Comparison of The Raven and The Erlking Essay

In this essay, I am going to comp ar and business cast the deuce famous verse forms, The predate by Edgar Allen Poe and The Erlking by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The Raven is a one and only(a) hundred and eight line verse ab break through a lonely man who is unstable after losing his wife and comes across a raven who only speaks the word, never much. The Erlking is a poesy about a man in a pure girls nightmargon as he torments her but nobody else can chat him. there atomic number 18 galore(postnominal) standardizedities and differences between the deuce poems. twain poems suck a chivalric atmosphere and can be compared strongly in this way. However, twain are of different aloofnesss and differ fro9m each other. In this essay, I am going to discuss how the two poets fabricate tension and suspense and birth a conclusion after studying these poems.The first element I am going to compare and contrast is the storyline of the poem and the ruling it is meant to have on its reader. I am going to start by analysing each poem individually and then work a small conclusion when I will see how they are similar and how they differ. I will be using this structure for each point I will discuss.I will start by analysing The Raven. The of import principle of Edgar Allen Poes poem was to have a lasting upshot on its reader. Shortly, before he wrote The Raven, Poes wife had been diagnosed with an infirmity. This illness was later the cause of her death soon after he had finalised is poem. It is give tongue to that this poem is his forecast of what was going to happen to his wife. This is, therefore, the occasion wherefore he chose a raven to be the main character, because it was thought to be the nigh evil bird. The Raven is meant to be a representation of Edgar Allen Poe reflecting his responses to the bad news show of his wife.The Erlking is a very dark poem and starts by giving a notion that the boy is simply imagining the Erlking and is dying of a strange disease. However, the poem takes a sinister twist when the boy dies at the end of the poem. Goethe had many an(prenominal) reasons of writing such a dark poem. Such a reason is that the night before he wrote the poem he saw a local farmer carrying a bundle. This turned out to be a man who was carrying his sick child to hospital. This was where the main inspiration for the storyline for the poem of the Erlking came from. Also in German mythology there is meant to be a tincture/ supernatural power that is meant to cause controversy and ruin the minds of children. These two factors were merge together to make the Erlking.They are both dark poems and want to create a mysterious mood for the reader. Both had an individual reason of why they were written but then their similarity grew because they had the same atmospheric impression.The routine point I am going to examine is the linguistic techniques employ by the poets. The Raven has a lot of alliteration and is used very frequently. Examples of this alliteration is-While I nodded, nearly napping, all of a sudden there came a tapping,And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtainBoth are utilisations of alliteration but in different ways, one very truthful and the other has more complexity. The first quote is just three straightforward words starting with the same letter. The second consultation, on the other hand, uses two words consecutively starting with the same letter. However, the third word is divulge of the alliteration. The un is not classify of the alliteration but the second part is. Although this part of the word starts with a c, it is pronounced as the letter s. This is still part of the alliteration because this poem was obviously written to be read aloud.The Erlking is very different to the Raven, in this way, as it does not tolerate hardly any alliteration used for boosting the atmosphere. The Erlking does use a linguistic technique that the Raven does not use as much is repeating. An example of this is-Dear fix, oh father, and do you not see,This is a technique very similar to alliteration as it created the same type of tension and both are meant to be read fairly slowly. Later on in The Erlking, this repetition phrase is repeated, showing that there is internal repetition (with the word father) and also phrasal repetition.The third I am going to deem is the rime design of each of the poems. The Erlking has a different rhyming device to the Raven. The Erlkings rhyming scheme is a very common one but the one of the Raven is very peculiar.Many poems have the rhyming scheme the same as the Erlking because it is very basic. This rhyming scheme is-1. A2. A3. B4. CAn example of this rhyming scheme in the poem is-1. Who rides so late where winds blow wild?2. It is the father grasp his child3. He holds the boy embraced in his arm4. He clasps him snugly, he keeps him warm.The rhyming scheme of the Raven is very different and unusual, not many poems have the same rhyming scheme. This rhyming scheme is-1. AA2. B3. CC4. CB5. B6. BAn example of this rhyming scheme is-1. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,2. Over many a strange and curious volume of forgotten lore-3. While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,4. As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my bedchamber door-5. Tis some visitor, I muttered, tapping at my chamber door.6. Only this and nothing more.The two poems differ greatly in their rhyming schemes and have similarities. The Erlking has a very simple rhyming scheme with only two lines that rime out of the four. However, the Raven has a much more complex rhyming scheme with internal rhymes as well as end-of-line rhyming. The Ravens rhyme scheme, however, has an effect on how the poem is read. The Raven is a very gothic poem and this rhyme scheme changes the way the poem is read, especially when the choice of words is used. The Erlking is very different and is a lot easier to read, compared with the Raven. This could mean that the poem is meant for a younger audience because of the simplistic reading ability needed.The other hump I am going to study is the excess of patterning. The Raven uses this some(prenominal) times, however, the Erlking does not. Excess of patterning is when a sound is repeated in a line to give an emphasis of those particular words.An example of this in the Raven could be-Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,This quotation from Poes poem gives emphasis on the description to make this highlighted when the poem is read. This could have been a good technique that could have been added to the Erlking poem to make a part of the poem more prominent.The final factor I am going to consider is the length of the poems. The Raven is considerably long-term than the Erlking. The Raven being 108 lines long compared to the Erlking which is a mere 32 lines long. The length of the Raven allows Poe to go into a lot of depth in his descriptions. However, this hyphen of writing does not suit the Erlking as well. The reason for this is that the Erlking is meant to leave questions unrequited and a sense of mystery. If it had gone into the depth that the Raven did in its length, this would have been taken away.Over all, I can see that both poems are very individual but still contain some similarities. Both poets had very different inspirations of why they wrote their poem but they still had a very similar atmosphere that was created. They also use different linguistic techniques, although they create a very parallel effect. I can see that Edgar Allen Poe uses many more techniques in his poem than Goethe does, this may be because the Raven is longer and may have more room to use more effect without over-doing them.