Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven

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“The Raven” contains 48 lines grouped by five lines of about 16 syllables. There’s a line that’s 7 syllables, and there’s 18 stanzas in the poem. An example of an 8-foot meter is line 1, “ONCE u PON a MID night DREAR y, WHILE i POND ered WEAK and WEAR y” this line is a trochaic octameter; the octameter frequently appeared throughout the poem. The less common occurrence is the 7-foot meter and line 27, is an example of an iambic heptameter “but THE si LENCE was UN broken, AND the STILL ness GAVE no TOK en.” The rhyming patterns in the poem are, internal rhyme, he likes to rhyme words in the same line, for example line 3, “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,” an end rhyme where the word at the end of a line rhymes with …show more content…

It becomes apparent when he speaks to the raven that this man may not be in his right state of mind. The poem is titled “The Raven” because of the symbolism the raven conveys in the poem; representing the death and darkness. Unexpectedly, death disrupts and lingers an individuals’ life. This raven represents what death imposes to a life, it came into the narrators life unexpected and lingered while unwanted. The point of view in this poem is first person. The narrator’s language casts a grim portrayal that concerns a man, loathing in a gothic chamber, accompanied by his disconsolate thoughts, while the last fireplace embers burn, on a frigid December night. An idea in the poem is that his emotional stability is vulnerable to his fracturing mental state, line 14, “Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before.” To be thrilled and terrified by the rustling curtains exhibits the narrator’s loneliness and susceptibility to the smallest occurrences; rustling curtains is a common phenomenon that goes unnoticed by people. His panic starts to erupt, from line 31 “Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning.” The part “Back into the chamber turning” describes the state of mind at the beginning of a panic attack, where he is trapped within his own thoughts. Then he goes on to say “all my soul within me burning” describes the intense thoughts and emotions that panic attacks bring to the surface. He is unable to escape the physical and emotional

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