Edgar Allan Poe's The City In The Sea

Throughout literature, sinking cities have become a reoccurring image that have appeared in numerous works. Many authors take advantage of historical cities that have sunken or created new cities of their own to demolish in their works. A large debate is centralized around the setting in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The City in the Sea.” Analysis of the poem has led people to multiple conclusions, most commonly to the city of Babylon. While a great deal of evidence points to the city being based on Babylon, the city is actually a symbolic representation of a collection of cities. Babylon is the assumed location of Poe’s city because of the line “up domes–up spires–up kingly halls–up fanes–up Babylon-like walls” (17-18). The direct reference to Babylon triggers analysts to cling to that word and morph their perception of the poem around the single city without taking other cities into account. Louise Pound brings up the Book of Isaiah referencing “Hell from beneath is moved up for thee to meet thee at thy coming… it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nation” (23) in discussion of Babylon. Poe’s lines and the passage from the Book of Isaiah have an intricate connection that can infer that Poe derived …show more content…
Dante’s city was already in Hell, and Poe’s city seems to be destined for a hellish grave. The city of Dis comes back into play when Dante states in his own poem that “for my eye had drawn me wholly to the high tower with glowing summit” (qtd. in Belden 333). The correlation of the glowing summit and waters inspires a continuous link between the two cities. Dante and Poe also both mention a disturbance that takes place in both cities after a certain amount of time (333). While some may see it as a stretch, the numerous instances where Dante and Poe’s cities match up solidify a connection of symbolic representation of Dante’s city of Dis on Poe’s