An Analysis of the First Two Stanzas of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

An Analysis of the First Two Stanzas of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

Picture yourself alone one night. You are sitting up in bed, your legs buried underneath your comforter while you read for what seems like the hundredth time that same paragraph from Franklin for your American Literature class, and trying to ignore the storm that is only getting stronger outside. Suddenly, the power goes out, and you only have candlelight to read by. The silence becomes deafening, and you watch the shadows play across the wall. Unexpectedly, you hear this scratching on the door to your bedroom, but you are alone in the house. You tell yourself it is only the wind, or it's only your imagination running away with you. After all, there are no such things as ghosts. If you can picture this, you then can have a good idea of Poe's The Raven.

The first two stanzas of The Raven introduce you to the narrator, and his beloved maiden Lenore. You find him sitting on a "dreary" and dark evening with a book opened in front of him, though he is dozing more than reading. Suddenly, he hears knocking on his door, but only believes it to be a visitor nothing more. He remembers another night, like this one, where he had sought the solace of his library to forget his sorrows of his long lost beloved, and to wait for dawn. Meanwhile the tapping on his door continues

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Poe's most famous poem begins with an imagery that immediately brings the reader into a dark, cold, and stormy night. Poe does not wish for his readers to stand on the sidelines and watch the goings on, but actually be in the library with the narrator, hearing what he hears and seeing what he sees. Using words and phrases such as "midnight dre...

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...ile the rural areas were filled with crops growing up again on the torn land, and people progressed closer and closer to the edges of the Mississippi River. They needed a release of everyday life, something they could read by the fire at night that would take them away into another world. Poe was a master at this.

In the first two stanzas of Poe's The Raven, we learn of the setting for the narrator's psychological breakdown. The tone and mood is set from the opening line, "Once upon a midnight dreary," which captures the reader and holds tight. Through his use of imagery and rhythm of the tapping on the door, and his moaning of his lost Lenore the reader knows that is no ordinary poem about a man haunted by his beloved. It is a perfect beginning to one of the world's most famous poems, from one of the most infamous writers of our American heritage.