Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven Edgar Allan Poe Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. `'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door - Only this, and nothing more.' Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore - For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore - Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating `'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door - Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; - This it is, and nothing more,' Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, `Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; - Darkness there, and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!' This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!' Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. `Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore - Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; - 'Tis the wind and nothing more!' Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door - Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door - Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, `Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven.

Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore - Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!' Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.' Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door - Bird or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as `Nevermore.' But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only, That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered - Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before - On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.' Then the bird said, `Nevermore.' Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, `Doubtless,' said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore - Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore Of "Never-nevermore."' But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore - What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking `Nevermore.' This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, with my head

 at ease reclining On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er, She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. `Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!' Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.' `Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! - Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted - On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore - Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!' Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.' `Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore - Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore - Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore?' Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.' `Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting - `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!' Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.' And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted - nevermore!

The Raven Summary - eNotes.com The Raven Summary Trivia The Raven Summary In the first stanza of this classic poem, the speaker reads alone in his chamber. He's disturbed by a tapping on his door. When he opens the window, a raven flies in, taunting him. Every time the narrator speaks, the raven responds with “Nevermore.” The speaker assumes the raven learned it from a melancholy master. The speaker thinks he feels an angel in the room. He hopes the angel has come to help him stop dwelling on the “lost Lenore." The raven says “Nevermore” to this. The speaker asks whether he will ever see Lenore again. The raven answers “Nevermore.” When the speaker demands that the raven leave, it repeats the refrain: “Nevermore.” link Link “The Raven” is unquestionably Poe’s most famous poem. After its publication, it became so well known that its refrain “nevermore” became a catchphrase repeated by people on the street.

Poe, who told one friend that he thought the poem was the greatest poem ever written, was delighted one night at the theater when an actor interpolated the word into his speech, and almost everyone in the audience seemed to recognize the allusion. The work remains Poe’s best-known poem today partly because, in his “Philosophy of Composition,” Poe describes what he claims was the method by which he composed the poem. Whether or not that description is an accurate account of how the work was composed, it is surely a description of how Poe wished the poem to be read. Thus, Poe himself was the first, and is perhaps still the best, critic and interpreter of his own poem. As Poe makes clear in “The Philosophy of Composition,” he wished to create an effect of beauty associated with melancholy in the poem; he decided that the refrain “nevermore,” uttered to a young man whose mistress has recently died, was perfectly calculated to achieve that effect. According to Poe, the basic situation, the central character, and the plot of the poem were all created as a pretext or excuse for setting up the “nevermore” refrain, to be repeated with a variation of meaning and impact each time.

The plot is a simple one: A young student is reading one stormy night in his chamber, half-dreaming about his beloved deceased mistress. He hears a tapping at his window and opens it to admit a raven, obviously someone’s pet which has escaped its master, seeking shelter from the storm. The raven can speak only one word, “nevermore.” When the student, amused by this incident, asks the raven questions, its reply of “nevermore” strikes a melancholic echo in his heart. Although he knows that the raven can only speak this one word, he is compelled by what Poe calls the universal human need for self-torture to ask the bird questions to which the response “nevermore” will cause his suffering to be even more intense. When this self-torture reaches its most extreme level, Poe says, the poem then naturally ends.

The sorrow of the young student and the stormy midnight hour contribute to the overall effect of the poem, but the most important feature is the sound of the refrain—a sound that is established even before the raven appears by the dead mistress’s name “Lenore.” The echo of the word “Lenore” by “nevermore” is further emphasized in stanza 5, when the student peers into the darkness and whispers “Lenore?” only to have the word echoed back, “Merely this and nothing more.” Once the lost Lenore is projected as the source of the student’s sorrow, the appearance of the raven as a sort of objectification of this sorrow seems poetically justified. When he asks the raven its name and hears the ominous word, “nevermore,” the student marvels at the bird’s ability to utter the word but realizes that the word has no inherent meaning or relevance. The relevance of the bird’s answer depends solely on the nature of the questions or remarks the student puts to it.

