Why People Are Drawn to The Raven
Certainly, we tend to like to like a good ghost story and are drawn by the possibility of the supernatural. The speaker’s initial thought that his Lenore has returned to him from beyond the grave is a captivating one. When the speaker wonders whether The Raven is a prophet or messenger from death, we are titillated and drawn to the possibility as well. For example, it is said that after the poem’s publication, children would follow Poe down the street and call him The Raven. Poe being good natured would flap his arms with his long black coat on, thrilling them to no end. We are drawn to the creepiness and other-worldliness of the poem. It is the speaker’s terrible grief and longing for her that has made him
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so hopeful, we can relate to him and the poem on a very human level. If a reader has experienced a similarly painful loss, or even has a capacity for empathy, many feel that sense of a deep and shared human emotion. Which compels readers to relate to the speaker and experience a small measure of what Poe does. This sense of universal human experience with emotions like grief that is so painful and yet so appealing to many that draws us to The Raven. The poem employs gothic ambience to explore themes of grief, negativity, and depression. The narrator is reading to try to forget about his “sorrow for the lost Lenore.” His lost loved one so fills his thoughts that at various times in the poem believes she is near him. Later he things he hears her footsteps and smells her perfume. His grief is affecting his mind, and thoughts of his departed loved one overtake him so that he imagines her presence. This theme portrays how grief dominates the mind of one who has recently lost a loved one to the extent that his imaginary can get carried away. Sadly, the man’s grief leads to negativity and doubt. He soon succumbs to doubts about whether he will see Lenore again in the afterlife and whether he will ever be able to forget her in this life. This leads him to ask the wrong questions of the bird. Knowing the bird is only capable of saying a single word the narrator regardless asks a question that is sure to bring despair. This points out that when one asks the wrong question, one gets the wrong answer. Ironically though, a person who is swathed in negativity only asks negative questions that confirm the despair the narrator feels. As the man sinks further into grief and negativity, he finds himself drowning in depression. The bird’s beak in his heart, it’s eyes demonically gleaming at him, and its shadow enveloping him are symbolic of the depression that immobilizes him. The poem suggests that grief can produce long-term depression in a person who has lost a loved one. Something so universally experienced by everyone at one point in their life. The musical quality of the poem is incredibly alluring to readers. The poem’s meter is called trochaic octameter. This means that there are eight feet per line, each foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable. Each of the syllables in bold is accented (stressed). The most typical, and comfortable foot in the English language is the iamb. The iamb consists of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed (the opposite of the trochee). Trochaic meters are often used to sound menacing and dark. Lines beginning with an accented syllable rather than an unaccented sound more aggressive than a line composed in a iambic meter. This meter alerts the readers subconscious that something a little strange is happening in the poem. It provokes a mental response that darkens the poem’s mood before we really know what it’s about. Remember that the strong consistent rhythm is not only impacting the reader strongly when reading this poem or hearing it.
