The poem, Eldorado, by Edgar Allan Poe, is a short but gloomy tale of a Knight who spent a great amount of time searching for Eldorado; but never found it. Eldorado is a place that is used as a metaphor to represent an ultimate prize that one might spend their life seeking. It can also represent true love, heaven, happiness, or success. Toward the end of the Knights life, he met a “pilgrim shadow” and asked it where Eldorado might be. As the poem goes on, it describes and suggests directions where the old Knight should look and explore for the land of Eldorado. The pilgrim shadow told the old Knight that if he wanted to find Eldorado, he should boldly ride over the mountains and down the “Valley of the Shadow”. The poem leaves the reader in suspense because the narrator never specifies if the old Knight ever found Eldorado. As the reader knows, this poem is a narrative meaning
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The discovery of gold in California engrossed the entire nation, like the knight in the poem, a great amount of people went in search of what they thought would bring them riches beyond compare. The author, Edgar Allan Poe, feels strongly about this place because Eldorado can be similarly compared to the California Gold Rush in the 1840s, which was around when Poe wrote this specific poem even though he officially published it in 1849. But Edgar Allan Poe’s poem is not about the Gold Rush, though it is an indirect comment on it. Poe’s poem is more about being consumed by a search for something. Unfortunately, the reader did not find out if the Knight discovered his Eldorado or not but this poem leaves the reader wondering if he or she found his or her own Eldorado in life. The poem, Eldorado, does resemble death, defeat, and isolation but can encourage one to go on an adventure of their own to search for n ultimate prize in
The discovery of gold in California engrossed the entire nation, like the knight in the poem, a great amount of people went in search of what they thought would bring them riches beyond compare. The author, Edgar Allan Poe, feels strongly about this place because Eldorado can be similarly compared to the California Gold Rush in the 1840s, which was around when Poe wrote this specific poem even though he officially published it in 1849. But Edgar Allan Poe’s poem is not about the Gold Rush, though it is an indirect comment on it. Poe’s poem is more about being consumed by a search for something. Unfortunately, the reader did not find out if the Knight discovered his Eldorado or not but this poem leaves the reader wondering if he or she found his or her own Eldorado in life. The poem, Eldorado, does resemble death, defeat, and isolation but can encourage one to go on an adventure of their own to search for n ultimate prize in