Gridlock

Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe

Meaning - Eldorado is a place that represents the idea of a dream that a person has. It shows how a young person might grow old searching for their dream; and to never give up on it.

Antecedent Scenario - Before the poem there was a child who heard of all these stories about a wonderful place like Eldorado and wants to look for it. Once he becomes a knight he realizes he can search for it and sets off on his quest.

A Division into Structural Parts - The first stanza shows a charismatic knight looking onward to a wonderful place. As we move into the next stanza the knight has become old and his dream covered by the ash of memories. In the third stanza, he meets what seems to be a ghost and it reignites his passion and desire to find Eldorado. In the final stanza, you find out that the ghost knows where Eldorado is but that it may be unattainable in the living world and that it actually lies past the "Valley of Shadow" which seems to be death.

The Climax - The knight is an old man who has given up hope and begins to talk to a shadow who brings back hope into the knight's eyes.

The Other Parts - Throughout the poem, Poe continues to use the word shadow in the middle of each stanza and with each use it seems to have a different meaning which really highlights the changes in the Knight's life. In the first stanza, shadow is used to mean a literal shadow where the sun is blocked out meaning that he travels by day and night. In the second stanza, shadow is used to represent the doubt and despair the knight feels for spending his whole life chasing a place he hasn't found. In the third stanza, shadow is used to represent a ghost or a ghostly figure when the knight meets the pilgrim shadow. In the last stanza, shadow is used in the phrase "the Valley of Shadow" which signifies that Eldorado may only be attainable after death.

The Skeleton - The curve of emotion in the poem seems to go from brightness and excitement in the beginning to depression and despair in the middle, and finally in the last two stanzas, the knight seems to be content and accepting of his life.

Games the Poet Plays with the Content Genre - The genres that this poem seems to apply to seem to be: Travel, Nature, Solitude, and possibly Love.

Tone - The tone in this poem is very similar to what the curve of emotion is in the skeleton. It starts out with joy and apprehension and transfers into gloom and ends with acceptance and mystery.

Agency - The main agent of the poem is the knight from the beginning of the story and he undergoes extreme changes in almost every stanza.

Roads Not Taken - I think that the author could have easily written several more stanzas either before or after the start of the poem, but I also believe that if he did so it would remove a great amount of the mystery and interpretation required by the reader which would leave it sounding bland and boring. I also believe that each stanza he did write was extremely crucial to the body of the poem.

Speech Act - The speech act of the poem seems to be an explanation of the events that took place throughout the Knight's life.

Outer and Structural Forms - Inner structural forms of tense seems to be from the future looking back on the life of the Knight. As for sentences, it seems that the author used the word shadow in the middle of each stanza on purpose to signify a change in the Knight's attitude or outlook on his quest. The outer structure shows that the rhyming scheme for the first three stanzas is aabccb and for the last one it is xxabba. The rhyming couplets are written in iambic duometer seemingly mimicking the clattering of horses hooves in search of Eldorado.

Imagination - The imagination used by the author regarding the Knight's impossible quest for Eldorado and the changes he undergoes seems adventurous and thought provoking.

I worked on this with August Blundell and we are looking forward to see what the rest of our group did with the other poems.