For example, when he says that the bird will leave tomorrow, like all his “hopes have flown before,” he is startled by the seemingly relevant reply, “nevermore.” The student begins to wonder what the ominous bird “means” by repeating “nevermore.” When he cries that perhaps his god has sent him respite from his sorrow and memory of Lenore, the bird’s response of “nevermore” makes him call the bird “prophet” and compels him to ask it if, after death, he will clasp the sainted maiden whom the angels call Lenore; to this question he knows he will receive the reply, “nevermore.” Obsessively pushing his need for self-torture to its ultimate extreme, the young man calls for the bird to take its beak from its heart and its form from his door, once again knowing what response he will receive. Although the poem is often dismissed as a cold-blooded contrivance, it is actually a carefully designed embodiment of the human need to torture the self and to find meaning in meaninglessness. More Content: Summary (hide) The Raven Reference - eNotes.com The Raven Reference link Link Illustration from "The Raven," 1845.

Published by Gale Cengage GETTY IMAGES Edgar Allan Poe's (1809849) "The Raven" (1845) is a repetitive poem about repetition. And as Poe's most famous poem, perhaps the most famous poem in American literature, it has been endlessly repeatedeprinted, rewritten, rehearsed, and recited, the image of the raven recycled as an emblem of gothic horror and Baltimorean civic pride. Even in Poe's lifetime the poem was widely parodiedn at least fifteen different published works between 1845 and 1849, the year of Poe's death (Poe, Complete Poems, p. 352)nd "The Raven" has come to more or less define Poe's image in popular culture, from The Simpsons to the lyrics of Lou Reed. Students often wonder what the raven (and therefore "The Raven") means, but any attempt to answer that question must also address the question of what all that repetition means.

Within the poem, the repetition means simply that the speaker is obsessed with "the lost Lenore." Once he realizes that the raven will reliably repeat "nevermore" in response to anything he says to it, he turns the encounter into a perverse game in which the word "nevermore" reminds him of the grief, what Poe called "Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance," that will occupy him forever. The narrator transforms the bird into both an instrument of self-torture and a symbol of his personal mourning. The poem performs those functions as well through repetition. It is impossible to escape the insistent rhymesnternal, external, they are everywherehe thudding trochaic octameter (lines of eight stressed/unstressed "beats": ONCE uPON a MIDnight DREARy, WHILE i PONdered WEAK and WEARy), the simple verbal repetitions ("followed fast and followed faster" [l. 64]; "Is therei>is there balm in Gilead?ell meell me, I implore!" [l.

89]), or the alliteration ("this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore" [l. 71]), all of which, like the ecstatic pain of grief, both excites and torments the reader. MOURNING, REPETITION, AND IMITATION While the fame of "The Raven" is largely a result of its uniqueness, an awareness of what makes the poem typical might help the reader better understand the poem's place in nineteenth-century American culture. Specifically the performance of grief as a repetition compulsion is firmly rooted in mid-nineteenth-century mourning ritual. As Ann Douglas and Karen Halttunen have shown, the rural cemetery movement, the appearance of mourning guidebooks, the unwritten codes involving dress and comportment, and an outpouring of sentimental poems about loss marked a new set of expectations for bereavement. Halttunen quotes one mourning manual that delivers its message in the form of a catechism: "Why is that mother robed in mourning? It is the outward token of a mourning which the heart alone can feel" (p. 136).

Paradoxically the unique experience of grief had to be shown through formal devices such as special clothing, tokens such as wreaths woven from the hair of the deceased, and graveyard visitsepeated by individual mourners and imitated by other mourners. The repetitious raven, likewise, is an objective correlative symbol that perfectly evokes the emotion it representsor grief and the poem, with its insistence on the speaker's sincerity and solitude, struck the right note within a culture of sincerity that insisted on stereotyped outward signs of "inner" experience. Ralph Waldo Emerson once referred to Poe as "the jingle man," alluding to what many have regarded as the cheap musicality of Poe's poetry. But "The Raven's" theme is equally the stuff of pop music. The poet Dave Smith, analyzing the poem's appeal, makes a fundamental point: "We have loved and lost, felt heartbreak, felt ourselves abandoned. This is a basic country-western song and it sells more than we may want to think about" (p. 8). In fact thinking about it will only get the reader so far.

The poem probably owed much of its popularity to the fact that most people who read and heard it knew they did not have to think about it in order to "get" it. Like any good pop song, the power of "The Raven" comes through its manipulation ofot its defiance ofonventions, both stylistic and thematic. Poe's later explanation that the death of a beautiful woman is "unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world" (Essays and Reviews, p. 19) puts a sexist spin on a tenet that his contemporaries seem to have shared: that bereavement begets poetry and that writing and reading such poetry is itself a ritual of mourning. The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary (1865), for instance, contains twenty poems by Alice (1820871) and nine by Phoebe (1824871) under the heading "Poems of Grief and Consolation," and many other poems in the collection deal with death and loss as well. Mary Louise Kete identifies the "three signal concerns of the sentimental mode" as "lost homes, lost families, and broken bonds" (p.

