“The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe

Looking into the lens of Formalism criticism.

I. Catchy Title: The Bells of Anabelle and Annabel

II. Paragraph 1: Introduction (Use HATMAT)

A. Hook:
On how the Bells is considered as the best example of use of sound devices that is when
critical analysis of this piece it will be best to use the Formalism or new criticism approach.
An approach that advocate to study of literature in its own particular lens and not a
borrowed practice from other fields. Arts for art sake as they say.

B. Author: Edgar Allan Poe

C. Title: The Bells
D. Main characters: None
E. A short summary:
The Bells is a poem that is written by Edgar Allan Poe. It is a poem that tells about how the
sound of bells and types of bells have their own stages, meaning and life phases in every
human life. Some other critics says that this story tells of a young couple that have met
during Christmas season, then shortly have started their romantic relationship that lead
them to their own weeding, settling as a new ordinary couple, but one day a tragic incident
happen. Their new build house was set on fire accidentally killing one of the couples. Thus,
the other one left in this world with a lot of hate and remorse in this world. This story of
life stages and couple was been told to the perspective of bells and all its onomatopoeic
structure that each stanza revealing subsequent phase and scene. Repetition and sound
devices make the poem almost like a song that might even hide its true intention of its
horrifying meaning.

F. Thesis:
The poem “The Bells” is one of the best example arts for art sake thus making it is suited
better to criticized it using the formalism approach or also known as new criticism. The
poem is filled with a lot of sound devices, and a lot of literary devices that are compact in
one poem that helps its unity of effect and singularity. The use of the word BELLS that
have different meaning and evolving context makes it a kind of literature that require
structural and literary competence that is more than the borrowed field of other criticism
approach that do want to analyze literature outside the boundaries of literature itself. This
piece prove that literary analysis or criticism might have its own scientific terms and way
that do not need to rely to other fields such as Psychoanalysis, Marxism and Feminism etc.
upon studying this piece readers will realize that such effect and unity of singularity is
possible in one sitting and makes the reader realize that literature is work of art that is more
than meaning and representation.

III. Paragraph 2:
A. Topic sentence:
on the use of sound devices and how the first stanza’s function is to set the buildup that
will create an emotional experience in the readers view.
B. Context for the quote:
The context of the quotes has two versions. First is the theory that the text literal meaning
is Christmas season this proves the (Meeting Couple and Fire Theory) and the other one is
the life stages where in childhood everything is happy with the protection of our guardian.

1. Who says it:

The author, particularly. Edgar Allan Poe himself

2. What’s happening in the text when they say it:

if we read closely to the first stanza, most of the images and onomatopoeic sounds pertains
to cold weather, night and Bells. Which suggest that this first stanza pertaining to literal
Christmas season, we could also interpret these words as symbolic to Christmas season. A
season of happiness and merriment of life where everything is in order and good.

C. Quote from the text

I.
“Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.”

The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe

D. Analysis of the quote: How does it prove your thesis?
This proves that in the first stanzas that with the use of sound devices, onomatopoeic sounds
and repetition, it clearly indicate that the best approach in looking this literary piece is the
formalism approach which focuses on language and the associated literary devices that are
functional in the context and structure of the said literary piece.

E. Closing sentence (wrap up the paragraph to effectively transition to the next paragraph)
In relation to the other stanzas, it is worth noting that how good it is as the main lead or
stanzas that a little bit foreshadows the following events in the poem that was been narrated
in the following stanzas. The Formalist approach is considered as the scientific way of
looking literature where Edgar Allan Poe is good at.

IV. Paragraph 3: Second Body Paragraph

A. Topic sentence (what this paragraph will discuss, how it will prove your thesis)
This focuses on the two theory of the piece and how the piece itself become more of a
formalism in its nature. This also look closely on the words that have been used in the
text where it explains its meaning and how it adds on the structure of the piece itself.

B. Context for the quote:

The context of the quote and what it says is marriage, comparing to the first stanza’s these
atmospheres is much more happy and merry signifying the peak of human lives. It is clearly
 indicated in the use of Wedding bells and Golden Bells that the meaning is fortune, wealth
and marriage.
1. Who says it?
The Author

2. What’s happening in the text when they say it?

The Russian formalism is popular in what we know as close reading, it is like reading with
a magnifying glass metaphorically. To discuss in relation of this in our piece. Let’s take a
look with the words that have been used. “Wedding Bells, and Golden Bells” “How they
ring out their delight!” “From the molten-golden notes” “To the turtle-dove that listens,
while she gloats On the moon!” Proves the theory of “Couple theory” in its literal meaning
of marriage, it may also mean that everyone or at least in majority everyone gets married.

