Criticism In Poe's The Raven By Edgar Allan Poe

When it comes to analyzing a work of literature, it is difficult to pinpoint what the story is about or who its intended audience is supposed to be without any insight on the writer; this is the case with Edgar Allan Poe. The master of horror and science fiction led an onerous life as his father abandoned their family and his mother died a year after. Despite his early life being hard, Poe had a very flourishing career and had many successful short stories and poems—his most well-known poem being “The Raven.” A casual reader may interpret this poem as a disturbed man who is simply conversing with a raven, however, that is not the case. Poe’s dark tone in “The Raven” stems from his wife’s deteriorating health and problems such as alcoholism

B.J. Bolden, an assistant professor of English at Chicago State University, states in an essay for Poetry for Students, “The Raven” demonstrates Poe’s ability as being both a poet and storyteller. To support this claim she cites that by line 10 the presented speaker “yields to the emotional trauma of his loss and slips into the abyss of madness.” In addition, Bolden uses the final stanza as additional evidence to point out that the speaker is experiencing inner turmoil from the loss of his beloved Lenore, but inevitably chooses to be haunted by past memories of her, rather than face the emptiness in which he currently finds himself in. She further goes on to say that Poe’s use of fashioning rhyme, meter, and rhythm achieves the theme of love and loss, and is emotionally engaging as it provokes empathy from the readers. As she analyzes the poem by each stanza and Bolden concludes that Poe’s “The Raven” was successful in accomplishing his dramatic and metric goals as he composed a “highly original stanzaic

Gioia explains that the details within the narrative that symbolize numerous things; to illustrate this, he notes that the narrator’s beloved Lenore “epitomizes the world of light—along with angels she has now joined,” as she is constantly described as “radiant.” Whereas, the raven symbolizes “larger and more powerful forces of darkness” in which the narrator finds himself surrounded by. Moreover, Gioia indicates that the idea of light and darkness slowly attains additional significance, such as life and death—which happens to be “the speaker’s vain hope of an afterlife with Lenore and the terrifying vision or eternal nothingness.” To further understand the inspiration behind the poem, Gioia delves into a detailed account of Poe’s statement regarding the inspiration behind “The Raven”, in which he claims inspiration nor chance played a role in this, but rather a “deliberate and conscious process that progressed with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem.” This testimony leads Gioia to end the essay with despite not knowing if Poe was being truthful or whether or not he shared the same emotions as the presented speaker; however, one thing is certain the pain expressed throughout the poem was genuine. Although, the assessment of the poem is not implausible it does not finalize what it’s