17), an assertion supported by her reading of a mid-nineteenth-century manuscript book alongside the more celebrated poems of Lydia Sigourney and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. One striking convention of nineteenth-century mourning poems is the focus on an image that, like the raven, triggers memories of the deceased or an awareness of the mourner's loss (a portrait in Alice Cary's "Lost Lilies"; a "cross of snow" in a Longfellow poem by that name). Poe's black bird, arriving like a mourner to the speaker's never-ending wake, does not merely trigger but participates in the scene of mourning with its uncanny "speaking" ability, pushing this convention to the limit (and for many later readers, beyond the limit) at which it can be taken seriously. Alice Cary's poem "Most Beloved," for instance, also catalogs natural images that she associates with an unnamed lost beloved, concluding: All things, my darling, all things seem In some strange way to speak of thee; Nothing is half so much a dream, Nothing so much reality. The speaker of her poem "A Wintry Waste" expresses hope that her son will return: But fancy only half deceives . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . boughs go over the window-pane And drag on the lonely eaves, in vain, That waste is all I see. (Ll. 20, 279) These poems reinforce the point that although Poe was ringing changesffectively, to be suren a conventional theme, not even the fact that his poem ends in despair rather than consolation is particularly unusual.

In his variorum edition of Poe's poems, Thomas Ollive Mabbott noted direct sources for "The Raven," the most significant of which is Elizabeth Barrett's (1806861) "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" (1844), also written in trochaic octameter and featuring a refrain that includes the word "evermore." As Eliza Richards has argued, Poe's poetic voice in "The Raven" and elsewhere draws heavily and self-consciously from Barrett and other women poets he knew, read, and reviewed, even as he seeks to displace the woman author: "Rather than rejecting the feminine, Poe becomes an expert in the field, out-feminizing the feminine in a masculine rendition that inverts female poetic practice and thus exoticizes the banal performativity of the female poet" (p. 8).

In fact when "The Raven" appeared in the American Review in February 1845, an introduction (possibly written by Poe) apologized for the poem's "deep quaint strain of the sentiment" before praising the technical skill of the author, identified as "Quarles." The same headnote points to "the curious introduction of some ludicrous touches amidst the serious and impressive, as was doubtless intended by the author" (Poe, Complete Poems, p. 360). Poe, then, is tweaking and (if the American Review is correct) deliberately exaggerating well-established conventions of sentimental verse, responding not only to Barrett, one of his favorite poets, but also to a set of expectations associated with popular women writers (but employed by both women and men).

Poe had hinted in a review of Barrett that she had imitated Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Locksley Hall" (1842) in writing "Lady Geraldine's Courtship." The resemblance between those two poems is no stronger than the resemblance between "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" and "The Raven," suggesting to Mabbott that Poe was "acknowledging his debt to Barrett" in calling attention to her poem's debt to Tennyson. Like his more extended discussions of plagiarism, though, this reference to the imitation by one of his favorite poets of another of his favorite poets conveys Poe's skepticism of claims to literary originality generally and his awareness of the value of emulation, a term that suggests admiring, as opposed to exploitative, imitation. "Of course," Poe would write the following year, "I pretend to no originality in either the rhythm or the metre of the 'Raven'" (Essays and Reviews, p. 21).

"LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP" AS AN INFLUENCE ON "THE RAVEN" Thomas Dunn English may have been the first to point out Poe's debt to Barrett in a review of The Raven and Other Poems in the Aristidean in November 1845; according to John H. Ingram, an early Poe biographer and editor, Poe himself privately acknowledged Barrett's poem as inspiration for his (pp. 123). When Poe reviewed Barrett's The Drama of Exile and Other Poems weeks before publishing "The Raven," he singled out "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" as "the only poem of its author which is not deficient, considered as an artistical whole" (Essays and Reviews, p. 129). In the variorum edition of Poe's poems, Thomas Ollive Mabbott quotes this stanza from Barrett's poem for comparison to "The Raven." "Eyes," he said, "now throbbing through me! are ye eyes that did undo me? Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone!

