Every poem should remind the reader that they are going to die.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the inevitability of death and encourages reflection on mortality through poetry.
Edgar Allan Poe suggests that poetry serves a vital purpose in reminding readers of their own mortality. By confronting the reality of death, poetry compels individuals to ponder the meaning of life, cherish their experiences, and appreciate the fleeting nature of existence. This acknowledgment of mortality can evoke deep emotional responses and inspire deeper insights into the human condition.
In practice
During a literary discussion, this quote could spark a contemplation on the role of poetry in understanding life's transience.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
Sometimes I am asked if I know 'the response to Auschwitz; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response.
Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea. However pernicious an opinion may seem, we depend for its correction not on the conscience of judges and juries but on the competition of other ideas.
God never made his work for man to mend.
The Law of Raspberry Jam: the wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets.
Evil can be condoned only if in the beyond it is compensated by good and god himself needs immortality to vindicate his ways to man.
God makes appointments with us in our disappointments. To see the pattern we must take three steps involving the heart, the mind, and the cross
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