Groupthink

Our Groupthink today in class was more helpful than I expected.  I thought I had a decent grasp on the poems already, but the group as a whole brought a lot of insightful thoughts to the table.  In particular, the discussion of "Eldorado" taught me a lot of things that I wouldn't have found otherwise (to be fair to Kris, "Epigram for Wallstreet", which he worked on, was easy enough to understand that there wasn't much room for his own analysis).

The gist of "Eldorado", is fairly easy to grasp.  However, in my individual reading I did not notice the subtleties to the poem.  For one, Poe uses the word "shadow" to shifts in each stanza.  In the first, it is used in the literal sense of a shadow.  In the second, it is used figuratively to represent the growing doubt in the knight's heart.  The third stanza's use becomes even more obscure, as the knight meets a pilgrim's shadow, symbolizing his death.  Finally, the final stanza makes reference to the Valley of the Shadow and Death when describing what it takes to reach Eldorado.

One other thing came up on the subject of Eldorado that I found amazing.  Apparently, Poe chose a poem structure that had stresses imitating the cadence of a horse's gallop.  In this way, he hoped to convey the sense of a journey through both the words and raw sound of the poem.  I enjoyed the poem before learning this, but now it's even more amazing.