Poe also uses alliteration and internal rhyme alongside the strong rhythm to relentlessly arrive at the grim conclusion of the poem. Working together, these three aspects contribute towards a dark and pessimistic tone that corresponds the feeling of the narrator. As you read or hear it, you get the picture of the narrator being driven into an even greater frenzy as he desires to know the truth. The use of internal rhyme combined with the certain words and alliteration alongside the rhythm seems only to accelerate the speed the poem and to help consolidate this imaged as we picture a man speeding up to run over the edge of a cliff. If you look at the sixteenth stanza, you can observe the repetition of words such as “maiden”. There are also examples of internal rhyme such as “evil” and “devil” in the first line and “laden” and “Aidenn” in the third, which rhyme with “maiden”. Also, the alliteration in the penultimate line in “rare and radiant.” It’s clear that the impact of all these effects, including the very strong consistent rhythm, is something that manipulates the reader. It gives us the readers a sense of the narrator’s mind careering out of control as the relentless pace of the poem
accelerate. One of the most memorable things about The Raven is the repetition of the word “nevermore” at the end of nearly every stanza. The bird probably only knows that one word, but it becomes a symbol of death. The constant repetition of “nevermore” make it seem that death itself is not only inescapable but even the thought of death becomes inescapable as one gets older and the fact of death becomes starker. What the speaker of the poem finds most terrible about the fact of death is that it obliterates everything in eternal darkness. He asks the bird if there is any possibility that he might be reunited with his dead loved one Lenore in some afterlife, and the bird relentlessly repeats the same word “as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.” (Poe 737). What any loved one dies many are likely to be haunted by the thoughts of what we should have said to them, or not said to them while they were still alive. In the end the speaker can neither console himself with the possibility of finding “balm in Gilead” (hope in the promises of the Bible) nor forget about the question altogether. The bird refuses to leave and has nothing more to say. The enduring quality in “The Raven” is the narrator’s struggle with letting go. Letting go of someone or something is a dilemma that anyone, regardless of time, or context can relate to. Poe’s mysterious Lenore is the symbolic object that Poe struggles with letting go of that the reader can likely relate to a similar object or experience in their own life. The narrator is in a state of denial for his lost Lenore, fighting against her absence with desperate pleas to the Raven; “Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Let me quaff this kind Nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!” (Poe 737). The Raven’s repeated infuriating replies of “Nevermore”, while it doesn’t lead the narrator to any kind of closure, it does force him to realize that the entire exchange is pointless. Lenore is gone, and it doesn’t matter what the Raven says. The Raven’s repetition reinforces Lenore’s absence. In a sense, the narrator achieves a kind of closure albeit one that is with sadness. This is not the only quality that carries the poem into our modern consciousness, but it is the most intriguing because the narrators struggle is so universal enough to appeal to modern readers. That coupled with the easy rhythm and satisfying repetitions make “The Raven” one of Poe’s most popular works.
By using repetition, Poe captures the reader’s attention and makes them want to continue reading to understand the poem. In addition, the repetition of the name makes the poem flow well and easy to read. Alliteration Alliteration is another poetic device that is used in the poem. Specifically in the line: “But we loved with a love that was more than love”, found in stanza two. The appearance of repeated letters in the line of poetry indicates an important
In,”The Raven”, Poe utilizes diction, syntax, and rhymes to convey his theme of depression towards his lost love, Lenore. The raven flew into Poe’s home uninvited and stayed perched on his chamber door. In the story, the raven symbolizes the undying grief he has for Lenore.
The entire poem including the first stanza, as scanned here, is octametre with mostly trochaic feet and some iams. The use of a longer line enables the poem to be more of a narration of the evening's events. Also, it enables Poe to use internal rhymes as shown in bold. The internal rhyme occurs in the first and third lines of each stanza. As one reads the poem you begin to expect the next rhyme pushing you along. The external rhyme of the "or" sound in Lenore and nevermore at then end of each stanza imitates the haunting nature of the narrator's thoughts. The internal rhyme along with the same external rhyme repeated at the end of each stanza and other literary devices such as alliteration and assonance and give the poem a driving chant-like sound. The musicality of the rhyme also helps one to memorize the poem. This helps keep the poem in your head after you've finished reading it, lingering in your thoughts just as the narrator's thoughts are haunting him. The rhyme also helps to produce a humming beat in the readers mind driving him on steadily..
Edgar Allen Poe was one of the greatest writers of the nineteenth century. Perhaps he is best know for is ominous short stories. One of my personal favorites was called The Raven. Throughout his works Poe used coherent connections between symbols to encourage the reader to dig deep and find the real meaning of his writing. Poe's work is much like a puzzle, when u first see it its intact, but take apart and find there is much more to the story than you thought. The Raven, written in 1845, is a perfect example of Poe at his craziest. Poe's calculated use of symbolism is at his best in this story as each symbol coincides with the others. In The Raven, Poe explains a morbid fear of loneliness and the end of something through symbols. The symbols not only tell the story of the narrator in the poem, they also tell the true story of Poe's own loneliness in life and the hardships he faced. Connected together through imagery they tell a story of a dark world only Poe Knows exists.
