Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As if some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--Only this and nothing more.
Interpretation
This quote encapsulates an atmosphere of mystery and curiosity during a moment of introspection.
In this passage, Edgar Allan Poe sets a melancholic and eerie scene as the narrator reflects on forgotten knowledge while feeling tired and vulnerable. The midnight hour enhances the sense of suspense as he hears a tapping at his door, representing the intrusion of the unknown and perhaps the inevitability of confronting one's thoughts and fears.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the creative process in literature.
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.
Poetry consists in a rhyming dictionary and things seen.
Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.
I picked up the guitar at 11, but even before then, I was writing songs on the organ.
Lets just say that I think any person who aspires, presumes, or feels the calling to be an artist has a built-in sense of duty.
If politicians can't do it, I want to do it. We have to do it. Artists, put it in paintings. Poets, put it in poems, novels. That's what we have to do. And I think it's so important to save the world.
An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally.
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