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"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most well-known poems ever written. It brought its author worldwide fame and has frequently been analyzed, performed, and parodied. But what about this poem makes it so special?

In this guide, we give you a complete overview of "The Raven," discussing everything from the sad stories behind its creation and what is actually going on between the narrator and the raven, to its themes and the poetic devices it uses so effectively.

The Raven Poem: Full Text

Below is the complete text of The Raven poem, written by Edgar Allan Poe and published in 1845. It consists of 18 stanzas and a total of 108 lines.

What Is "The Raven" About?

"The Raven" is a poem about a man who is heartbroken over the recent death of his beloved Lenore. As he passes a lonely December night in his room, a raven taps repeatedly on the door and then the window. The man first thinks the noise is caused by a late night visitor come to disturb him, and he is surprised to find the raven when he opens the window shutter. After being let in, the raven flies to and lands on a bust of Pallas (an ancient Greek goddess of wisdom).

The man is amused by how serious the raven looks, and he begins talking to the raven; however, the bird can only reply by croaking "nevermore."

The man reflects aloud that the bird will leave him soon as all the people he cared about have left him. When the raven replies "nevermore," the man takes it as the bird agreeing with him, although it's unclear if the raven actually understands what the man is saying or is just speaking the one word it knows.

As the man continues to converse with the bird, he slowly loses his grip on reality. He moves his chair directly in front of the raven and asks it despairing questions, including whether he and Lenore will be reunited in heaven. Now, instead of being merely amused by the bird, he takes the raven's repeated "nevermore" response as a sign that all his dark thoughts are true. He eventually grows angry and shrieks at the raven, calling it a devil and a thing of evil.

The poem ends with the raven still sitting on the bust of Pallas and the narrator, seemingly defeated by his grief and madness, declaring that his soul shall be lifted "nevermore."

Background on "The Raven"

Edgar Allan Poe wrote "The Raven" during a difficult period in his life. His wife, Virginia, was suffering from tuberculosis, Poe was struggling to make money as an unknown writer, and he began drinking heavily and picking fights with coworkers and other writers. It's easy to see how he could have conjured the dark and melancholy mood of "The Raven."

It's not known how long Poe spent writing "The Raven," (guesses range from anywhere to a single day to over a decade) but it's thought most likely that he wrote the poem in the summer of 1844. In his essay, "The Philosophy of Composition," Poe stated that he chose to focus the poem on the death of a beautiful woman because it is "unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world." He hoped "The Raven" would make him famous, and, in the same essay, stated that he purposely wrote the poem to appeal to both "the popular and the critical taste."

"The Raven" was published in the newspaper The New York Evening Mirror on January 29, 1845 (depending on the source, Poe was paid either $9 or $15 for it). "The Raven" brought Poe instant fame, although not the financial security he was looking for. Critical reception was mixed, with some famous writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Butler Yeats expressing their dislike for the poem. Despite those initial mixed reviews, The Raven poem has continued its popularity and is now one of the most well-known poems in the world. Countless parodies have been written, and the poem has been referenced in everything from The Simpsons to the NFL team the Baltimore Ravens (their mascot is even named "Poe").

Major Themes in "The Raven"

From The Raven summary, we know it's definitely a melancholy poem, and most of its themes revolve around grim topics. Here are three of the most important themes.

Theme 1: Grief

Grief is the overwhelming emotion in "The Raven, " and the narrator is absolutely consumed by his grief for his lost love, Lenore. At the beginning of the poem, he tries to distract himself from his sadness by reading a "volume of forgotten lore", but when the raven arrives, he immediately begins peppering it with questions about Lenore and becomes further lost in his grief at the raven's response of "nevermore." By the end of the poem, the narrator is seemingly broken, stating that his soul will never again be "lifted" due to his sadness.

Poe stated that the raven itself was a symbol of grief, specifically, that it represented "mournful and never-ending remembrance." He purposely chose a raven over a parrot (a bird species better known for its ability to speak) because he thought a raven suited the dark tone of the poem better.

Edgar Allan Poe had experienced a great deal of grief by the time he wrote "The Raven," and he had seen people close to him leave, fall gravely ill, or die. He would have been well aware of the consuming power that grief can have and how it has the ability to blot everything else out.

Theme 2: Devotion

It's the narrator's deep love for Lenore that causes him such grief, and later rage and madness. Even though Lenore has died, the narrator still loves her and appears unable to think of anything but her. In the poem, he speaks of Lenore in superlatives, calling her "sainted" and "radiant." In his mind, she is completely perfect, practically a saint. His love for this woman who is no longer here distracts him from everything in his current life. With this theme, Poe is showing the power of love and how it can continue to be powerful even after death.

