Question

style of Abou Ben Adhem poem

Answer 1

Hunt added some context to the poem by employing an archaic style of writing here. The speech style of the characters – “What writest thou?”; “Nay, not so.” – lends to the ‘old world’ feel of the poem. Another aspect is Hunt’s practice of using an apostrophe to omit a vowel that does not have a sound – rais’d; answer’d; vanish’d. This is an early English practice that hails from the 16th century.