0500Helen_Poe

0500Helen_Poe

OGCMA s.v. "Helen of Troy"
Classical Sources:
Homer Il. 3.154 ff.; passim
Homer Od. 4.220 ff. ; and 15 passim
Hesiod Catalogue of Women 65-68
Herodotus Hist. 2.112-20
Euripides Trojan Women
Euripides Helen
Euripides Orestes
Theocritus Id. 18
Vergil Aen. 2.
Ovid Met. 12.5, 13.200, 14.669, 15.232
Apollodorus Bibl. 3.10.7-22.1; Epit. 1.23, 3.5, 6.29
Pausanias 2.22.6-7, 3.19.0-20.1
Lucian Dial. Mort. 5, "Menippus and Hermes"; 27, "Aeacus and Protesilaus"

Edgar Allen Poe, 1809 - 1849. "To Helen" (as the epitome of classic beauty). Poem. 1823. In Poems (New York: Bliss 1831).

The meaning of this poem is strongly debated among Poe scholars. Everyone agrees that the phrase "Nicean barks of yore" means something, but there is no consensus as to what it might reference. Theories include Helen of Troy, Bacchus, Odysseus, and others.

Susan Stanford Friedman, Psyche Returns: the emergence of H.D. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981), 233-35.

Allen Tate, "The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe," Sewanee Review 76 (1968): 214 – 25 , esp. 221f.

Campbell, Killis. "The Origins of Poe", The Mind of Poe and Other Studies. New York: Russell & Russell, Inc., 1962: 153–154.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.