Theme 3: Rationality vs Irrationality

At the beginning of the poem, the narrator is rational enough to understand that Lenore is dead and he will not see her again. When the raven first begins repeating "nevermore," he realizes that the answer is the bird's "only stock and store," and he won't get another response no matter what he asks. He seems to even find the bird vaguely amusing.

However, as the poem continues, the narrator's irrationality increases as he asks the raven questions it couldn't possibly know and takes its repeated response of "nevermore" to be a truthful and logical answer. He then descends further into madness, cursing the bird as a "devil" and "thing of evil" and thinking he feels angels surrounding him before sinking into his grief. He has clearly come undone by the end of the poem.

In "The Raven," Poe wanted to show the fine line between rational thought and madness and how strong emotions, such as grief, can push a person into irrationality, even during mundane interactions like the one the narrator had with the raven.

The 7 Key Poetic Devices "The Raven" Uses

Edgar Allan Poe makes use of many poetic devices in "The Raven" to create a memorable and moving piece of writing. Below we discuss seven of the most important of these devices and how they contribute to the poem.

Alliteration

An allusion is an indirect reference to something, and Poe makes multiple allusions in "The Raven." Some key ones include:

The bust of Pallas the raven sits on refers to Pallas Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom.

Nepenthe is a drug mentioned in Homer's ancient epic The Odyssey, and it is purported to erase memories.

The Balm of Gilead is a reference to a healing cream mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah in the Bible.

Aidenn refers to the Garden of Eden, although the narrator likely uses it to mean "heaven" in general, as he wants to know if that's where he and Lenore will reunite.

Ravens themselves are mentioned in many stories, including Norse mythology and Ovid's epic poem Metamorphoses.

The majority of "The Raven" follows trochaic octameter, which is when there are eight trochaic feet per line, and each foot has one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable.

However, Poe actually used several types of meter, and he is said to have based both the meter and rhyming pattern of "The Raven" off Elizabeth Barrett's poem " Lady Geraldine's Courtship." Meter is very prominent in "The Raven," and, along with other poetic devices, helps make it such a popular poem to recite.

The rhyming pattern in "The Raven" follows the pattern ABCBBB. The "B" lines all rhyme with "nevermore" and place additional emphasis on the final syllable of the line.

There is also quite a bit of internal rhyme within the poem, such as the line "But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token," where "unbroken" rhymes with "token."

Internal rhyming occurs in the first line of each stanza. It also occurs in the third line and part of the fourth line of each stanza. In the example "Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!/Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!" "token" and "spoken" in the third line of the stanza rhyme with "unbroken" in the fourth line of the stanza.

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is when the name of a word is associated with the sound it makes, and it occurs throughout "The Raven," such as with the words "rapping," "tapping," "shrieked," and "whispered." It all helps add to the atmospheric quality of the poem and makes readers feel as though they are really in the room with the narrator and the raven.

What's Next?

"Ozymandias" by Percy Shelley is another famous and often-studied poem. Learn all about this poem and its famous line "look on my works, ye mighty, and despair" in our complete guide to Ozymandias .

There are many more poetic devices than those included in "The Raven." Read our guide on the 20 poetic devices you need to know so you can become an expert.

Taking AP Literature? We've got you covered! In our expert guide to the AP Literature exam, we've compiled all the information you need to know about the test and how to study for it to get a top score.

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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A Summary and Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’ This was the riddle posed by the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll ’s 1865 book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland . Probably the most famous solution proposed to this riddle (for the riddle has never been answered with a definitive solution) is: ‘Because Poe wrote on both.’ ‘The Raven’ is undoubtedly Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous poem.

It was first published under Poe’s name in January 1845, and has been popular ever since. It is the only literary work to inspire the name of a sporting team (the American Football team the Baltimore Ravens).

According to Poe himself, in a later work of literary analysis, if he hadn’t had a change of heart we might well be reading a poem called, not ‘The Raven’, but ‘The Parrot’. The poem is so famous, so widely anthologised, that perhaps a closer analysis of its features and language is necessary to strip away some of our preconceptions about it.

First, here is a summary of the poem.

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.’

The unnamed narrator (we can call him a narrator as ‘The Raven’ just about qualifies as a narrative poem) sits up late one December night, mourning the loss of his beloved, Lenore, when a raven appears at the window and speaks the repeated single word, ‘Nevermore’. The narrator starts to view the raven as some sort of prophet.

Throughout the poem, the narrator sits and ponders the meaning of the raven, and asks it questions, such as whether he will be see his beloved Lenore again in heaven, but the bird simply responds enigmatically each time, ‘Nevermore’. In the end, the narrator demands that the raven leave him alone, but it replies once again, ‘Nevermore.’

