English Literature

The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe and London by William Blake are poems written half a century apart and the devices used in each of these poems contain so much sensory details albeit the different purposes of these details in each of the poems.  These two poems represent the timelessness of poetic conventions as well as the immortality of poetry in terms of their appeal and their ability to achieve certain poetic goals and aims.  The Bells uses bells as its central theme and goes through four stanzas to describe the passing of the seasons in relation to the bells.  In, London on the other hand, Blake uses images found along a street to make critical commentaries about the state that London was in at the time.  Both The Bells and London are similar in a particular aspect of poetic delivery  the inclusion of sensory details.  In both of these poems, the sensory details offered by each of give the reader an entirely different experience of each of the poems in The Bells the tone of the poem which is a critical poetic element is affected by the sensory details while in London the sensory details are employed to concretize the issues criticized and make these circumstances tangible and material to the reader.

    In The Bells an initial reading would reveal that Poe used alliteration to give the poem an auditory quality to it.  Hence, the repetition of the lines, From the bells, bells, bells, bells,  Bells, bells, bells  (12-13) and the inclusion of the double LL sound in many of the lines, for instance, in, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells (11) from the first stanza and What a gush of euphony voluminously wells (26) from the second stanza.  However, other than just the use of this literary device, it is noticeable how certain sensory elements cause each of the stanzas to deteriorate in sync with the passing of the seasons, so in the first stanza, for example, bright visual images are presented such as, While the stars that oversprinkle  All the heavens seem to twinkle (6-7) and happy auditory images complement these images as in the lines, How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,  In the icy air of night (4-5) There is a subtle shift in these sensory images in the second stanza as the poem goes from bright, childish, and cheerful to solemn in the second stanza.  So, the poet describes the color of the bells in Hear the mellow wedding bells - Golden bells (15-16), the feel and sound of the bells in Through the balmy air of night  How they ring out their delight (18-19) Obviously, because of these sensory images, one would detect a sense of maturity in the shift.  The colors and sounds of the bells in the second stanza all describe the coming of age and the satisfaction that the voice experiences at this circumstance.  The word golden in this particular stanza represents and symbolizes maturity and joy.

   The last two stanzas grow darker and more foreboding in their sensory images as Poe describes brazen bells and iron bells respectively, the former representing a period of warning and the latter describing a period of mourning.  The dark sensory details come at the reader as visual appeals such as in the 3rd stanza lines And a resolute endeavor  Now -now to sit or never,  By the side of the pale-faced moon. (48-50) which present a dark gothic image and the 4th stanza lines, For every sound that floats  From the rust within their throats  Is a groan. (76-78) The same thing is evident in the auditory images from the 3rd stanza, in the lines, Too much horrified to speak,  They can only shriek, shriek,  Out of tune, (41-43) and from the 4th stanza in the lines, How we shiver with affright  At the melancholy menace of their tone (73-74) A combination of these sensory details give the last two stanzas of a poem a foreboding tone and a distinct shift from the bright images of the first two stanzas to the dark, grieving images of the last two stanzas, with the purpose of illustrating the passing of the seasons or, more accurate the ageing of man or the passing of human life.  The adjective pale-faced in these lines also denote sickness or illness, and with it being used to describe the moon, the term becomes very general implying that at this stage, many people succumb to illness and disease.  Another interesting phrase in these lines is out of tune because this refers to the auditory quality of the sound of the bells which also implies that the out of tune quality of these bells are due to their age or their decrepit quality.

    In London, the sensory images serve a different purpose, which is to enhance the critic and the materiality of the issues being tackled.  For instance, in the lines, In every voice, in every ban,  The mind-forgd manacles I hear. (7-8) the auditory image of manacles clanging as these are being forged in the mind present a commentary, quite likely, on the lack of freedom of expression in this period, in London.   The word manacles conjure and image of bondage and so the fact that their sounds are heard in the mind implies that the bondage or enslavement has something to do with intellectual or creative capacities  the enslavement of the mind.  The 3rd stanza of the poem also achieves the same effect with the lines, How the Chimney-sweepers cry  Every blackning Church appalls (9-10) where a contrast is presented between the auditory image of the cry and the visual image of the blackning church.  The combination of these two images implies how the church was deaf to the impoverished cries of the people at that time, and the state is in the same situation as presented in the lines, And the hapless Soldiers sigh  Runs in blood down Palace walls. (11-12) here, the combination of both visual and auditory imagery implies that both the church and the state ignore the clamors of the people they serve.  This symbolism present here is how the church seemingly ignores the labors of the chimney sweepers and how the state, symbolized by the palace, does not involve itself with the problems of its armed forces as represented here by the word soldiers.  Finally, in the last stanza of the poem, the same is true with the sensory details as shown in the lines, But most thro midnight streets I hear  How the youthful Harlots curse  Blasts the new born Infants tear,  And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse (13-16) where the auditory imagery serves to strengthen the image of prostitution destroying family or domestic life through the voice of the Harlot. (14)

    These two poems employ auditory and visual details to enhance the experience of reading the poem.  In The Bells Poe uses a combination of alliteration, auditory, and visual imagery to deliver the theme of the poem which is the passing of time, seasons, or the progress of human life from birth to death.  London, however, uses a combination of terminal rhymes as well as auditory and visual imagery not to facilitate the progress of the poem but to enhance and make the issue commentaries more tangible and more material.  Instead of making a snide or direct comment on the issues being tackled in the poem, the poet attempts to present images that represent these issues so that the reader would easily associate these sensory details with the actual message being conveyed by the poem.  The basic difference between these two poems in terms of the use of sensory details is the fact that the first poem draws from these details to establish poetic tone, while the second poem uses these sensory details to concretize the theme through individual social and critical instances.

    Sensory details are very effective tools in poetry and these tools either enhance the experience of reading poems or are instrumental in the progress of the themes in the poems.  In these two poems the basic similarity of the use of sensory details serves a different purpose for each of the poems.  For Poe, it makes the progressive path of the poem more obvious and enhances the tone and for Blake, the sensory details are used to complement the delivery of more metaphorically accurate images of the issues being presented.