Edgar Allan Poe primarily authored stories dealing with Gothic literature; the stories were often quite dreary. Poe possessed a very sorrowful view of the world and he expressed this throughout his literary works. His goal was to leave an impression with every detail that he included in his stories. Although Poe’s stories seem very wretched and lackluster they all convey a certain idea. A trademark of Poe’s is his use of very long complex sentences. For instance, in his work The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe tried to ensure that every detail was as relevant as possible by integrating a wide variety of emotion. In the third paragraph, of page two hundred ninety-seven, Poe wrote, “Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around…” This sentence illustrates the descriptiveness and complexity that Edgar Allan Poe’s works consisted of. The tormented cognizance of Poe led him to use a very gloomy diction throughout his writing. Edgar Allan Poe’s use of symbols and the way he conveyed his writing expr...
Throughout “Alone”, Poe uses various poetic devices to captivate his reader. For instance, Poe uses external rhyme throughout the poem, at the end of each pair of lines. Along with the use of rhyming, Poe also uses descriptive imagery. A m...
Edgar Allan Poe?s ?The Raven? is a dark reflection on lost love, death, and loss of hope. The poem examines the emotions of a young man who has lost his lover to death and who tries unsuccessfully to distract himself from his sadness through books. Books, however, prove to be of little help, as his night becomes a nightmare and his solitude is shattered by a single visitor, the raven. Through this poem, Poe uses symbolism, imagery and tone, as well as a variety of poetic elements to enforce his theme of sadness and death of the one he loves.
Poe uses internal rhyme throughout the poem providing a whimsical air much like the euphoric feeling of young love that Poe and Virginia experienced (Mabbott). The internal rhymes allow for a spirited read of the poem and relates the narrators feels to the audience among the usually imagery as seen in the last stanza of the poem, “For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams/ of the beautiful Annabel Lee; and the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes/ of the beautiful Annabel Lee” (Poe). These lines also exemplify another craft element used over and over by Poe, repetition. The repeating of “the beautiful Annabel Lee” is an expression of Poe’s enchanted view of Virginia. He is repeating not only her beauty, but throughout the poem he refers to her as “my Annabel Lee”. He is showing possession of her, not in a bad way, but in a loving way that shows he held her very dear to his heart (Mabbott). Poe also uses assonance to give the same effect as given by the internal rhyming, the flow and euphoric feeling travels through the poem in its uniformity, especially in lines like, “to shut her up in a sepulcher” and “a wind blew out of a cloud by night”
Poe uses a different rhyme scheme throughout the poem to add a sort of rise and fall for the audience to give them different feelings about the poem. Whether it's sympathism or sadness. He is able to do this by changing the pattern because in turn it changes the reader's emotions. In addition to the changing rhyming pattern in each of the poem's six stanzas, Poe repeats a lot of the same words. The effect of structuring a poem this way causes it to stay in the reader's mind, as well as to build meaning each time a certain word is repeated. One of the biggest rhymes in the poem is his love interests name, Annabel Lee, along with the location of the poem “by the sea”. Both the Kingdom and Annabel Lee's tomb are both described as being “by the sea. An additional repetition we see in the poem is that Poe sometimes couples repetition of consonant sounds with repetition of vowel sounds. One can see this for example in “many and many”(line 1), “love and be loved” (line 6), “and those who were older than we” (line
In Poe’s own life no durg could ever fully numb him to the pain of all his loses. His only true solace from his despair was in literature and his writings. Poe believed that visual art allowed the spirit to transcend the plane of reality to which it was stuck. In the Raven the narrator closely resembles Poe in this aspect. The narrator spends many a night reading long forgotten literature in an attempt to forget his own troubles after his loss. This is explained beautifully by Poe with the line “Eagerly I wished the morrow;- vainly I had tried to borrow, / From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore.” (Poe 9-10) No matter how hard he tries; however he can shake the crushing despair that has a firm grip on his emotions. One dreary night the narrator gained an unsuspecting visitor. This visitor came in the form of a raven that flew into his window. The raven torments the man reminding him of his insecurities, his flaws, and his loss. The raven accomplishes all these things by rhythmically answering his pleas with but one word, to quote the raven “nevermore.” Just like the narrator will nevermore see the face of his dead love, he too will never be free from his despair. For as long as the man lives much like Poe he
