"The Raven" is a ballad composed of eighteen stanzas of six lines each. The rhyme system of the poem is ABCBBB. Poe employs a variety of literary strategies in this poem, including alliteration, personification, and repetition. The poem's plot involves a young woman who is married to a wealthy man. She loves another man, but her husband will not let her see him. So she kills her husband with an axe and then commits suicide.