Eldorado- Edgar Allan Poe

I chose to analyze Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe for a few reasons, but mostly because I have seen movies about people traveling the road to Eldorado in search of gold and I thought it would be cool to read a poem about a similar journey. The second reason I chose to analyze this poem is because it is short and simple, so hopefully it will be easier to understand. The first time I read through this poem, I had an idea of what it was about. From what I understood, it was about a man who is in seach of Eldorado but he does not find it. Then I read through this poem a second time and I got a little better understanding of what was happening. When this poem begins, Edgar Allan Poe describes the character as "a galliant knight" who is on a journey in search of Eldorado (Eldorado 2). In the Romanticism time period, we see quite a shift in the values of people and in the way they think. The Romanticism time period is when people moved from reason to feelings, and it is easy to see the difference in the writing styles between the two. Earlier this year we read stories by Benjamin Franklin that valued reason over religion, and now we have moved on to poems that seem to value feelings and nature over reason . Also, in many Romanticism style poems there is some sort of a hero portrayed and in this poem, when Edgar Allan Poe says "a galliant knight" the first thing that comes to my mind is a brave, courageous hero (Eldorado 2). It seems that in a lot of the Dark Romanticism/Romanticism writings there is some tragedy or death that occurs within the poem or story. For example, in Edgar Allan Poe's Annabel Lee he tells the story of the love he shared with this girl but then she died and it was tragic. In Eldorado there is kind of a tragedy when Edgar Allan Poe says "And as his strength failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow-" (Eldorado 15-16). I think that this passage shows the sadness of death and tragedy because Edgar Allan Poe is telling us that the strength of this knight is not enough to get him to Eldorado and that he is failing. After reading so much about how awesome Eldorado is supposed to be, I thought back on all of the movies I have ever seen that were about peoples journey to Eldorado and I remembered that in one of the movies two young men were traveling to Eldorado in search of gold and riches. The knight in this poem is on a journey searching for Eldorado because he wants the gold and the riches that are supposedly there. I think this poem is a good example of the Romanticism writing style because it shows a lot of characteristics from this time period and it also has the right mood. Edgar Allan Poe is a very popular author from this time period.


Bibliography

"Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe." PoemHunter.Com - Thousands of Poems and Poets.. Poetry Search Engine. Web. 17 Jan. 2012.