So many Poe poems, so little time...
So Poe does humor now? Who would have thought? I'm used to his rather dismal poems on loss and love, yet Epigram for Wall Street is surprisingly clever (and short).
"Keeps your cash in your hands, where nothing can trouble it;"
Poe is remarking that instead of investing money and worrying about it on the ever-changing stock market, just save your money and you will never be needy of it. Good advice, if you can follow it.
I remember reading To Science earlier in the semester. I also remember blogging about it...oh well, here it goes again.
"Hast thou not dragg'd Diana from her car,
And driv'n the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?"
(For those who do not recall our discussion in class, a Hamadryad is a woodland spirit.)
Poe, I think, is a little upset with science at this time. It has taken over and, in his eyes, ruined the simplicty and joy of nature in his life. Everything is so scientific that there is nothing unexplained, no fantasies left, hence why the Hamadryad must leave. All his creativity is becoming lost to a world of scientific means and explanations, harboring his ability to create poems.
Posted by VanessaKolberg at October 9, 2005 10:55 PM | TrackBackTo Science is probably one of my favorite of Poe's works because I enjoy writing as well and if everything must be answered logically, than I would never have fun with creativity and many people would be jobless.
Posted by: erin at October 10, 2005 08:49 AMI agree with you and Erin. The poem to Science is really a conflicting poem between nature and the attempt to fit science with it. Even though it is being done in this time period, it appears that Poe is trying to understand it. He just can't though, which creates the conflict, and the constant questioning to science. In my blog, I made a comparison between that and silence, because he does embrace silence, but not science. He tries to like both, but can't find himself liking one of the two.
Posted by: Jason Pugh at October 10, 2005 04:09 PMI thought the same thing about the Epigram for Wall street. I said that the poem was saying that rather than gamble with your money the best way to make money is to save it and not chance it on something that you can't control.
Posted by: Stacy at October 10, 2005 05:49 PMFor the first poem you mentioned, Vanessa: I haven't been looking too deeply, but I've Googled around a bit to see what the economy was like in Poe's time. Perhaps it was going through a bit of a recession at that time, and this was Poe's way of objecting to the way things were being run?
Posted by: Valerie Masciarelli at October 10, 2005 10:28 PMI noticed that too, Vanessa, that we got some Poe poems with humor. I talked about this in my blog, how I thought all of his poems were dark and gloomy, but Epigram for Wallstreet is just the opposite. Its like practical advice about money, which is advice people could use today.
Posted by: Ashley Holtzer at October 11, 2005 08:15 AMin my version of science i read it as everything changes and we can't help it. It will all disappear and change one day. I read this as a happy interpretation, but i think Poe was most likely not meaning this as a good thing. Just like most of all his other works, something evil always takes over. all his poems seem to convey the same type of meaning.....darkness will eventually win.
Posted by: michelle koss at October 12, 2005 04:54 PM