Metaphorical and Ontological Representations of Human Life in a Selection of Poetry by H. W. Longfellow and E. A. Poe
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2025.17.10Abstract
This article focuses on how human life is represented, in ontological (metaphysical) and metaphorical terms, in a selection of poetry by two American 19th-century poets – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Edgar Allan Poe. The analysis includes three poems by Longfellow (“A Psalm of Life”, “The Beleaguered City”, “Victor and Vanquished”) and one poem by Poe (“The Conqueror Worm”). Although both poets include God into their respective ontological systems, those systems, in fact, differ considerably in their very spirit, as well as in their metaphors. The article stresses the value and significance of the juxtaposition of the ontological concepts of these two American Renaissance authors for the world history of ideas and, pointing to their apt indicativeness of the philosophical clashes of the nineteenth century, argues that the American literature of the 1800s, though still in search of its independence from Europe at the time, deserves great appreciation and continued scholarly attention.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Goran Petrović
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