here, the Echoes (sound) sparkle (sight).
evil things: evil in the form of immorality, disease, or any other destructive force corrupts, subverts, or sickens a human being.
morrow: morning, the next day, tomorrow
red-litten windows: red eyes, bloodshot eyes; windows emitting a red light. Litten is an archaic word for lighted or lit.
laugh . . . more: an interesting paradox.
[Glossary is courtesy of cummingsstudyguides.net - our thanks to them.]
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Albert Donnay suggests that Poe was not an alcoholic, but suffered from long term CO poisoning from gas lamps:
http://www.mcsrr.org/poe/index.html
I wonder if Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the auther of "The Yellow Wallpaper" may have suffered similarly. You might find this link interesting:
http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/whyyw.html
Best wishes from Liverpool (UK)
That's interesting - tonight I just came across another of Poe's poems, "Alone," the meaning of which seems to me to be in the same vein - depression and addiction. Great analysis, by the way. :)
This leitmotiv, madness, is easy to spot in almost every other Poe's tale. For instance, "The Red Death" is clearly a depiction of the same process of becoming mad.
Now and then, however, you have the "reason conquers all" motif to counter madness; "A Descent into the Maelstrom" would be a good example, but Dupin's pieces are more clear; the best would be "The Murders of the Rue Morgue". Here, the hero imposes some kind of order over an apparent chaotic reality by using his reason -and manages to survive.
I think this is a perfect description of Poe's experience of fighting with anxiety and madness with his rational mind -and sadly losing it in the end.
You know, if you are ever in Baltimore, Poe (if the medical students didn?t run off with his body) is buried in a little cemetery right across (maybe a block)from the Univ Maryland Hospital, and down the street (maybe a mile)from Hopkins. His tomb stone is in a small but beautiful, decrepit little church yard. It is free and open to anyone who walks by. I have often eaten my lunch there on warm days.