The City In The Sea by Edgar Allan Poe | Structure, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. ‘The City In The Sea’ was a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe that was published in its final form in 1845. Poe began writing the poem in 1830 and it was first published under the title ‘The Doomed City’ in 1831. Poe revised the poem and published it again in 1841 with the new title ‘The City of Sin’. In 1845, the poem was republished in its final form under the title The City in The Sea. It is a gothic poem of the genre of Dark Romanticism that talks about a fictional city ruled by Death personified. The theme of the poem is isolation and decadence. The poem is allegoric in nature depicting the death of the human soul, which results from sin. The poem depicts how opulence results in sin and corruption which results in the descent of the soul. In the beginning, Poe describes the city as a unique place with glorious surroundings in a serene manner as if it is the most praised and proud construction of nature. As the poem proceeds, the tone of the poem becomes horrific declaring that we are always under the attention of Death. The poet sympathizes with the dead that even their wealth could not save them from destruction and how their life got wasted running for the chase after prosperity while the end is the same for both the rich and the poor.

Structure of The City In The Sea:

The poem consists of 54 lines set in five stanzas. The 1^st, 2^nd, 4^th, and 5^th stanza consists of 12 lines each while the 3^rd stanza contains 6 lines. The poem follows a rhyming scheme of AABBCC but the pattern changes in a few instances. Poe wrote the poem in iambic tetrameter and deliberately chose archaic old-fashioned words in the poem to make it more poetic and impressive. Poe has used personification, anaphora, alliteration, caesura, and metaphor.

Summary of The City In The Sea:

Stanza 1

“Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.”

The poet begins with the personification of Death, depicting it as a stately King who has “reared himself a throne.” Death has an independent will and he rules over a strange city that is unique, isolated, and detached. The city of Death is situated “Far down within the dim West” which suggests the descent of life with the setting of the Sun. The sun is sinking in the west and Death is presented as the monarch of the silent city which lies near the sea. Poe describes the city as a place where “the good and the bad and the worst and the best” find their “eternal rest”. It is the afterlife, located in the “west,” where even the light of the sun fails as it sinks into the sea.

In the fifth line, Poe uses accumulation (using a list of words having similar meanings; Shrines, Palaces, Towers). Poe then describes the difference between our living world and this gloomy city under the sea where the ‘shrines and palaces and towers’ are ‘time-eaten.’ They are very old and dilapidated but they are strong enough not to tremble or fall, as if they are immortally frozen as they are. The tone of the poem changes in the last line of the stanza as the poet describes the sea as ‘melancholy waters.’

Stanza 2

“No rays from the holy Heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently—
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free—
Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—
Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.”

Poe makes ample use of alliteration in this stanza ( ‘holy Heaven’ in the 13th line, ‘the viol, the violet, and the vine’ in the 24^th line). In addition, he uses ‘Up’ in lines 18, 19, 20, and 21, augmenting the poem with anaphora. In addition, Poe also used caesura, breaking a line between words.

The poet continues to describe the city in the sea and explains how vast it is, the light that strikes it, and what kind of sights one might see there. The poet describes how despite its size that no “rays,” or light/goodness from “holy heaven” make it to the city. It is perpetually in the night, obscured from the warmth of Heaven. But, the light of another kind strikes the city in the sea. This light is not coming directly from the Sun but from the ‘lurid sea’ and touches the “turrets silently.” Poe uses accumulation again while describing how this gloomy light spreads throughout the city far and wide as it falls on the “domes,” “spires” and “kingly halls” of the city. Despite all gloominess, the city has some marvelous shrines, but it is the city of Death, and hence, nothing lively is there. There are beautiful ‘ivy and stone flowers.’ The sculptured vines and violet flowers can intertwine with the music of the viol. Thus, the poet describes the beauty of the city with brilliant ivy and stone flowers and fluent music of viol, but nothing is lively.

Stanza 3

“Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.”

The third stanza is 6 lines long and it describes the sea, ‘the melancholy waters.’ The sea is calm, and the melancholy waters calmly accept anything unpleasant or difficult without any protest or resistance. The sea is thoroughly defeated and it stands still ‘resignedly beneath the sky.’ The melancholy waters don’t fight against their lot in life, nor do those in the city itself. Everything is blended into shadows in this place. The waters seem perfectly in harmony with the air as if in a to-and-fro motion. There are many tall towers but the tallest is the one owned by Death. He looks down “gigantically” from his “proud tower in the town”. Everything else is a minion against his stature.

Stanza 4

“There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye—
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass—
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea—
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.”

The poet then describes the opulence of the temples or churches (open fanes) and gaping graves (alliteration) that have been left open and unattended. The churches and the graves have been leveled by the waves but their richness is still intact. There are many grandiose idols decorated with diamonds and jewels. Anyone could step into them and loot what’s inside, but no one does. The “riches there that lie” do not tempt “the waters from their bed”. The poet alludes to the sins, corruption, and frauds that human beings indulge in to collect immense wealth but at the time of death, all this opulence, all this wealth, appears useless. The melancholy waters could easily engulf the place but it doesn’t, it remain still. Poe uses metaphor and compares the sea surface to an unstable ‘glass’ (“Along that wilderness of glass” (Line 37)). Some onlookers may wonder if there are some strong winds on “some far-off happier sea” that may come to the city shortly but that is not the case. Everything is calm in this world and there are no ‘heavings’ or strong moving waves anywhere that may offer a hint of any wind of happiness anywhere,

Stanza 5

“But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave—there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide—
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow—
The hours are breathing faint and low—
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.”

While any movement is unexpected in such a calm and serene place, a sudden ‘stir’ ruffles the air and there is a ‘wave’, a ‘movement’ in otherwise all still water. The scene completely changes as it is no longer ‘hideously serene’ as it had been. The water begins to grow and glow and the high towers appear to shift as if giving space to the water. The towers begin ‘slightly sinking’ in the tides, and the poet uses alliteration again. The violet light changes its color and now the whole city is engulfed in a much redder glow, as if it is receding down. The poet then personifies Time as ‘the hours are breathing faint and low.’ The ground begins to shift but there is no ‘earthly moan,’ it doesn’t appear the same world, the same earth. The city begins to sink “Down, down” to settle under the sea. The poet says that the city of Death in the sea is much worse than Hell itself and thus, Death’s city shall be held in reverence by Hell.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!