The Haunted Palace

“Haunted House” by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1921)

Edwin Arlington Robinson was an early 20th-century American poet. His book, Collected Poems (1921), won the first Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Like Poe, Robinson is known for poems that explore themes such as loss, grief, and death. This poem is an Italian sonnet, a 14-line poem divided into two stanzas. The poem explores a similar image as Poe’s poem, but the place is not a fantastical palace haunted with terrible demons, but a real home that is haunted by a violent past.

“Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson (1890)

Emily Dickinson was an American poet of the late 19th century. Like Poe, she wrote in the Romantic tradition, and they were both dark Romantics, primarily oriented toward bleak subject matter in their works. One of Emily Dickinson’s most famous poems, “Because I could not stop for Death,” also known as (poem) 479, is a lyric poem that uses personification in a comparable manner as Poe does in “A Haunted Palace.” In this poem, Dickinson explores the abstract concept of death through a ride in a carriage.

“Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe (1829)