Poetry Essay #1

Within both poems the ancient beauty Helen is described in two very distinct ways.  In Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “To Helen”, Poe reveres Helen for her beauty and grace.  Poe however is alone in his love for Helen.  The author H.D. on the other hand finds a way to criticize Helen’s beauty in her poem “Helen”.  She immediately disregards her beauty and sees it as her downfall and as a source of her own hatred as well as Greece’s hatred.

Poe’s poem can be seen as a shallow apostrophe towards a woman whose beauty is regarded by Poe and Poe alone.  Rather than explaining to the reader that her beauty is renowned by great societies, Poe only mentions the singular love he has for Helen.  By discounting all other perspectives, the reader is left with only the petty beliefs of one man.  H.D.’s attitude toward Helen is quite different from that of Poe’s.  She mentions that Greece in its entirety, “All Greece hates/ All Greece reviles”, is engulfed with detestation towards Helen.  By referring to a whole society that loathes even at the name of Helen, H.D. gives the reader a deeper sense of her own hatred towards the woman.  H.D.’s abhorrence towards Helen is actually quite dynamic when compared to the static love of Poe.  She mentions Helen as a woman at the beginning of the poem yet as the work progresses so does the hate which ultimately leaves H.D. referring to Helen as a statue by the end of the poem.

Concerning the structure of both poems, each consist of three stanzas yet when deeper examination is made it is simple to see that each structure reflects the author’s attitude toward Helen in a different way.  Poe follows a strict pattern, the first stanza consists of the rhyming scheme ABABB, the second ABABA, and the third being ABBAB.  Each stanza also consists of five lines.  The poem’s structure as a whole once again imitates Poe’s unchanging love for Helen.  H.D. creates a very different structure in order to reproduce her own sense of Helen.  There is no immediate pattern that emerges and the length of the stanzas increase as the poem goes on.  This therefore indicates once again that H.D. wants to reader to feel not only troubled when reading about Helen but when reading the poem itself.

Although both poems share various formal structuring and a common title, the beliefs of both authors could not be any different.  The distinction in tone begs the question of how attraction of the opposite sex can truly blind the morals of those who have become seemingly sightless.  The sharp division in the structure of the two poems also conveys the distinct feelings of the authors.  It is with great confidence therefore that a reader can admit just how different these poems truly are.