ANALISIS POEMA

Edgar Allan Poe's "Alone" is a lyric poem of twenty-two lines

Point of View

.......The speaker presents his thoughts in first-person point of view from the perspective of an adult looking back on his childhood.

Tone

.......The tone of the poem is somber and dark, reinforced by such words as sorrow, alone, stormy, thunder, and demon.

End Rhyme

.......The poem consists of eleven rhyming couplets. (A couplet is a pair of rhyming lines.) The first four lines demonstrate the rhyming pattern.

From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were—I have..not seen

As others saw—I could not bring

My passions from a common spring—Meter

The first twelve lines of the poem are in iambic tetrameter. Lines 1-4 demonstrate the pattern.

.......1.......................2...................3.............4

From CHILD..|..hood’s HOUR..|..I HAVE..|..not BEEN

.....1.................2...................3.............4

As OTH..|..ers WERE—..|..I HAVE..|..not SEEN

.....1.................2..................3...............4

As OTH..|..ers SAW—..|..I COULD..|..not BRING

.....1..................2..................3.................4

My PAS..|..sions FROM..|..a COM..|..mon SPRING—

At line 13, Poes changes to trochaic tetrameter, as lines 13-17 demonstrate. Lines 14 and 18 are catalectic (having a final incomplete foot).......1..................2................3...............4

FROM the..|..TOR..rent,..|..OR the..|..FOUN tain—

......1.................2...............3...............4

FROM the..|..RED cliff..|..OF the..|..MOUN tain—

......1..................2.................3..................4

FROM the..|..SUN that..|..’ROUND me..|..ROLL'D

...1.............2...............3............4

IN its..|..AU tumn..|..TINT of..|..GOLD—

Summary

By Michael J. Cummings

.......Since his childhood, the speaker says, he has been unlike others. His upbringing—his emotions—did not develop in a typical family setting. In fact, he was alone most of the time, a melancholy child. Everything he loved, he says, he loved alone. His temperament and personality came from every "depth of good and ill" (line 11) around him—from violent torrents and calm fountains, from red cliffs, the sun, lightning, thunder, and a cloud shaped like a demon.

Text

From childhood’s hour1I have not been

As others were—I have not seen

As others saw—I could not bring

My passions from a common spring2—

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow—I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone—

And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—

Then—in my childhood—in the dawn

...