Text: Edgar Allan Poe (ed. T. O. Mabbott), “Mysterious Star!,” The Collected Works of Edgar Allan PoeVol. I: Poems (1969), pp. 159-160 (This material is protected by copyright)


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[page 160, continued:]

NOTES

2-3  The reader will naturally think of Shakespeare's title for his play A Midsummer Night's Dream, a great favorite of Poe's. (“Al Aaraaf” was probably planned in the summer of 1828.)

20-21  Killis Campbell (in Poems, p. 175) compared Shelley's “To a Skylark,” line 90: “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” Poe is believed to have read Shelley and Keats in 1830.

22ff.  Campbell (see previous note) compared “Al Aaraaf,” Poe's note 26: “Sorrow is not excluded from ‘Al Aaraaf,’ but it is that sorrow which the living love to cherish for the dead ...

23f.  Compare Poe's story “Berenicë” for “the spirit of a departed sound ... seemed to be ringing in my ears.” The sound one hears when one holds a conch shell to the ear is commonly said to be the “echo of the sea” — at least children are told so.


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Notes:

None.


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[S:1 - TOM1P, 1969] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions-The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (T. O. Mabbott) (Mysterious Star!)