Underneath that calm white forehead, are ye ever burning torrid, O'er the desolate sand-desert of my heart and life undone? With a rushing stir, uncertain, in the air, the purple curtain Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brows; While the gliding of the river sends a rippling noise forever Through the open casement whitened by the moonlight's slant repose.["] Poe's third stanza borrows the "uncertain" movement associated with a purple curtain as well as the metrical form: And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled meilled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating "'Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber doorbr />Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;br />This it is and nothing more." Poe, Complete Poems, ll. 38184, 138.

LITERARY PRODUCTION AND REPRODUCTION For all its reliance on a culture of mourning generally and "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" specifically, "The Raven" is nonetheless a striking, memorable poem, and it enjoyed immediate popularity. A few days before it appeared in the American Review, to whom he had sold it, Poe arranged with his friend Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806867) to publish the poem, revealing the name of its author, in the New York Evening Mirror to boost its circulation and interest. In contrast with the academic tone of the American Review's headnote, Willis's introduction promised a blockbuster, "the most effective single example of 'fugitive poetry' ever published in this country, and unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift and 'pokerishness.' [spookiness] . . . It will stick to the memory of everybody who reads it" (Poe, Complete Poems, p. 361).

Willis not only correctly predicted the poem's popularity but also spurred it on, initiating, even before it had been printed once, the career of "The Raven" as one of the most widely reprinted poems of its time. Mabbott lists twenty variant texts over which Poe had some control; these represent only a fraction of the reprintings, most unauthorized, in periodicals. Meredith McGill has termed the publishing environment in which "The Raven" flourished a "culture of reprinting," emphasizing the ways writers such as Poe used the lack of copyright protection to their benefit even as they rallied in print for legislation protecting intellectual property. Poe neither expected nor received direct payments for the "countless" (according to Mabbott) reprintings of "The Raven"; as a magazine editor, he was in the habit of reprinting other poets' works, as well as his own, freely.

Not so much despite but because of the unwritten rules of reprint culture, Poe enjoyed a huge (albeit unsustained) career boost from "The Raven": by the end of 1845 he had published his first collection of poetry in fourteen years as well as a new collection of tales and found himself a desirable guest at New York literary salons. Poe wanted the poem to be reprinted freely in order to spread his fame: "'The Raven' has had a great 'run,'" he boasted, "but I wrote it for the express purpose of runningust as I did 'The Gold-Bug.' . . . the bird beat the bug, though, all hollow" (Letters 2:287). The bird also drew audiences in parlors, literary salons and lecture halls, where Poe performed the poemepeatedly, like a human jukeboxs he sought literary respectability, subscribers for his never-realized magazine project, and after Virgina Clemm Poe's death in 1847, a new wife.

While Poe could not possibly regulate the reproduction of "The Raven," its success held out the promise of control over his own career not only because it brought him fame but also because it demonstrated his writerly discipline. As his review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales (1837) and his own analysis of "The Raven" in "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846) make clear, Poe's aesthetics are grounded in the principle of authorial control: the reason poems and tales should be brief and conceptually unified is to ensure that readers remain under the spell of the writer. "The Philosophy of Composition" particularly trades inspiration (which is unpredictable) for method and the control that comes with it. And Poe saw signs of the "control revolution" (James Beniger's term) all around him: publishing was central to the transformation of everyday life brought about by mass production and consumer culture. Machine-made paper, stereotyped plates, and steam presses made possible an explosion of print, which in turn disseminated the information and ideas that drove the new economy. The rapid increase in the importance of publishing is reflected in P. T.

Barnum's statement that "there was only one liquid that a man could use in excessive quantities without being swallowed up by it, and that was printer's ink" (Harris, p. 195). In stories and sketches, such as "The Man That Was Used Up" (1850), "The Business-Man" (1843), and "Some Words with a Mummy" (1845), Poe satirizes believers in "the rapid march of mechanical invention" (as the man who was used up refers to it) and other forms of progress (which, the mummy tells us, never progresses). At the same time, though, he wanted to show that he could play the modern literary-publishing game as well asr better thannyone, that he could produce a "Raven" or a "Gold-Bug" at will. Like train schedules, assembly line tasks, and advertising slogans, Poe's pseudo-aesthetic in "The Philosophy of Composition" dependss does "The Raven"n a kind of predictable, repeatable set of questions of answers.