C. Quote from the text (cited appropriately)

II.
“Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!”
The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe
D. Analysis of the quote: How does it prove your thesis?
The second paragraph function is to maximize the peak of the narration of the poem and
its story, with the existence of the repetition of the bells and literary devices such as
assonance, consonance and alliteration makes it consistent in its form and structure. If you
will try to read this poem it will sounds like a song because on how good the word choices
of Edgar Allan Poe were.

E. Closing sentence:
The second stanza of the poem The Bells make the reader realize how the poem is really
structured in one poem and makes it a wholistic and perfect example of art for arts sake.
The already said sound devices that have been use in the first is stanza is clearly the
continuation of the second stanza, and make it in a predictable and linear narration that
easily observe follow one form and structure of a literary piece that makes it individual and
remarkable compared to its contemporaries.

V. Paragraph 4: Third Body Paragraph

A. Topic sentence (what this paragraph will discuss, how it will prove your thesis)
 The topic of this paragraph is how the author ended this memorable and genius literary
piece that despite the limit of language and literary devices it had makes a piece that is
more than meaning and advocacy, a piece that makes art its meaning in its truest form. The
used of devices and structural sounds and corresponding linguistic basis have been used by
Edgar Allan Poe perfectly.

B. Context for the quote:

The context of the quote of the stanza III and IV is the downfall of the poem, this is where
the turn or its hidden meaning might lie. In the stanza III it presents a central problem
towards life or in the literal meaning, it is where the fire has started in newly founded home
of the couple. As for the Fourth stanza it talks about one central aspect of life which is
death and the damnation of afterlife. This I one clearly marks the ending and the
foregrounded meaning it wants to convey with all the set-up of the stanza 1-3. And as
uniform form, it still a continuation of the sound devices and onomatopoeic devices that
the poem has consistently used.

1. Who says it? The Author

2. What’s happening in the text when they say it?

The stanza III and IV are the continuation of the initial set-up of stanza I and II, and it’s
entertaining to see that it’s meaning in the two possible interpretation of the text are still
possibilities of the meaning of this. The Couple theory, in the stanza number III talks about
fire and alarum bells signifying the meaning of burning house and alarms of the town
during the old days which lead us to stanza III that makes one of them dead thus making
the other one miserable and lonely in this world. In the theory of its meaning that talks
about life stages, the stanza III meaning are the problems we encounter as we grow older
in our lives, that when initially a happy and hopeful life it will be (which have been stated
in the stanza number I and II) that will further develop into death that awaits (Noting with
the use if ghouls and death in text of stanza number IV) that might mean the death that
awaits in the old age where we all in general start deteriorating in life.

C. Quote from the text (cited appropriately)

“III.
Hear the loud alarum bells—
Brazen bells!
What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now—now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
 By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling.
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—
Of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
IV.
Hear the tolling of the bells—
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone—
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human—
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the pæan of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæan of the bells—
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells—
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells—
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells—
Bells, bells, bells—
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.”
 -The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe

D. Analysis of the quote: How does it prove your thesis?

Same with the other reason in the preceding paragraph, that the form and structure is still
consistent and is prevalent in the poem while still not losing its internal and external
meaning of the two theory of the meaning of the poem.

E. Closing sentence
In the paragraph III and IV makes the reader horrified and fear the poem that in contrast to
the first two and shorter stanzas that talks about happiness and merriment have been
continued into fire, death and ghoul. The best feature of this poem is the ability to narrate
in a logical manner while still being true to its form and consistent to its meaning not
devaluing any piece of word that is included in the poem itself.

VI. Conclusion

A. Summarize your argument.

The Poem The Bells of Edgar Allan Poe, is the poem that perfectly use sound devices
especially onomatopoeic sounds but if you will look it closely the sounds that have been
used change its meaning as the poem progress in its narration even though that using
repetition have been used again and again in the poem, just like any other poem it conveys
story in a perfect manner only it deviates with its acrostic and auditory side as poem is
originally intended to be spoken and not only be read.

B. Extend the argument.

With all been said with the poem. This is the best and purest feature of the formalism
approach, structure and science of literature using literary devices. Even though it has the
tendency of elitist form of literature of arts for arts sake it is still function as one of the
reasons why read literature. For entertainment and pleasure value.

C. Show why the text is important.

The text is important for the reason that it is the best example that illustrates how sound
devices helps convey meaning, as it is the one of the fundamental structures of the text,
and to further how this devices might change its meaning even though it was been use the
same way in a perfectly logical narrative form. The text is the perfect choice if the teacher’s
topic is sound devices. Thus, it is very formalist in its nature.