Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven” is one of the most popular works. This poem like many other Poe’s works touches upon one of the major topics namely the Death. Poe presents a typical image of a protagonist tormented with agonized memories of a lost beloved woman. The author describes philosophical human tendency to self-reproach in his poem “The Raven”. The narrator of the poem bows himself down with sorrow for a lost love.
“The Raven” is written in trochaic octameter and is famous for its dramatic and melodic nature. Edgar Poe writes in his essay “The Philosophy of Composition” about the composition of this poem. He points out that composition is like a mathematical problem and the writer has to calculate to write verses. He stresses that one of the main aims of verse is a production of a single effect influenced the reader in one sitting. That is why the poetry should be written in a precise and captivating way. Poe writes that the whole size of the poem should be around one hundred strophes and “The Raven” is 108 stanzas.
This poem as well as other Edgar Poe’s literary works is written backwards. One single effect causes a set of memories, feelings and events. Writing “The Raven” Poe strived for the universally appreciation that is why he chose the most popular theme of Beauty. He considered sorrow and grief to be the highest implementation of Beauty. In order to present the state of melancholy in its high manifestation he chose the topic of the Death, namely the Death of a beloved woman. Edgar Poe believed like many other writers of his epoch that the Death of a beautiful and beloved woman was the most poetic image.
The author uses the climax to express the tension of the inner state of his narrator. The third verse from the end is the high point of tension. With every question to the raven the narrator becomes closer and closer to the climax. The tension intensifies with every stanza till the third one from the end after which the narrator understands the senselessness of the situation in searching for the answers for his questions in the raven’s “nevermore”.
Edgar Poe uses the simple word “Nevermore!” at the end of each refrain which helps him to compose different thoughts in rhymes ending in one and the same word “Nevermore!” It is the closing word of each strophe and it is used with rhythmic purposes. The feelings of the narrator become strained with every stanza more and more. He asks the questions which trouble him deeply and asking these questions subconsciously he is ready to hear the answer “Nevermore!” which makes him more depressed. The “O” sound is stressed in this poem in such words as “Nevermore!” and “Lenore” which adds the melancholic atmosphere to the whole poem. Edgar Poe uses assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and consonance to produce the melancholic atmosphere of the poem.
The poem is full of ancient and poetic words which testify to the fact that the narrator is an educated person spending his time reading the books of “forgotten lore” (2st.). The word “seraphim” which is used in the fourteenth verse presents the invisible ghosts flying in the night room. Seraphim are the members of the highest order of angels in the celestial hierarchies. “Nepenthe” which is used in the same strophe is a drug, or the plant providing it, that ancient writers referred to as a means of forgetting grief or trouble. The narrator uses this word as one of the means of getting rid of the memories about the lost Lenore which torment him. The expression “balm in Gilead” used in the fifteenth verse is the biblical expression from the Old Testament denoting consolation and healing. It is a soothing ointment produced in Gilead, a historic mountainous region east of the River Jordan. “Aidenn” is used in the sixteenth verse and denotes the paradise. It is an Arabic variant of the word “Eden”. Edgar Poe makes the use of the word “Plutonian” in the eighth and seventeenth verses. Plutonian is the god of the underworld. The use of these ancient and poetic words is a peculiar feature of Edgar Poe’s writing style and the use of these words makes his verses more beautiful and sophisticated.
The poem is full of symbols which is the peculiar feature of Edgar Allan Poe’s literary works. The central symbol is the raven itself. It is the non-reasoning creature which answers the narrator’s sensitive questions with short and simple answer – ‘Nevermore!”. To express human self-tortures Poe has chosen a silly bird who repeats one and the same word for different questions. Poe could have chosen the parrot which automatically and thoughtless repeat different words but the image of the raven adds more grief and melancholy to the poem. More than that, the raven’s black feathers symbolizes a hex. According to the mythology, the god Odin has two ravens called Munin and Hugin which symbolize “memory” and “thought”. It is memory and thought which torture human beings. The narrator tries not to think about Lenore but the memories don’t leave him alone.
Another symbol skillfully used by Edgar Poe is the bust of Pallas used in the description of the raven that “perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door”. Pallas is the goddess of wisdom according to the Greek mythology and refers to Athena who is called Pallas Athena. This image expresses the scholarship of the main character. That fact that the raven answers his questions sitting on Pallas bust makes the narrator believe that this bird speaks from wisdom. As the result, the fact that a wise man refers to the silly bird repeating one and the same word to ask all questions of vital importance is a sort of irony. More than that, many researches points out that Edgar Poe has chosen the word “Pallas” due to its sonorousness.
The action takes place at December midnight which is also considered to be a symbolic in some ways. It means the end of something on the one hand and the hope for something new on the other hand. Many translators of this poem refer this day to New Year’s Eve. For example, in Viktor Rydberg’s translations into Swedish the first stanza “The last night of the year had arrived” the reader may catch the point that the actions take place in New Year’s Eve. Kenneth Silverman explains in his researches the use of December as the month when Edgar Poe’s mother died. The description of the chamber where the narrator misses his Lenore is the symbol of melancholy and loneliness. Every part of his room reminds him about his lost happiness. The sound outside the door presents is opposed to the calmness in the room: “And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me – filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before” (13-14 st). The night brings the memories which trouble the narrator.
“The Raven” is one of the best examples of Edgar Poe’s mastership. An appropriate and skillful use of different stylistic devices and symbols helps the author to pass the main idea and atmosphere of the poem.