To Helen

Contents

1 The poet
2 The background
3 The poem
4 Answers to
questions
 1
The poet

Who is Edgar Allan Poe…

The first one of detective story
Edgar Allan Poe(January
19,1809-October 7, 1849
•Experience
Losing Being Startin Marrin
Passing
his adopte g g his
away
parents d writing cousin

• Thoughts toward
composition
 Short
 Sadness
 Supernal beauty
 Works
Novels
Ligeia( 丽姬娅 ) 1838-09
The Fall of the House of Usher( 厄舍府的倒塌 ) 1839-09
The Murders in the Rue Morgue( 莫格街谋杀案 ) 1841-04
The Masque of the Red Death( 红死病的假面具 ) 1842-05
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket( 阿瑟 · 戈登 · 皮姆的故 1837 年 1-2 月前两章， 1838 年 7 月全
事) 部出完
… …

poems
Tamerlane( 帖木儿 ) 1827-07
Sonnet——To Science( 十四行诗——致科学 ) 1829
To Helen( 致海伦 ) 1831
The Raven( 乌鸦 ) 1845-01-29
… …
 2
The backgroun
d
 The famous poem was inspired,
as Poe admitted, by Mrs. Jane
Stanard, a young mother of his
classmate, Robert Stanard, who
The died in 1824 when he was at
background the age of 15. After her death,
Poe called her “the first purely
information ideal love of my soul.” Under
the sad of losing the beauty,
Poe created the poem to
 3
The poem
To Helen
Helen, thy beauty is to me Lo! In yon brilliant window-
Like those Nicean barks of niche
yore How statue-like I see
That gently, o’er a perfumed thee stand,
sea, The agate lamp within
The weary, way-worn thy hand!
wanderer bore Ah, Psyche, from the
To his own native shore. regions which
Are Holy-Land!

On desperate seas long wont to

roam,
 Simile
Helen, thy beauty is to me Helen’s beauty is like
those Nicean barks of
Like those Nicean barks of yore Hyperbole
yore Helen’s beauty
makes the sea
That gently, o’er a perfumed perfumed.

sea, Olfactory image

The weary, way-worn Visual image
wandererThe
bore beauty of
To hisappearance
own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to Parallelism
Thy…thy…thy…
roam, Metaphor
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic Pun
face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me Visual image
home
To the glory that was Greece,
The beauty of
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! In yon brilliant window- Simile
Helen is like a
niche statue standing
there with the
How statue-like I see thee agate lamp
stand, Visual image
The agate lamp within thy Metaphor
Helen is so beauty
hand! like Psyche in the
Thethebeauty
Ah, Psyche, from regions of myth

which
soul
 To Helen Lo! In yon brilliant window-
Helen, thy beauty is to me[mi:] niche[nɪtʃ]
Like those Nicean barks of yore[jɔ:]How statue-like I see thee
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea[si:],
stand[stænd],
The weary[ˈwɪəri], way[weɪ]-wornThe agate lamp within thy
wanderer[ˈwɒndərə(r)] bore[bɔ:] hand[hænd]!
To his own native shore[ʃɔ:]. Ah, Psyche, from the regions
Rhyme scheme Alliteration
which[wɪtʃ]
Rhyme scheme
Are Holy-Land[lænd]!
On desperate seas long wont to roam[rəʊm],
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face[feɪs],
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home[həʊm]
To the glory[ˈglɔ:ri] that was Greece[ɡri:s],
And the grandeur[ˈgrændʒə(r)]that was
Beauty of the poem
•The beauty of theme
•The beauty of musical
rhyme
•The beauty of rhetoric
•The beauty of diction
 4
Answers to ques
tions
Ⅰ. Why does the poet compare Helen’s beauty to “those
Nicean barks of yore”?
• They have some similarities . Both Helen and “those
Nicean barks of yore” are elegant, beautiful and sublime.
• Secondly, the boat can ship the wanderers back home;
Helen is just like the spiritual boat transporting them
Ⅱ.back
Whattohave
their brought
spiritualthe
home.
wayfaring speaker
home?
• Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
Ⅲ. In what form does Helen appear in the final stanza?
Why does she carry a lamp in her hands?
• In the last stanza, Helen appears in the image of the
Goddess of Psyche holding a lamp in her hand. In fact,
it is the image of the Goddess when she found her
husband’s identity. The poet use the image of the
Goddess to express that Helen is just like his spiritual
home here.
 References

• Baidu Baike （百度百科）

• Baidu Libraray （百度文库） To_Helen- 致海伦诗歌赏析
• Baidu Libraray （百度文库） 4. Poe&To helen open class
新
• 田丽玲 . 唯美主义视角下的海伦形象评析 [J]. 科技资
讯 ,2015,13(18):212-213.
• 周建新 . 《英语诗歌经典译析》 .[M]. 南宁 : 广西人民出
版社 .2010.3
• 常耀信编 . 《美国文学史 . 上册》 .[M]. 天津 : 天津南开大
学出版社 .1998.10 （ 2004.12 重印）
• 赵红英主编 . 《美国文学简史学习指南》 .[M]. 北京 : 中
国传媒大学出版社 .2006.12
thanks