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Essay on Israfel
"Israfel" is a lyric poem of eight stanzas. The stanzas are of 7, 8, 7, 6, 6, 5, 5, and 7 lines respectively. They do not follow any basic pattern of rhyme and meter, although they are all closely rhymed, none using more than three rhymes. Most of the lines are in iambic dimeter and trimeter, although they do not follow an exact pattern. In heaven the angel Israfel is the wildest of all singers. The strings of his heart are a lute and when he sings all stop to listen. He despises an "unimpassioned song." (Allen, 1926) The poet says that if he could dwell in heaven with Israfel he might sing better than the angel.
"Israfel" is a poem about the writing of poetry. It tells us much about what Poe thought of poetry. First of all poetry must be impassioned. A lukewarm poem is no poem at all. Poe thought that perfect poetry was perfect beauty, and hence had a place in the highest reaches of heaven. Poetry, in short, aspires toward the ideal. The ideal toward which poetry aspires can only be imperfectly realized on earth. The poet looks forward to heaven as that state alone in which he will be able to write perfect poetry. "Israfel" makes use of an old tradition that identifies poetry with song. This idea goes back to the wandering bards of the Heroic Age who accompanied themselves with small lyres. Ever since then poetry has been associated with song and with music.
The poem makes it clear that Poe was not satisfied with his own poetry. He writes "this/Is a world of sweets and sours." (Allen, 1926) That is, in this world there can be no perfect poetry. But Poe wanted to write perfect poetryas................
