Travel Imagery
Oceans, boats, sailing—travel is everywhere in this poem. The speaker tells us that, before he met Helen, he felt like a guy roaming the ocean unable to get home (lost, confused, tortured). Her b...
Mythology Symbols
"To Helen" reads like the world's shortest mythology textbook. Every stanza contains a reference to at least one important aspect of Greek mythology (Poe loved this stuff). This is not because the...