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American Literature: The Poe Must Go On: Part II 628 Views
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Description:
Our second Poe video takes a closer look at Poe's poem "Ulalume," and its historical context. Spoiler alert: like almost every other Poe work, someone dies. Someone really needed to give that man a hug...
Transcript
- 00:03
The poe must go on part 2 -
- 00:33
alright oh this well just a little bone soup [Bird stirring soup with a man in the pot]
- 00:39
made from the remains of Mr. Edgar Allan Poe, dark I know but he would have loved
- 00:44
it a soup that serves as a farewell to the dearly departed you know New England
- 00:49
chowder as I call it.....well the
Full Transcript
- 00:55
focus here is Poe's classic poem Ulalume it's fun to say but that's about [Ulalume book appears]
- 01:00
the only fun thing about it his typical Poe, death, dreariness, tombstone spirits a
- 01:05
shout out to hell hey hell, how you doing there.... so get ready for [Barbara Streisand appears near hot lava]
- 01:10
me to rain all over your good mood if you were in one before we dig in...
- 01:15
let's look at its backstory wait different backstory first of all..Poe
- 01:21
totally made up the name Ulalume - but you can pronounce that
- 01:25
however you like...
- 01:34
the gist in a nutshell there's a dead woman who is loved by the poems speaker [Flies buzzing around a dead woman]
- 01:38
no shocker there we see the same theme of unrequited love in many of his other
- 01:43
poems including the Raven, Annabel Lee and Ligeia, death of loved ones you
- 01:48
know the guy wrote what he knew but Ululume was published in 1847 in a
- 01:52
magazine called the American review originally the title was To Ulalume, a
- 01:57
ballad it was shortened to Ulalume thankfully much better creepier more
- 02:02
mysterious the poems barely over a hundred lines long but it packs in
- 02:06
ghouls and goddess, erupting volcanoes, spooky woods, Heaven
- 02:11
Hell...Sadly, Santa fails to make an appearance [Santa holding up sign for food]
- 02:15
so okay where did the poem come from
- 02:19
Did Poe just dream it one night and then scribble it into his notepad the second
- 02:23
he woke up there is actually a story behind it people there was a minister
- 02:26
this guy Reverend Cotesworth P. Bronson killer
- 02:30
name sounds like a beat cop who won't take no for an answer well he taught
- 02:34
public speaking gave lectures at colleges you know that sort of thing [Reverend Cotesworth giving a lecture]
- 02:37
he met Poe a couple of times but a visit to the author in 1847 convinced him
- 02:41
that something was up.. Poe was thin and gaunt looks continually nervous and just
- 02:47
seemed off weird guy well the Reverend thinking he might be able to help
- 02:51
suggested that Poe write something that could be read aloud ie not 300 pages
- 02:56
Melville never got that memo and something that would demonstrate variety
- 03:01
of voice and expression well he figured that having something read allowed for [Poe on stage and tomatoes and rubber chickens thrown at him]
- 03:05
a rapt audience might boost Poe's self-confidence plus he gets paid for the
- 03:09
work, Poe was pretty much always broke so little money would be nice well Poe's
- 03:14
took the idea and ran with it he crafted a poem that presented varying emotions
- 03:18
you know emotions like happiness, sadness, surprise and constipation and Poe's
- 03:25
inspiration came from a trip to a cemetery normal people take trips to [A vineyard and theme park ride]
- 03:29
vineyards or theme parks but this guy took holidays with dead people different
- 03:34
strokes for different folks right anyway there was a tomb of a guy named Thomas Guion
- 03:39
that had a couple of rows of pine trees leading up to it [Guion's tomb surrounded by pine trees]
- 03:43
Poe thought that was a sweet setting for a poem so he borrowed it well the
- 03:47
plot of his poem was borrowed too don't worry he'll give it back Poe
- 03:50
borrowed one key famous image from a story called the summons answered
- 03:54
written by his friend Elizabeth Oaks Smith and it featured a beckoning white
- 03:59
hand that emerged from a partially open tomb, tell me that doesn't have Poe [Skeleton hand appears from Poe's grave]
- 04:05
written all over it so he had his setting and a theme and a jumping-off
- 04:09
point for his plot, Ululume was born when it was done Poe had it published in
- 04:15
the American Review anonymously guess it aided him that he wasn't
- 04:19
getting the credit because he later had it published in the Providence
- 04:23
Journal and this time stuck his name on it [Edgar Poe's name circled on Providence Journal]
- 04:25
not the anonymous had been fooling anyone, Poe had literary
- 04:30
fingerprints with his McCobb style that were too obvious like a Tarantino film
- 04:35
you know same gist anyway....So what's the plot of Ululume, well what's
- 04:39
the story and how does it unfold hmm well Poe starts by setting the mood.. [Poe eating eyeballs with a bottle of red wine]
- 04:44
the mood is not romantic candlelit dinner on the beach we've got our ashen
- 04:49
skies our withering leaves, our dim lake ...As expected
- 04:55
it's dark and damp and generally foreboding our nameless speaker is near [Poe between a lake and ghoul haunted woodland]
- 04:59
Lake in a ghoul haunted woodland not sure what he's doing there you'd think
- 05:04
you would want to steer clear of ghoul haunted woodlands... sometimes it's
- 05:07
not worth taking the shortcuts... We're introduced to
- 05:11
the speaker's soul whose name is Psyche, yeah he named his soul when you don't
- 05:17
have friends or any pets well you know you have to improvise there...
