Aim: How does Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells” convey and reinforce the meaning
of the life cycle through his choice of poetic sounds and devices.
Team Challenge: Name as many bells that you heard of in two minutes: In my group we said doorbells, church bells, cow bells, and bicycle bells, school bells, alarm clock bells, jingle bells, hand bells
Teams: 3,4, and 5 tied with 10 bells each
We then proceeded to read “Oh Woe is Poe”
Edgar Allan Poe was a poet in the 1800s, most of the family he stayed with died of tuberculosis. He was obsessed with the dead and eerie places and his stories were based on the dead.
We then proceeded to to relate images to Poe:
Sophia said that people thought Poe was drunk for four days, when he didn’t have alcohol in the hospital. He was later suspected to have died of rabies because rabies makes you seem drunk.
Angela said alcohol was related to alcohol because he was an alcoholic.
Annie said voting was related to Poe because Poe was part of an organization that would fraud votes by voting more than once.
Celeste said the tombstone is related to Poe because most of his family and loved ones including himself are dead.
Bang said that the detective picture was related to Poe because he had the first detective story.
We then read about poetic sound devices:
Cacophony: Cacophony comes from the Greek word meaning, “bad sound.” Or Involving or producing a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds. In other words, consider the noises you may hear on a crowded city street: cars honking, people yelling, dogs barking etc…
Explosive Consonants: (k, t, g, d, p, b, q, c, x, ch-, sh- etc...)
Hissing Sounds: (ch-, sh, and s)
Highlight or underline words that are cacophonous, in the following examples.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!” (“The Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll)
“I gave him a description of cannons, culverins, muskets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments…”
(Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift)
Euphonious: involving sounds that are soothing or pleasant to the ear. It is the opposite of cacophony.
Highlight or underline words that are euphonious, in the following examples.
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” (“Ode to Autumn” by John Keats)
“While the stars that oversprinkle/All the heavens seem to twinkle” (“The Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe)
Alliteration: A stylistic device in which consecutive words or words that occur close together in a series all begin with the same first consonant letter or sound
We then watched a Video on Alliteration
Onomatopoeia: A word which imitates the natural sound of a thing
We then watched a video on Onomatopoeia
Repetition: Repeating words, phrases, lines, or stanzas. Repetition is used to emphasize a feeling or idea, create rhythm, and/or develop a sense of urgency
Rhyme: a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words (especially common at the ends of words). Rhyme is pleasing the ear and also lends a sense of rhythm and order to the language.
We reviewed with a Ted-Ed video called: The Pleasure of Poetic Pattern-David Silverstein
Then we started Reading “The Bells” By Edgar Allan Poe
“The Bells” By Edgar Allan Poe (YouTube)
I.
Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
Hear the loud alarum bells—
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor,
Now- now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows:
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells-
Of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!Hear the tolling of the bells—
Iron Bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people- ah, the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All Alone
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone—
They are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human-
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells—
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells—
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells:
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells—
Bells, bells, bells—
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
Analysis of “The Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe
ANALYSIS OF POETRY
Analyze the first two stanzas. How do they compare, in terms of similarity? In terms of similarity, both the first and second stanza have a positive mood and the bells described are both described as good bells
Now, compare the bells in stanzas 1 and 2 with the bells in stanzas 3 and 4. How does Poe” mood shift in his poem?
The bells in stanzas 1&2 are described positively while the bells in stanzas 3&4 are described negatively. Poe mood shift in his poem by describing something positive and then goes to describe something negative.
How does Poe use sound devices to imitate the sound of bells?
Compile a list of the devices you believe he used.
Poe uses sound devices to imitate the sound of the bells by describing the sound they make for example for golden bells he said “molten gold notes”
List of sound devices he used: cacophony, euphony, repetition, alliteration, figurative language
This poem is as much about sound as it is about meaning.
Why do you think Poe places a heavy emphasis on sound in this poem?
What message does it help to express?
How is this poem symbolically a metaphor for life?
Poe places a heavy emphasis on sound in this poem to convey what each bell will sound like.
This helps to express that bells are a metaphor for life
This poem is symbolically a metaphor for life because each bell represents a different aspect of life, silver bells symbolizes birth, golden bells symbolizes youth, brazen bells symbolizes adulthood and iron bells symbolizes death
Reflection: In this lesson, I learned about various sound devices such as cacophony, euphony, alliteration, and repetition. I also learned about the life of Edgar Allan Poe and read one of his works: “The Bells”. I learned this to broaden my knowledge of literature. I will use what I learned today to understand more about other literature that I’m going to read in the future.