Although Poe never did repeat the success of "The Raven," he did apparently write the poem "for the purpose of running," which is to say reproducing itself in print. The repetition of the raven (and "The Raven") mirrors that strategy of never-ending republication, recitation, and parody. See also Death; "The Fall of the House of Usher"; Gothic Fiction; Lyric Poetry; "The Philosophy of Composition"; Popular Poetry BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Works Cary, Alice, and Phoebe Cary. The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary. 1865. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1882. Poe, Edgar Allan. Complete Poems. Edited by Thomas Ollive Mabbott. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Poe, Edgar Allan. Essays and Reviews. Edited by G. R. Thompson. New York: Library of America, 1984. Poe, Edgar Allan. The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe. 2 vols. Edited by John Ward Ostrom. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966.

Secondary Works Beniger, James R. The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986. Douglas, Ann. The Feminization of American Culture. New York: Knopf, 1977. Eddings, Dennis W. "Theme and Parody in 'The Raven.'" In Poe and His Times: The Artist and His Milieu, edited by Benjamin F. Fisher IV, pp. 20917. Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1990. Halttunen, Karen. Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830870. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982. Harris, Neil. Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum. 1973. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Ingram, John H. Literary and Historical Commentary on "The Raven," by Edgar Allan Poe. 1885. New York: Haskell House, 1972. Kennedy, J.

Gerald. Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987. Kete, Mary Louise. Sentimental Collaboration: Mourning and Middle-Class Identity in Nineteenth-Century America. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2000. McGill, Meredith L. American Literature and the Culture of Reprinting, 1834853. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. Person, Leland S., Jr. "Poe's Composition of Philosophy: Reading and Writing 'The Raven.'" Arizona Quarterly 46, no. 3 (1990): 15. Richards, Eliza. "'The Poetess' and Poe's Performance of the Feminine." Arizona Quarterly 55, no. 2 (1999): 19. Smith, Dave. "Edgar Allan Poe and the Nightmare Ode." Southern Humanities Review 29, no. 1 (1995): 10. Whalen, Terence. Edgar Allan Poe and the Masses: The Political Economy of Literature in Antebellum America.

Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999. Scott Peeples The Raven - Poems | Academy of American Poets Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization. browse poems & poets sign up to receive a new poem-a-day in your inbox sign up Opportunity Costs by Barbara Ras occasions read poems by edgar allan poe On January 19, 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe's father and mother, both professional actors, died before the poet was three years old, and John and Frances Allan raised him as a foster child in Richmond, Virginia.

John Allan, a prosperous tobacco exporter, sent Poe to the best boarding schools and later to the University of Virginia, where Poe excelled academically. After less than one year of school, however, he was forced to leave the university when Allan refused to pay Poe's gambling debts. Poe returned briefly to Richmond, but his relationship with Allan deteriorated. In 1827, he moved to Boston and enlisted in the United States Army. His first collection of poems, Tamerlane, and Other Poems, was published that year. In 1829, he published a second collection entitled Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. Neither volume received significant critical or public attention. Following his Army service, Poe was admitted to the United States Military Academy, but he was again forced to leave for lack of financial support. He then moved into the home of his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter Virginia in Baltimore, Maryland. Poe began to sell short stories to magazines at around this time, and, in 1835, he became the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, where he moved with his aunt and cousin Virginia.

In 1836, he married Virginia, who was fourteen years old at the time. Over the next ten years, Poe would edit a number of literary journals including the Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia and the Broadway Journal in New York City. It was during these years that he established himself as a poet, a short story writer, and an editor. He published some of his best-known stories and poems, including "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and "The Raven." After Virginia's death from tuberculosis in 1847, Poe's lifelong struggle with depression and alcoholism worsened. He returned briefly to Richmond in 1849 and then set out for an editing job in Philadelphia. For unknown reasons, he stopped in Baltimore. On October 3, 1849, he was found in a state of semi-consciousness. Poe died four days later of "acute congestion of the brain." Evidence by medical practitioners who reopened the case has shown that Poe may have been suffering from rabies.

Poe's work as an editor, a poet, and a critic had a profound impact on American and international literature. His stories mark him as one of the originators of both horror and detective fiction. Many anthologies credit him as the "architect" of the modern short story. He was also one of the first critics to focus primarily on the effect of style and structure in a literary work; as such, he has been seen as a forerunner to the "art for art's sake" movement. French Symbolists such as Mallarmé and Rimbaud claimed him as a literary precursor. Baudelaire spent nearly fourteen years translating Poe into French. Today, Poe is remembered as one of the first American writers to become a major figure in world literature.