- 05:20
the speaker compares his heart to an erupting volcano yep Indonesian food was [Volcano about to erupt]
- 05:25
new to America in those days okay so as the speaker and his soul are
- 05:29
trapsing through the woods our narrator mentions they have no idea what month
- 05:33
it is or even where they are, guess his iPhone doesn't have service....
- 05:37
suddenly our speaker sees the morning star so at least he has someone you have [Psyche looks up at morning star[
- 05:43
what time of day it is he's happy to see it, but Psyche aint so sure she mistrusts the
- 05:49
star thinks it's a bad omen as the two had their little disagreement they
- 05:53
stumble upon a tomb written on the door of the tomb is the name [Poe and psyche stood by ulalume's tomb]
- 05:56
Ulalume yes Ulalume tomb well this triggers something in our speaker's
- 06:01
brain he remembers his love Ulalume died and was buried in these woods last
- 06:05
october on this very night you'd think a person would remember something like [Person flicking through calendar on phone]
- 06:09
that but if it's not in your google calendar you know and that's about it
- 06:13
the speaker curses the woodland ghouls or whatever demon was responsible for
- 06:17
projecting that eerie glow of the morning star leading him to the site of [Poe fighting off demons and ghouls]
- 06:21
such painful memories sure blame it on the star so that's the story a guy in
- 06:25
the soul are walking through the woods they see a star, sent to the tomb of
- 06:29
the guy's wife who died a year ago... okay it's read and analyze time we're
- 06:33
going to read this bad boy four times well you're going to read it four times...
- 06:36
and we're going to look for something different each time sounds fun yeah okay [Magnifying glass inspecting different]
- 06:42
all right reading numero uno once you're finished you're going to paraphrase the
- 06:46
poems event in your own words so for now just pay attention to the story and go...
- 07:19
We've already put
- 07:20
put the poem in our words now it's your turn look for passengers or phrases that seem [Passages making their way through a maze]
- 07:24
a bit confusing and take your best guess at what the speaker is trying to say
- 07:28
like at the end of our path a liquescent questions and nebulous lustre was born you might
- 07:34
not know what liquescent means and maybe you don't know nebulous either but
- 07:40
what's a lustre it's a one who lusts... If something has
- 07:46
lustre it's bright and shiny and nebulous sounds like nebulae which is a [A nebula in space]
- 07:51
cloud of dust and gas in space or maybe nebulous means cloudy or hazy... hazy
- 07:57
brightness has appeared at the end of our speakers path well once you're
- 08:01
finished putting the poem in your own words it's time for a second reading [Boy looks shocked]
- 08:04
huzzah all right this time look for connotation ie words or phrases
- 08:10
that have secondary meanings as well as their usual meaning.....
- 08:15
home connotes somewhere comfortable and familiar and
- 08:20
someone saying I'd love to go out with you but I'm shampooing my hair Saturday [Cheerleader turning down man for a date]
- 08:24
night connotes I'm not interested yeah I know that come back well....well look for
- 08:29
figurative language the use of metaphors or similes that poetically compare one
- 08:36
thing to something else often a physical object to something
- 08:39
more abstract imagery, descriptive language that paints
- 08:44
clear visual picture and think about sounds words that evoke noises in our
- 08:50
mind hisses smacks pops whizzes anything in that department
- 08:53
okay pause and reader again let's start with connotation again we're looking for
- 08:58
words or phrases with secondary meanings well the poem starts when the [Poem sentences highlighted]
- 09:02
description of the skies as ashen and sober so we've got a physical
- 09:06
description of what the sky looks like probably grayish and calm but there's
- 09:10
also the connotation of those words that implies there's a dark and dismal mood [A grey, darkened sky]
- 09:14
otherwise he'd just say the sky is you know grayish and calm... instead Poe uses
- 09:20
the visual image of ash which brings to mind bits of dark matter falling sadly [Sad faces falling from the sky]
- 09:24
to the ground and the idea of them being sober which can describe the attitude of
- 09:29
someone who isn't feeling particularly joyous later in the poem the speaker
- 09:33
says that the tears are not dry on these cheeks could be that he's got wet tears all [Poe crying]
- 09:38
over his cheeks and is in dire need of a tissue but since we learned that his love
- 09:42
died a year ago he's probably reigned in a waterworks by now however
- 09:46
connotation is that even after a year he's still awfully sad about it.... well there's
- 09:51
other figurative language at play here as well like when the speaker says his
- 09:55
heart was volcanic we're assuming there isn't literal molten rock flowing from [Raven eating soup]
- 10:01
his chest cavity so this is a metaphor write that down....
