The Most Popular Poem of All Time the Raven by Edgar Allen Poe - Book Report/Review Example

Perhaps one of the most popular poems of all time, Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” tells the atmospheric tale of a tortured man, haunted by his lost love and tormented by a menacing black bird. His broken heart pushes him to the brink of madness as he recalls the arrival of the raven in his home on a cold December night. Poe makes the famous tale of Lenore’s lamenting lover memorable by carefully crafting a vivid Gothic setting throughout the poem. “The Raven” was the first of Poe’s works to achieve critical acclaim. The poem was first published in 1845 in the New York newspaper The Evening Mirror. Before “The Raven,” none of Poe’s writings “garnered him much recognition in the literary world.” However, “The Raven” was “hailed by critics as a work of genius, earning Poe a respected reputation as a serious writer” (Iorillo). The work became one of the most recognizable poems of the twentieth century, and Iorillo attributes this to Poe’s meticulous skill, stating that he “was a deliberate, precise wordsmith.” The setting of “The Raven” is a good example of Poe’s precise execution of language, with his images combining to create an atmosphere that is quintessentially Gothic. Iorillo states, “Poe was not the first Gothic writer but he is undeniably one of the most potent.” The term “Gothic literature” is defined as “literary style popular during the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. This style usually portrayed fantastic tales dealing with horror, despair, the grotesque and other ‘dark’ subjects” (Taylor). The Gothic setting of “The Raven” is evident from the very beginning of the poem. The poem begins to paint its setting by describing the night as a “midnight dreary,” creating suspense, misery and dread even before the finish of the poem’s first line. The next image Poe presents is “a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.” Poe’s diction heightens the mysterious and eerie setting by using the words “curious” and “forgotten” to describe the book that the narrator is reading as the poem begins. As the narrator peruses the pages of his “curious” book, he hears a noise outside his door, which he dismisses as an unwelcome visitor. The next stanza further enhances the poem’s Gothic setting as the narrator clearly recalls the “bleak December” night when he first encountered the raven. He tells us how he recalls the burning wood in his fireplace as each “separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.” His thoughts then turn from the ghosts of embers to the ghost of his lost love, Lenore, a girl destined to be “nameless” in his home “forevermore” now that she is presumably dead. He wonders again about the noise, remembering his lamented Lenore as he looks outside. Poe then deepens the gloomy Gothic setting by writing, “deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing.” Using the words “wondering” and “fearing” in conjunction with “darkness” enhances the dark and gloomy setting. The narrator thinks of his lost love, and it makes his heart stir “with fantastic terrors” as he imagines her ghost outside. He then peers out of his door, timidly calling her name into the cold night air. When he finds no source of the sound, he returns to his chamber only to hear the outside noise again. The poem then presents its main image, a black raven that comes in through a shutter that the narrator opens to investigate the strange sounds. The bird is described as a “ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore,” adding another Gothic image to the poem. The dark bird flies in and perches above the narrator’s door, and every question the narrator asks the bird is responded to by the taunting and ominous response of “nevermore.” At first, the narrator is amused by the bird’s responses. As the bird continues to repeat this word, the narrator hypothesizes that it must have learned the word from a “master whom unmerciful disaster / Followed fast” until all the bird heard was “the dirges” of the word “nevermore” repeated over and over as the soundtrack to his master’s “melancholy burden.” But by the end of the poem, the narrator is uncertain whether the raven is a dumb animal or a physical manifestation of his own psychological burden. The bird serves to remind the narrator that he shall never come to terms with his lost love, Lenore. Poe illustrates this when the narrator states that the raven’s “fiery eyes now burned into my bosoms core.” The narrator fills with anger and pain, telling the raven to leave his home and “take thy beak from out [his] heart,” but the poem ends with the bird still sitting above the narrator’s door with “eyes [that] have all the seeming of a demons that is dreaming.” He calls the bird “a thing of evil” and states that his “home by horror [is] haunted.” Poe ends the poem by stating that nevermore will his soul rise out of the bird’s shadow “that lies floating on the floor.” This eerie image concludes the poem, ending the tale in the same Gothic setting in which it began. Dark images are clearly prevalent throughout this poem of love, loss and a foreboding black bird, and these images create the poem’s dark, Gothic setting. In “The Philosophy of Composition,” Poe discusses the images he used to create the grim setting of this sordid song. He writes, "I had gone so far as the conception of a Raven—the bird of ill omen—monotonously repeating the one word, ‘Nevermore,’ at the conclusion of each stanza, in a poem of melancholy tone, and in length about one hundred lines.” Poe certainly succeeded at creating a tone of melancholy. His narrator verges on utter despair as the raven reminds him of his misery and loss. The bird offers up the repetition of a single word as the conclusion to all the narrator’s most lamentable statements, showing that even an animal can see that the narrator’s life is hopeless. Poe then discusses his craft, stating, “Never losing sight of the object supremeness, or perfection, at all points, I asked myself—‘Of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy?’ Death—was the obvious reply.” He uses the image of the bird as a symbol of impending madness and misery, which combines with his theme of death and loss to make a very potent Gothic poem indeed. Poe continues to expound on his intentions when writing “The Raven” by stating: “ ‘And when,’ I said, ‘is the most melancholy of topics most poetical?” From what I have already explained at some length, the answer, here also, is obvious—‘When it most closely allies itself to beauty: the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world—and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such a topic are those of a bereaved lover.’” Certainly, the discussion of the death of a beautiful lover and the dark madness that haunts the narrator’s mind are well-conveyed by the haunting images that combine to create Poe’s spooky Gothic setting. In “The Raven,” Poe carefully employs dark diction and eerie imagery, combining these elements to create a creepy Gothic setting. This helps him to convey the melancholy mood of the poem’s themes of death and bereavement. Poe truly is one of literature’s most potent Gothic writers, as the setting of “The Raven” illustrates. Works Cited Iorillo, Joseph. "Edgar Allen Poe In the Shadow of the Raven.“ Dark Realms Magazine. 1 Oct. 2002. 6 Nov. 2007. . Poe, Edgar A. “The Philosophy of Composition.” Graham’s Magazine. Apr. 1846. 9 Nov. 2001. 7 Nov. 2007. < http://web.uvic.ca/~joanj/raven/poe.htm>. Poe, Edgar A. “The Raven.” New York: Scholastic Books, 2002. Taylor, Jerry. “All American: Glossary of Literary Terms.” University of North Carolina at Pembroke. 1 Feb 2001. 6 Nov. 2007. . Read More