Selected Bibliography Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827) Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829) Poems (1831) The Raven and Other Poems (1845) Eureka: A Prose Poem (1848) Fiction The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1939) Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) The Black Cat (1843) The Cask of Amontillado (1846) The Oval Portrait (1850) Edgar Allan Poe , 1809 - 1849 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door— "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door— Only this and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember

 wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore. And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door— Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;— This it is and nothing more." Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you"—here I opened wide the door;— Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"— Merely this and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore— Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;— 'Tis the wind and nothing more!" Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore; Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door— Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door— Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore— Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!" Quoth the Raven "Nevermore." Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door— Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as "Nevermore." But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing further then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered— Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other friends have flown before— On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said "Nevermore." Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore— Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never—nevermore.'" But the Raven still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore— What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Nevermore." This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On

 the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er, She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee Respite—respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore; Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!" Quoth the Raven "Nevermore." "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!— Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted— On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore— Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!" Quoth the Raven "Nevermore." "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil—prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore— Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven "Nevermore." "Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting— "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!" Quoth the Raven "Nevermore." And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore!

This version appeared in the Richmond Semi-Weekly Examiner, September 25, 1849. For other versions, please visit the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore's site: #R . This version appeared in the Richmond Semi-Weekly Examiner, September 25, 1849. For other versions, please visit the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore's site: #R . Edgar Allan Poe Born in 1809, Edgar Allan Poe had a profound impact on American and international literature as an editor, poet, and critic. Why Did Poe Write, ‘Quoth the Raven, Nevermore’? | UVA Today Why Did Poe Write, ‘Quoth the Raven, Nevermore’? October 30, 2014 Anne E. Bromley , anneb@virginia.edu University of Virginia English professor Jerome McGann illuminates Edgar Allan Poe’s well-known, spooky poem, “The Raven,” and others in his new book, “The Poet Edgar Allan Poe: Alien Angel,” published just in time for Halloween by Harvard University Press. Poe, the celebrated author of some of the earliest American horror stories and mysteries, attended the University in 1826.

He worked on his creative writing at the time, although he didn’t publish anything until the next year. In Poe’s 18-stanza poem, “The Raven,” the line, “Quoth the Raven, Nevermore,” comes in toward the middle and gets repeated, or the word “nevermore” gets repeated, in the subsequent stanzas. McGann, University Professor and John Stewart Bryan Professor of Literature, said “nevermore” and “evermore,” which Poe also uses in the poem, capture the writer’s most important idea about poetry as “mournful and never-ending remembrance.” Alas, Poe’s oft-repeated theme emphasizes the importance of memory, because life consists of continuous loss. Poe uses “evermore” because loss will always be part of life; “nevermore,” because we can never hold onto what we have or who we love, McGann said. Sarah Helen Whitman, a friend and love interest of Poe’s, for whom he wrote two poems, both titled, “To Helen,” said of the brilliant yet troubled writer, “He seemed haunted by the idea that he was never able to do justice to the dead,” according to McGann.

Poe's "The Raven" - Summary Poe's "The Raven" Export (PDF) Edgar Allan Poe 's narrative poem, "The Raven" , is told by a man sitting alone in his room. Late one night, he hears a tapping sound at his door. At first he thinks it is merely someone coming to visit him. Instead of opening the door, he begins to reminisce on his lost love, Lenore, who has recently died. Finally, the man begins to fear what is on the other side of the door. When he works up the courage to open the door, all he sees is darkness. The narrator continues to hear the tapping, so he checks the window. In flies a raven who lands on a sculpture of Athena above his door. The narrator asks the raven what its name is. The raven answers, "Nevermore" (line 48). He then muses that "on the morrow he will leave" like everyone else in his life (line 59). Again, the raven answers with "Nevermore" (line 60). This is the only word the raven speaks to the narrator. Eventually, the narrator begins to ask the raven about Lenore.

When he asks if Lenore is in Heaven, the raven repeats, "Nevermore" (line 90). This angers the narrator who then yells "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" (line 97). The raven does not move. The narrator realizes that the bird will never leave because it represents his memory of Lenore which will also never leave him. external image raven-info0.gif

Question: In Edgar Allan Poe's “The Raven”, what word does the raven say?
Answer: Nevermore