Katelyn writes:
Poe's "A Valentine" is very interesting because not only do I find aspects of meter or rhyme as enhancements to the meaning, but the context itself. The whole poem at first makes little sense until you read the very end . . ." (read the rest in Comments)
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Kate continues:
". . . read the last line that states: "To translate the address, read the first letter of the first line in context with the second letter of the second line, the third letter of the third line...". I followed the directions to discover that the name of the valentine is either Frances or francessa.
[Frances Sargent Osgood]
I read the poem again and and understood it as a long anonymous valentine to someone. The code is very meticulously and carefully set up, and without the end statement, "Cease trying!/ You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do!"
[it's quite an example of Poe's virtuosity--I'm sure I couldn't do it!]
The rhyme and meter is very monotonous and simple. It appears to be a simple ABAB rhyme scheme, although some words are near rhyme. The scansion is iambic quatrameter(five pairs of unstressed, stressed?)
[all exactly right, but the prefix for five is "penta-," like a pentagram, so it's "pentameter." The last line is the one exception: he has to get "d" as the initial of the last letter in the name OsgooD, so he has to squeeze way more words in there than a pentameter line can hold.]
a rhythm that allures and teases the reader, with the mystery and at the same time commanding the reader to try: "Search well the measure,/ The words, the syllables! Do not forget/ The trivalest point, or you may lose your labor!"
[isn't it interesting how the term "measure" seems to turn poetry into a math problem?!]
Poe also throws in a macaronic rhyme in lines 14 and 16:
Eyes' scintillating soul, there lie perdus (14)
Of poets, by poets, as the name is a poet's too (16)
perdus (french?) to too(english)
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