- 10:04
he's just so overcome with emotion that it feels as if his heart is spewing lava
- 10:09
Near the tail end of the poem the speaker blames a demon
- 10:13
and the woodlandish ghouls for bringing him to the tomb of his beloved but is it
- 10:19
really a demon or ghoul who's to blame or could those just be metaphors for the
- 10:23
part of him that wanted to revisit the pain and agony of his loss there's some [Poe walks out of theatre]
- 10:27
powerful imagery here like in the lines down by the dank tarn of Auber in the
- 10:33
ghoul haunted woodland of weir and with love in her luminous eyes and letting
- 10:39
sink her plumes till they trailed in the dust till they sorrowfully trailed in
- 10:44
the dust now each of those lines could have been put more simply but Poe knew [Poe writing a poem]
- 10:49
there was beauty in the language itself dark depressing beauty but still...
- 10:53
finally there are sounds, the currents groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
- 11:00
and it flickers up the sky through the night and the leaves that were crisp and
- 11:06
sere....can almost hear the groaning currents and the flickering lights and [Light flickering]
- 11:11
crispy leaves being crunched underfoot sort of put us right there in story all
- 11:17
right third read this time we're looking for tone yeah specifically what's the
- 11:22
speaker's attitude toward everything that's happening to him [Poe running away]
- 11:25
are there shifts in tone or perspective do we hear one opinion and then have it
- 11:29
contrasted with a different one yeah okay so tone we've got a couple elements
- 11:34
working here first there's the speaker's soul who's [Speakers soul appears]
- 11:37
treated like a separate character the two of them have different ideas and
- 11:40
take different tones, when it comes to that eerie hazy glow of the morning star
- 11:44
that appears to them the speaker sounds positive about it he says this is
- 11:49
nothing but dreaming maybe hinting he's in denial and insist they bathe in this
- 11:54
crystalline light he doesn't see anything nasty about it but his soul
- 11:58
psyche begs to differ she has more of a pessimistic tone
- 12:02
saying of the star her pallor I strangely mistrust and suggesting they
- 12:07
skedaddle but there's also a shift in tone when [Psyche and speaker appear at Ulalume tomb]
- 12:11
the speaker finds Ulalume's tomb and realizes that maybe that guiding light
- 12:14
wasn't so friendly after all suddenly its demon this and ghoul that you know
- 12:19
so much for that cheery disposition all right finally we're looking for themes
- 12:23
what overriding concepts or meanings show up in this poem
- 12:27
what does Poe want to impart what does he want us to take away from the piece [Hand takes away word]
- 12:31
other than the fact that he should never be hired as a motivational life coach [Young boy being interviewed]
- 12:35
Themes! what do we got here sadness sure that's a given the speaker
- 12:41
lost his love a year ago and it's so messed up about it that he's imagining
- 12:44
his soul as a separate person, maybe that makes it easier remember the tears are
- 12:49
not dry on these cheeks so Poe is trying to say something here about the
- 12:52
constancy of sadness, just because some time goes by doesn't mean the hurt will [clock strikes and cracks the wall]
- 12:58
necessarily heal there's also a theme of the supernatural there are mentions of
- 13:03
ghouls and goddesses and even the speaker
- 13:05
soul seems to be some supernatural entity existing outside the speaker's
- 13:10
body on the one hand these could just be figurative you know stuff generated in
- 13:15
the speaker's mind to help him deal with Ulalume's passing..Though Poe is also
- 13:19
establishing that there's a connection with the spiritual world so it could be
- 13:24
he's trying to say that when it comes to death not everything can be explained in [Poe and psyche using ouija board]
- 13:27
earthly or physical terms well another big theme and Poe more or less owns
- 13:32
this one is death itself without Ulalume's death there is no poem and
- 13:37
without death in general though there is no Poe... by being privy to all of his inner [Poe celebrating with party hats]
- 13:42
turmoil we get the sense that Poe thinks a lot about death a lot and then
- 13:47
he wants us to think about it too... I wish he could still be around to experience
- 13:51
his own absence after death I know him and I know he would have loved this soup....
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