"Ride, boldly ride..." It suggests the kinetic imperative of being--of life itself--does it not? If you're going to live life, you must carry that life to its final breath.
My father liked Poe (and Kipling and Robert Burns, too, along with Robert Service), but I believe I discovered this poem on my own. In the fifth grade, my best friend and I talked about it, though what we said is long gone.
This was one of the first poems I memorized. I remember watching the movie El Dorado (1966) with my father. James Caan recites the poem to John Wayne, and that was it. My childhood self couldn't resist the Poe / Wayne combo. Even today, I enjoy reciting it.
This poem brought up a memory that had me shedding a few tears this morning. When my sister and I were about 10 and 11 our mother read us Eldorado. I asked what the poem might mean and interpreted her response to be that it's hard to find happiness and most people never do. I remember through tears saying, using my best friend's mother as an example, "you mean Mrs. Tingey isn't happy?" The thought was unbearable. Honestly the memory has me in tears again nowl
"the kind of inexorable poetic earworm at which Poe excelled, as well as a recasting of the traditional English ballad,"--Lovely, well said. Happy Birthday, Edgar!
I say the pair in their natural American pronunciation: shadow to rhyme with MAD-dough, and Eldorado as el-duh-RAH-dough. The terminal unaccented O thickens the sense of a rhyme in the slant-voweled words.
My wife and I stopped in Rio Grande for a meal once and were told that the first word is pronounced RYE-oh. Of course, it's possible a local was pulling our leg.
Well, you know the NC pronunciations . . . e.g., Rutherfordton as "Rufton" to those in the know. If somebody tells me that's how their town's name is pronounced, I tend to believe them. The more the pronunciation defies the laws of phonics in whatever languages are applicable, the more I believe them.
This is what people tell me, anyway. I can't bring myself to pronounce it that way, or to say "Churrville," which is what Cherryville, a little town about 10 miles from us, calls itself, apparently.
But then there's "No, we're BEWfort. Beaufort is in South Carolina. And it's NEWbern, not New BERN."
A favorite: the town we knew in Utah, Sally, spelled Tooele, pronounced Two-WILL-a. And of course my old home town, Pierre, pronounced by Dakotans as peer, like a fishing pier or a jury peer.
"Ride, boldly ride..." It suggests the kinetic imperative of being--of life itself--does it not? If you're going to live life, you must carry that life to its final breath.
My father liked Poe (and Kipling and Robert Burns, too, along with Robert Service), but I believe I discovered this poem on my own. In the fifth grade, my best friend and I talked about it, though what we said is long gone.
The analysis is excellent.
It stands in opposition to the Raven as being a case of evermore.
I burst out laughing immediately at the end of the first stanza, at that rhyme!
I love the way he mixes it up in the last stanza!
This was one of the first poems I memorized. I remember watching the movie El Dorado (1966) with my father. James Caan recites the poem to John Wayne, and that was it. My childhood self couldn't resist the Poe / Wayne combo. Even today, I enjoy reciting it.
This poem brought up a memory that had me shedding a few tears this morning. When my sister and I were about 10 and 11 our mother read us Eldorado. I asked what the poem might mean and interpreted her response to be that it's hard to find happiness and most people never do. I remember through tears saying, using my best friend's mother as an example, "you mean Mrs. Tingey isn't happy?" The thought was unbearable. Honestly the memory has me in tears again nowl
Traduction automatique ? C'est sans queue ni tête !
"the kind of inexorable poetic earworm at which Poe excelled, as well as a recasting of the traditional English ballad,"--Lovely, well said. Happy Birthday, Edgar!
Do we say the crucial rhyme "shah-doh/Eldorado', or 'shaddo/Eldoraddo'? It's a long 'a' in the original Spanish name.
I say the pair in their natural American pronunciation: shadow to rhyme with MAD-dough, and Eldorado as el-duh-RAH-dough. The terminal unaccented O thickens the sense of a rhyme in the slant-voweled words.
Me too, but I'm also reminded of the secret third pronunciation, as in Eldorado, Arkansas, where the a is long.
(See also: Milan, Tennessee, pronounced with a stress on the first syllable and a long i).
My wife and I stopped in Rio Grande for a meal once and were told that the first word is pronounced RYE-oh. Of course, it's possible a local was pulling our leg.
Well, you know the NC pronunciations . . . e.g., Rutherfordton as "Rufton" to those in the know. If somebody tells me that's how their town's name is pronounced, I tend to believe them. The more the pronunciation defies the laws of phonics in whatever languages are applicable, the more I believe them.
I didn't know that about Rutherfordton. My high school played them in football (not that I was on the team), but I never heard that.
This is what people tell me, anyway. I can't bring myself to pronounce it that way, or to say "Churrville," which is what Cherryville, a little town about 10 miles from us, calls itself, apparently.
But then there's "No, we're BEWfort. Beaufort is in South Carolina. And it's NEWbern, not New BERN."
A favorite: the town we knew in Utah, Sally, spelled Tooele, pronounced Two-WILL-a. And of course my old home town, Pierre, pronounced by Dakotans as peer, like a fishing pier or a jury peer.
Oh, yeah, when was the last time I thought about Tooele . . .
I remember the first time I was corrected on that one, probably when I was in my first year at BYU: I called it TOO-lee.
Tonight, we're in Buena Vista, Virginia. The first word is pronounced BEW-nah.