The Lake

“The Lake” fixates on hauntology—the qualities of being haunted—and the occult. The word occult comes from the Latin occultus, meaning “covered over,” or “hidden.” The occult quality of the lake is especially noteworthy considering “Night had thrown her pall” (Line 7) over it. After the sun goes down, the “dim lake” (Line 23) has an occult presence. Its dimness, or darkness, hides what is beneath the surface. Furthermore, the diction of “pall” (Line 7) can mean either being covered in darkness generally, or allude to the specific fabric that covers a coffin during a funeral. Both meanings relate to the dark funeral imagery in the final stanza, where the speaker describes how the lake’s waves mean “Death” (Line 18) with a “grave” (Line 19), but only fit for those, like the speaker, “[w]hose solitary soul could make / An Eden of that dim lake” (Lines 22-23).

The speaker both haunts and is haunted in the poem. The word “haunt” appears as a verb in Line 2, but its noun form also refers to a location, or “a spot” (Line 2). The speaker haunted the lake “[i]n spring of youth” (Line 1), or in the past. The memory of visiting the lake in the past haunts the speaker. Edgar Allan Poe’s use of the past tense—such as repeating the verb “was” four times in the poem—emphasizes how the speaker dwells on the past. Hauntology is about the inescapability of the past, or how the past intrudes on the present.

This theme is also developed by the repeated idea of isolation. The funereal imagery in the poem evokes the idea of how isolated the “grave” (Line 19) is from other people. This connects to how the lake—which contains a grave in the gulf of its waves—is far from civilization, or in the “wild” (Line 5). When describing the lake, the speaker comments on how “lovely was the loneliness” (Line 4). Including this line, the word “lone” (Lines 12, 21) and variations of it appear three times in the poem. It describes both the lake and the speaker indicating how they are both alone. The diction of “solitary soul” (Line 22) adds to the sense of isolation.

While isolated, the lake is not frightening, which makes it stand out from other examples of haunts. Haunt, as a term for both the location and action of a ghost, has been picked up by people running haunted houses, who intend to frighten their audience. However, the speaker is careful to point out that the lake is not frightening, like a modern haunt, but delightful. He describes the emotion that the lake inspires as a “tremulous delight” (Line 14). This intersection of “terror” (Line 12) and pleasure frequently appears in the category of Gothic literature. Overall, “The Lake” is a strong example of hauntology, or the persistence of the past.