The Evening Star
The Evening Star
The Poem
Evening Star
'Twas noontide of summer,
And mid-time of night;
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, thro' the light
Of the brighter, cold moon,
'Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
Her beam on the waves.
I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold- too cold for meThere pass'd, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud
And I turned away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar,
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.
Figurative language and imagery
• Some metaphors include slaves and the
planets
• On her cold smile is a personification
• As a shroud, A fleecy cloud is and example of
simile
• Poe repeats cold, light, and night.
• Poe calling it a proud evening star is
personification because pride is a human
emotion.
Sound and Form
• Sound - There is rhythm in the poem. There are
pauses after every comma, which creates the
rhythm of the poem. This poem is not free verse
because it has a rhyme scheme.
• Form - All letters are capitalized in the beginning
of each line. There are commas and semicolons
at the end of every line. The rhyme scheme is
abcb for the first eight lines. Then, for the the
next fifteen lines, the form is aabcc.
Theme and Deeper Meaning
• I Think that the evening star is a metaphor for
a better place, such as an after life. In the
poem the speaker would be the moon. The
moon would see beyond it a vast space and a
star that stands out. The star is giving off heat
and by the time the speaker the heat is just
cold. The theme is that there is always a
better place but it is not always close.
Poet Background and Connection to
Poem
• Edgar Allan Poe was famous for his dark tales;
His poems are usually narrative, his most
famous poem is probably The Raven. He was
very descriptive when writing. His imagery
and figurative language made his poems
great. I think that his connection to this poem
is that he had a pretty bad life. He was poor
since his adopted father stopped helping him.
I think to cope with his bad life he saw a
better place. A star distant in the sky, a
heaven.
Fin