Tamerlane (poem)

"Tamerlane" is an epic poem by Edgar Allan Poe which follows a fictionalized accounting of the life of a Turkic conqueror historically known as Tamerlane. The poem was first published in the 1827 collection Tamerlane and Other Poems. That collection, with only 50 copies printed, was not credited with the author's real name but by "A Bostonian." The poem's original version was 403 lines but trimmed down to 223 lines for its inclusion in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems.

The poem follows the life of a Turkic conqueror historically known as Tamerlane. The name is a Latinized version of "Timur Lenk", the 14th-century warlord who founded the Timurid Empire, though the poem is not a historical depiction of his life.

Tamerlane ignores the young love he has for a peasant in order to achieve power. On his deathbed, he regrets this decision to create "a kingdom [in exchange] for a broken heart". The peasant is named Ada in most of Poe's original version of the poem, though it is removed and re-added throughout its many revised versions. The name "Ada" is likely a reference to Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, a renowned poet whom Poe admired. In fact, the line "I reach'd my home — my home no more" echoes a line in Byron's work Don Juan.

The main themes of "Tamerlane" are independence and pride as well as loss and exile. Poe may have written the poem based on his own loss of his early love, Sarah Elmira Royster, his birth mother Eliza Poe, or his foster-mother Frances Allan. The poem may also mirror Poe's relationship with his foster-father John Allan; similar to Poe, Tamerlane is of uncertain parentage, with a "feigned name." Only 17 when he wrote the poem, Poe's own sense of loss came from the waning possibility of inheritance and a college education after leaving the University of Virginia. Distinctly a poem of youth, the poem also discusses themes Poe will use throughout his life, including his tendency toward self-criticism and his ongoing strivings towards perfection.

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