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Help with "An Engima".. Another peom by Poe.
Posted by: AlexF. (---.tnt14.dca5.da.uu.net)
Date: October 19, 2004 07:29PM

Ok, for this poem "An Enigma" by Edgar Allan Poe, all i need to find out is the main idea of this poem. For example, whats the poets message and what the poems all about...


Re: Help with "An Engima".. Another peom by Poe.
Posted by: Pam Adams (134.71.192.---)
Date: October 19, 2004 08:00PM

An Enigma
by Edgar Allan Poe

"Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,
"Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.
Through all the flimsy things we see at once
As easily as through a Naples bonnet-
Trash of all trash!- how can a lady don it?
Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff-
Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff
Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it."
And, veritably, Sol is right enough.
The general tuckermanities are arrant
Bubbles- ephemeral and so transparent-
But this is, now- you may depend upon it-
Stable, opaque, immortal- all by dint
Of the dear names that he concealed within 't.


He's saying 'Most poems are a waste of time. Not this one, because I've hidden my friends and loved ones names in it.'

pam

'The general tuckermanities are arrant
Bubbles'

- as an absolutely unrelated sidebar, using your friends as characters in science fiction is known as 'tuckerisms.' (Named for Wilson 'Bob' Tucker)


Re: Help with "An Engima".. Another peom by Poe.
Posted by: Hugh Clary (---.phoenix-01rh15-16rt.az.dial-access.att.net)
Date: October 20, 2004 11:25AM

i need to find out is the main idea of this poem.

Sarah Anna Lewis. 14 lines, 14 letters, hmmm ...

[www.eapoe.org] />
Another version:

[www.eapoe.org] />
[www.eapoe.org] />
[www.onelook.com] />
Still, I wonder about the chosen rhyme scheme: abab bccb cddb ee. I guess you'd have to call it Shakespearean. Meter is a mixture of iambic and tetrameter, iambs and anapests. Poe was well versed (!) in such matters, however, so they were definitely purposefully chosen.




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