Lenore: Key Poetic Devices

Caesura

Many lines in “Lenore” feature a strong pause in the middle. This type of strong, mid-line pause is known as a caesura (say-ZHOO-rah). As a poetic technique, the use of caesura was common in ancient verse in Greek, Latin, and Old English. These older verse forms often featured caesura in a strict way, with the pause appearing at the exact middle of each poetic line. In Poe’s case, however, he uses caesura in a more flexible way to regulate the ebb and flow of language. Consider the poem’s second stanza:

“Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
“And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her—that she died!
“How shall the ritual, then, be read?—the requiem how be sung
“By you—by yours, the evil eye,—by yours, the slanderous tongue
“That did to death the innocent that died, and died so young?”

In the quoted passage above (lines 8–12), the caesura in each line occurs between the two words marked in bold type. Note how, in the first line, the pause comes right away, after the initial exclamation, “Wretches!” In the next line, however, the break occurs much later, in the space marked by the long dash. The third and fifth lines each have breaks closer to the middle of the line. In the fourth line, though, there’s not one but two pauses. When read aloud, the diversely located pauses create a lot of variation in the rhythm and flow of the language.

Alliteration

“Lenore” introduces added dimensions of meaning by featuring several instances of alliteration. Alliteration (uh-LIT-ter-AY-shun) refers to a situation when two or more words that are close together begin with the same letter. Generally speaking, alliteration serves to emphasize connections between words. As a telling example, consider the line that concludes the first stanza: “A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young” (line 7). Here, the chorus uses the repetition of D sounds at the beginning of words to emphasize two points. Firstly, and most importantly, the chorus underscores the fact of Lenore’s death. This is important because the man they are addressing—namely Guy de Vere, Lenore’s fiancé—can’t seem to fully accept that his love has shed her mortal coil. Secondly, because Guy de Vere hasn’t fully accepted Lenore’s death, he hasn’t prepared her funeral rites. It is for this reason that the chorus connects the words “doubly dead” and “died” to another D-word: “dirge.” When someone dies, the chorus subtly insists, the community must sing a funerary dirge in order to grieve their passing. Other instances of alliteration in the poem reference Lenore’s death in a similar way.

Allusion

“Lenore” is a highly allusive poem, meaning that it makes several references to outside ideas and objects. The first allusion appears when the chorus cries out, “Ah broken is the golden bowl!” (line 1). The phrase “golden bowl” alludes to a passage from the King James translation of the Bible: “Or even the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken” (Ecclesiastes 12:6). In the biblical text, the golden bowl symbolizes the fragile mortality of the human body. The passage in Ecclesiastes reminds the believer to turn to their Creator before the golden bowl (i.e., the body) breaks and their soul (i.e., the silver cord) departs from their body. When referenced in the poem, the chorus’s biblical allusion lends greater emotional weight to Lenore’s death. Other allusions in the poem also amplify the gravity of Lenore’s death. For instance, when the chorus says that her “saintly soul floats on the Stygian river” (line 2), they’re referencing the River Styx. In Greek mythology, this river marks the boundary between the world of the living and that of the death, suggesting that Lenore is between worlds, not yet fully departed from Earth nor yet fully belonging to the Underworld.

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