An Acrostic, Edgar Allan Poe: Summary, Analysis & Themes

"An Acrostic" is a 9-line unpublished poem, written around 1829 for Edgar Allan Poe’s cousin, Elizabeth Rebecca Herring. The first letter of each line spells her name, making the poem an acrostic. The poem was not published during Poe’s lifetime but was discovered by James H. Whitty and included in his 1911 anthology of Poe’s works, titled “From an Album.” It was later published in Thomas Ollive Mabbott’s definitive Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe in 1969 under the title “An Acrostic.” The poem alludes to classical and literary figures like Endymion from Greek mythology and the poem of the same name by John Keats . It also mentions L. E. L. , likely referring to Letitia Elizabeth Landon, a 19th-century English poet, and Zantippe , a misspelling of Xanthippe, the wife of Socrates. "An Acrostic" Poem Text by Edgar Allan Poe Elizabeth it is in vain you say “Love not”— thou sayest it in so sweet a way: In vain those words from thee or L. E. L. Zantippe’s talents had enf…