A Valentine

A Valentine

Edgar Allan Poe

 

 

In Edgar Allan Poe’s poem; “A Valentine” is a poem about a past/current lover, or it could be about people and how they act of Valentine’s Day in general.

The speaker of this poem would be a boy who is in love with a girl. The other character of this story would be the girl he is describing in the poem. There is no hint for where the setting could be.

The speaker seems like he’s giving his girlfriend an amulet to wear and treasure.

(Line 5-7)

“Search narrowly the lines!-they hold a treasure/ Divine- a talisman- an amulet/ That must be worn at heart…”

There are many figures of speech in this poem, for example;

Metaphor- (line 1) “For her this rhyme is penned.” This is a metaphor because the word ‘is’ is used to describe a word.

Simile- (line 2) “Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,” This is a simile because as is used to describe the similarity between two objects.

Figurative language- (line 6-7) “an amulet/that must be worn at heart.” This is figurative because an amulet can’t be worn at heart literally; you can’t wear an amulet on your heart, that’s impossible.

Imagery- (line 3) “Shall find her own sweet name, that nesting lies/” this relates to imagery because the phase “sweet name” reminds me of pictures of strawberries; also, “nesting lies” seems like a birds nest with lies in it.

Rhyme- End of line 10 and 12 rhyme

(Line 10) “…knot”

(Line 12)”…plot.”

The rhyme scheme in this poem is that the words that are at the end of every odd line, rhymes.

In “A Valentine”, Poe has a romantic, mysterious tone in this poem; compared to his usually non-romantic poems, this tends to be very kind and loving.

(Line 1-2) “For her this line is penned, whose luminous eyes,/ Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda…”  these lines are very romantic compared to Poe’s usual work.

(Line 14-19) “Eyes scintillating soul, there lies perdus/ Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing/ Of poets, by poets- as the name is a poet’s too,/ Its letters, although naturally lying/ Like the knight Pinto- Mendez Ferdinando-/ Still form a synonym for Truth- Crease trying!” these 5 lines build up a lot of suspense within the poem, mysterious suspense.

(Line 20) “You will not read the riddle, though you do your best you can do.” The last line of this poem leaves you wondering what the riddle is all about.

(Line1) “For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,” This line starts of the poem with the thought that the poem might be about true love about a loved one. (Line 5-6) “Search narrowly the lines!- they hold a treasure/ Divine- a talisman- an amulet” the dash in line 5 represent a surprise that the reader has yet find out, the dashes in line 6 represent a bigger meaning for the word divine, and how amulet is described. There are no major voice shifts in the poem, everything is consistent.

 “A Valentine” is a poem by Edgar Allan Poe; Since Poe had a love for writing and suspense, the title of this poem could be written about someone he loves and finds beautiful and tying it all together with his love for suspense/mystery type writings.