ShmoopTube

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

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....

Full Transcript