THE RAVEN

The Raven



The Raven

Introduction

The Raven is the most famous poetic composition by Edgar Allan Poe. It was written in the year 1845. The poet describes the pain it caused to him because of the death of his beloved, which he called “Lenore”. This is an obsessive rhythmic poem in which anxiety is grips the reader in full of internal rhyme. The creative process of the poem is described by Poe in his essay Philosophy of Composition, which explains step by step the methodology used by the author for the realization of the poem. Poe admitted having written the poem in a very logical and methodical way, as he explains in his essay "The Philosophy of Composition, published in 1846. His intention was to attract both critics and satisfy popular demand. The poem is partly inspired by the novel Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens, where a talking raven appeared. Poe borrows the complex rhythm and meter of the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning called the Court of Lady Geraldine (Lady Geraldine's Courtship). The poem uses internal rhymes, and much alliteration

The Raven theme

Composed over eighteen six-line stanzas, “The Raven” has an exclamatory and rhyming meter which makes it melancholy as well as engaging. The bird is metaphorically used as a symbol of grief because the ballad depicts a frightening narrative of a young man's mourning over the death of his beloved woman, which he calls “Lenore”. The poet obsessively builds self-destructive significance around the bird's repetition of the word “nevermore”. In the poem, “The Raven,” the narrator shows his fear of death. At first, he tried to avoid the death, but eventually he cannot avoid death. Everyone want to survive, one would do anything if there is a way to extend their lives. They can extend their lives, but they cannot be an immortal. People who do not accept death are just same as the narrator. Medicines, surgeries, and other ways that make people live longer are the evidences which prove that people do not accept it. What if the narrator was prepared to accept the death peacefully? If the narrator did so, then he would have a peaceful and calm death without any fear, grief, or any other emotions that he express in the poem.

Many creatures coexist in earth because humans are not only the creature that live on earth, they should also respect the life circulation like the other animals do. Sometimes it seems like everything is dead as described in the poem. Poe's character especially do not think about future, living in fragments of past. But as typical of Poe's heroines usually are infected with the mysterious illness and visibly consume before lovers eyes. This reason of Poe lets one search depths of inner world of humans. Due to this reason, death is predominant theme in work of Poe, because if one person lives in constant fear of death, like Poe's characters, he changes completely referring to the perception of ...