A Linguistic Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s 'To Helen'

In the following essay, I will talk about one of Edgar Poe’s poems “To Helen” that was written in 1831 and was revised in 1845. The poet wrote this poem not only to express his admiration for Helen’s beauty (Helen of Troy), but also express his infatuation and nostalgia for another woman. In order to understand this poem better, I will analyze this poem through various aspects of linguistics, which include the history of English language under the culture, intonation under the phonetics, and the mental image under the semantics.

The changes of English language culture can bee seen obviously in “To Helen”. As Cans says, “During the six decades of Shakespeare’s life, more words entered the English language than at any other time in history, including literature… ” (Cans, 2015) In “To Helen”, the word “classic” comes from French “classique” and Latin “classicus” in 1610s; the word “hyacinth” comes from old French “jacinte” and medieval Latin “jacintus” in 1550s; the word “agate” comes from French “agate”, from Latin “achates” and from Greek “akhates” in 1560s. News words entered in early modern English and were used in literary field. Another change is the change in person. In “To Helen”, there are many words that we don’t use nowadays. For example, “thy” means “your” in modern English, “thee” means “you”, “yon” means “that”, and “o’er” means “over”. They appear in literature, especially in Shakespeare's period, but people don’t use them in their daily life communication.

The intonation of reciting a poem is important, which is from the field of phonetics. A good intonation can bring out the emotion of a poem and express the poet’s meaning better. The poem “To Helen” is a love poem. The poem uses similes, metaphors and reference to express his love and praise to Helen, and also uses three exclamation marks. Therefor, if the reader wants to express the emotion contained in this poem, he or she must know what the poet wants to express in each sentence and read it out in a proper tone. Using myself as an example, I was asked to recite poetry in the world literature class, just like other students. “To Helen” is the poem that I was asked to read from Edgar Allan Poe. Pitch accents, which are included in intonation, are used to highlight important information in an utterance. In sentence, “on desperate seas long wont to roam”, “desperate” is an important word that the reader should focus on, which can emphasize the anxiety and despair of sailors at sea, and Helen can make them have the feeling of returning home, is the contrast of her beautiful face. Moreover, “phrase tones usually involve changes in fundamental frequency, and occur at the end of a phrase.” The sentence “Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, thy Naiad airs have brought me home” is “a longer utterance”, which “is broken up into smaller phrases” (Fasold & Connor-Linton, 2006) . When reciter reads this sentence, the pitch first falls and then rises again. This is what Fasold and Connor-Linton called “a continuation rise” (Fasold & Connor-Linton, 2006), which indicates that the reciter has not finished speaking. That is to say, the intonation of the reciter should vary with the punctuation of the poem, so that can express the “love” in the words.

The mental image of Helen in people’s mind is different, which is under the field of semantics. “Different people’s mental images may be very different from each other without the words’ meanings varying very much from individual to individual”. In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy is the most beautiful woman of Greece and the indirect cause of the Trojan War. In “To Helen”, Helen that has “hyacinth hair” and “classic face”. Under the description of the poet, people will have a rough impression of Helen, but in fact, not one really knows what Helen looks like. She is the most beautiful woman in the world, but everyone’s definition of “the most beautiful” is different. The same as “hyacinth hair” and “classic face”. It’s hard to give a definition of What kind of hair is like hyacinth and what kind of face is classic. Although “Helen” is just a name, but when you hear the word in different context or situation, you will have different associations. For example, when you here “Helen” in Greek mythology learning class, you may picture a beautiful woman “Helen of Troy” in your mind; You here it when the professor calls the roll, the only person you think of is the classmate who named “Helen” in your classroom. Like what Fasold and Connor-Linton say, the mental image you form when you hear “Helen” out of the blue is far from being all that the word is able to mean to you. 

In the above analysis, the person from the old usage and some words from other languages in the poem reflect the changes and development of English culture; In terms of intonation under the phonetics, as a poem, the reader’s appropriate emotion when reciting the poem is important to show the meaning and emotion contained in the poem; In terms of mental imagination, although people do not have exactly the same picture of “Helen” in the poem, through the poet’s description, people will come up with what they think is the most beautiful 'Helen'. By analyzing Edgar Allan Poe’s “To Helen” linguistically, the reader’s understanding of the poem cannot stop at the superficial meaning, but can go deep into the words, into the history of the language and the expression of the poem’s emotions.