What Is The Mood Of The Poem The Bells

In 1849, shortly after his death, Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Bells” was first published. Poe was famous for his short stories and poems, which were typically read in darker tones. He was consistently losing family to illness and time, and was, as a result, a very morbid and depressed man. The inspiration for “The Bells” is thought to be from the ringing Poe heard every day coming from the Fordham University bell tower, since he resided in the same area as the university and would often visit the campus. This poem
Poe uses the bells as a metaphor for time passing, showing how everything inevitably ends in death. The bells start out being described in a happy tone, silver bells bringing "merriment." This stanza could be understood to illustrate
Throughout the piece, Poe’s writing becomes more and more frantic, adding an air of mania. The stanzas also become longer as the poem goes on. The first stanza is only about a third as long as the final stanza, and the second and third stanzas get progressively longer. This aids in showing the passage of time, illustrating that as you move along in life, everything seems to create bigger and bigger gaps. The repetition present in the whole poem is most apparent in the final stanza, with almost the entire last half of it repeating “to the paean of the bells” and “in a sort of Runic rhyme,” not to mention the repetition of “the bells.” In this particular poem, Poe often utilizes literary devices such as alliteration and onomatopoeia, an example of this being “in the clamour and the clangour of the bells”. There is also the use of personification in many parts of the poem, like “the startled ear of night” and “the anger of the bells.” The use of these literary devices provides more of a depth to the poem, and it makes it flow much more freely than if just bland descriptions of the bells were