Helen of Troy Case

"Helen, thy beauty is to me" (Poe 1). "All Greece hates/ the still eyes in the white face" (H.D. 1-2). In the poems To Helen by Edgar Allen Poe and Helen by H.D., the authors express the fact that Helen was the most beautiful woman through words of diction, imagery, form, tone, and theme but from two opposite views of her importance in history. Helen of Troy was a very significant character in forming the modern Greek and Roman mythical views.

Edgar Allen Poe talks about the beauty of Helen from the point of view of a Roman who very much admired Helen of Troy. Poe describes Helen as very "statue-like" (12) which means that she would have had smooth and silky skin and she would have been very pale, making her look like a statue. Poe also says "glory that was Greece" (9) which he means that Greece was only glorious because of the fact that Helen was from there and that bringing her to Rome also made "the grandeur that was Rome" (10) more grand and famous than it already was. Overall, Poe only describes Helen in a positive light and talks about her in a goddess like manner.

H.D.'s poem is from the point of view of a Greek and how everyone in Greece hated Helen because she was claimed to be the main cause of the Trojan War. Even though the Greeks hated Helen, they still thought that she was the most stunning woman that they had ever seen. H.D. says, "Remembering past enchantments/ and past ills" (10-11) which means that whenever anyone looked at her, they would not only see her beauty but also be reminded of the bad memory of the Trojan War. When the speaker states, "only if she were laid, / white ash amid funeral cypresses" (17-18) it means that all the people of Greece want her dead, and they would continue hating her until the day she died and many years after.

In the poems Helen by H.D. and To Helen by Edgar Allen Poe, the authors use a variety of expressions through theme, tone, form, imagery, and diction from two different point of views. In both the poems, the speakers describe Helen as a very beautiful lady but the speakers also differentiate between some positive and negative energy on her from a point of view of a Roman and a point of view of a Greek.