Poe’s life is reflected through Poe utilises the device of trochaic octameter meaning that the trochee begins with a syllable that is stressed followed by a weak (unstressed) syllable (Study Institution, 2013). The overall aim of using trochaic octameter is to exaggerate the stressed words, creating hyperbole. Using the first two lines of the first stanza as an example, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore…” it is evident that every pair of words is a trochee, a set of stressed and unstressed syllables (Dictionary.com, 2015). When hyperbole is apparent, it also allows the alliteration to be enhanced. In the fourteenth stanza, the first two lines exhibit these two devices working together, “Then methought the air grew denser, perfume from an unseen censer, Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted For Poe, the hyperbole of his life was that his father abandoned him and that his mother died when he was just two years old.
Poe utilizes a gradual change in diction as the poem progresses. Initially, he begins the poem with melancholic diction when the narrator is falling asleep: “while I pondered, weak and weary,” “nodded, nearly napping,” and “of someone gently rapping” (1-4). The utilization of alliteration in these lines supply a song-like rhythm, which is soothing to the reader. This usage of diction conveys a mellow tone. Further into the poem, when the increasingly agitated narrator becomes vexed at the raven, he lashes out at the bird. Here, he states, “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! / Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! / Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door! / Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” (98-101). Here, his uses archaic words and phrases such as “thee,” “Night’s Plutonian shore,” and “thy soul hath”. This usage of unorthodox language creates a theatrical, dramatic, and climactic effect, which leads to an impassioned tone. By presenting both tones, Poe is able to show the contrast between the two. This transformation from a tone that is mellow to one of frustration and anxiety represents the spiraling downward of the narrator’s mental state.
Edgar Allen Poe’s alliteration and repetition of words support the poem’s flow and musicality. Poe begins with the alliteration of the m sound in “merriment” and “melody” (3). The soft m sound, also known as a liquid consonant, helps to keep a quick and continuous pace for the poem. Similarly, the alliteration of the s sounds in sledges, silver, stars, and seem, emphasize the calming sounds of the bells (1-2, 6-7). The s sound helps express the soothing and comforting effects of the bells, essentially contributing to the merry tone of the poem. Furthermore, the alliteration of t...
First, Edgar Allen Poe gives us a taste of his title as father of gothic horror in his poem “The Raven”. In this poem the narrator mourns over the loss of his lover Lenore. Edgar Allen Poe states, "A curious volume of forgotten lore" (Line 2). The narrator's mind has become obsessed with past thoughts that are haunting him and causing horror within him. Poe goes on to describe this raven as a shadow that overcomes the speakers own thoughts, almost like a ghostly figure of fear. Fear that the narrator cannot live without his love.
What really makes the poem so powerful are the elements Poe uses. First he sets the scene, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-…” already it’s clear that it is late at night and a man is weak and tired trying to ease his sorrow by reading old books of “forgotten lore” (DiYanni 1173). Then the poem goes on to tell that there is a tapping at his chamber door. When he opens the door he is surprised to find, “Darkness there and nothing more” (1173). He whispers into the darkness “Lenore,” hoping that his lost love had returned, but all that was heard was, “an echo [that] murmured back the word, ‘Lenore!’”(1173). Angered and perplexed, he turns back into his chamber, suddenly there is a loud tapping at the window lattice. H...