Poe's "Ulalume" Trivia Quiz

Answer: October

"It was night in the lonesome October of my most immemorial year..." The gloomy poem is set in the month of October, which is appropriate for its imagery of skies that are "ashen and sober" and leaves that are "withering and sere". The narrator mentions the "night of all nights in the year", which may be a reference to Hallows' Eve, or Halloween, the night of all souls.

Answer: 1847

The poem first appeared in "American Review" in December 1847. Interestingly, Poe's young wife, Virginia, died earlier that year in January.

Answer: to wail

Other critics have surmised that the name comes from the verb "ululate", meaning to cry loudly.

Answer: Psyche

Psyche is simply another name for "soul"- in this case, the narrator's conscience or inner being. "Here once, through an alley Titanic, of cypress, I roamed with my soul- of cypress, with Psyche, my soul..."

Answer: Astarte

"..Out of which a miraculous crescent Arose with a duplicate horn- Astarte's bediamoned crescent, distinct with its duplicate horn." Astarte was the goddess of love and war among the peoples of the ancient Near East, including Phoenicians; her Akkadian counterpart was Ishtar, her Egyptian counterpart Isis.

It is surmised that the star Venus appears in the sky at this point in the poem, Venus of course being the Roman equivalent of Astarte.

Answer: a mountain lake

A tarn is defined as a "small mountain lake, especially one formed by glaciers". (Yahoo Reference Dictionary) Also mentioned is the "misty mid region of Weir", theorized to refer to the foggy landscape paintings of a nineteenth-century painter named Robert Walter Weir.

Answer: vault

"'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume'". This is spoken by Psyche, the narrator's soul, as they happen upon the tomb of the narrator's beloved, hidden in the "ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir". The sudden realization comes upon the narrator that at this time the previous year, he had brought "a dread burden down here"- the body of his beloved Ulalume.

Answer: Hades

Lethe was the river in ancient Hades that enabled the damned to forget; in this case, allowed the narrator to forget the pain of losing Ulalume. (Ignorance is bliss).

Answer: Star

The star she is referring to is Venus, which is bathing them in an otherworldly light, misleading the narrator. The narrator thinks Psyche is just being silly: "Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, And tempted her out of her gloom- and conquered her scruples and gloom.."

Answer: Leo

"Come up, in despite of the Lion, To shine on us with her bright eyes-Come up through the lair of the Lion, With love in her luminous eyes." The Lion, of course, being the constellation Leo.