The poem ends:

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!

Poe credited two chief literary works in the genesis and composition of ‘The Raven’: he got the idea of the raven from Charles Dickens’s novel Barnaby Rudge (whose title character has a pet raven, Grip – the same name of Dickens’s own pet raven in real life), and he borrowed the metre for his poem from Elizabeth Barrett Browning ’s poem ‘Lady Geraldine’s Courtship’. Here is a stanza from Barrett Browning’s poem:

Dear my friend and fellow-student, I would lean my spirit o’er you: Down the purple of this chamber, tears should scarcely run at will: I am humbled who was humble! Friend,—I bow my head before you! You should lead me to my peasants!—but their faces are too still.

The metre of this poem, and of Poe’s ‘The Raven’, is relatively rare in English-language verse: trochaic octameter. (Trochaic because the stress falls on the first syllable in each foot, so ‘ Dear my friend and fell ow stu dent’, and ‘ Once up on a mid night drear y’; octameter because there are eight feet in each line, so ‘ Once up on a mid night drear y, while I pond ered, weak and wear y’.

But Poe added something to this rhythm, by including internal rhyme in each stanza of ‘The Raven’:

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.”

So although each stanza of ‘The Raven’ is rhymed abcbbb , with the ‘ore’ rhyme being constant throughout the poem, the a and c rhymes are complemented by a mid-line rhyme: dreary/weary , napping/tapping .

This makes ‘The Raven’ the perfect poem for reading aloud on a dark, wintry night – but it also arguably underscores the poem’s focus on speech, and on the talking raven that provides the refrain, and final word, of many of the poem’s stanzas. ‘Nevermore’ rhymes with the dead beloved of the poem’s narrator, Lenore, but it is also an inherently ‘poetic’ turn of phrase to end a poem (or successive stanzas of a poem): compare Hardy’s ‘never again’ , or Edward Thomas’s , or Tennyson’s ‘the days that are no more’ .

The word ‘Nevermore’, like ‘never again’ and ‘no more’, evokes finality, something gone from us that will not be regained: time, our youth, a lost lover. Whether Lenore in ‘The Raven’ is the narrator’s dead beloved – perhaps even his wife – is not spelt out in the poem, leaving us not so much to analyse as to speculate upon that point. But the broader point remains: a door has closed that will not be opened again.

As we mentioned at the beginning of this analysis, there is reason to believe that Poe originally planned to have a parrot, rather than a raven, utter the refrain ‘Nevermore’ in the poem. In his ‘ Philosophy of Composition ’, he wrote that in his mind there ‘arose the idea of a non-reasoning creature capable of speech; and very naturally, a parrot, in the first instance, suggested itself, but was superseded forthwith by a Raven, as equally capable of speech.’

Whether Poe was merely retrospectively having us on, or whether he was being genuine here, the parrot does seem the natural choice for a bird capable of mimicking human speech, and Poe implies that he soon dropped the idea of writing a poem called ‘The Parrot’. Ravens are closely associated with omens and with the dead: it had to be ‘The Raven’.

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5 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven’”

Many years ago, my mum had me make a recording reading “The Raven.” And I did the best I could as far as enunciating and pausing, etc. She was teaching art in K-8, and for the older grades she played the tape and they were always silent/enraptured listening and then they were to make a drawing of the Raven, or anything from their imagination inspired by the poem. Usually she did it around Halloween and she got some really interesting illustrations/interpretations.

What an inspiring teacher she must have been, you should be proud of her.

I read that Poe did not earn but a paltry sum for this famous work due to the lack of copyright laws. It is sad how much trauma he suffered throughout his life.

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1.1: Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven"

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Creative Commons CC0 License (Links to an external site.) ; all unstructured text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

Here, you will find the "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, a Video Lecture on the text, and a Video of the Reading from The Simpsons.

The essay is is a ..docx file. I recommend either saving to your drive for future use. Otherwise, you will not have the file to look at later. Either way, you should taking notes on the digital copy on your computer, or taking notes on the story on a separate piece of paper.

Author's Bio:

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Within a year, his alcoholic father deserted his mother and three infant children. When his mother died of tuberculosis in Richmond, Virginia, three-year-old Edgar was adopted by John Allan and his wife. Allan, a prosperous businessperson, spent time in England, where Poe began his education at private schools.

Back in the United States, Allan forced Poe to leave the University of Virginia in 1826 when Poe incurred gambling debts he could not pay. He served in the U.S. Army from 1827 to 1829, eventually attaining the rank of sergeant major. Poe next attended West Point, hoping for further military advancement.

Shortly thereafter, Mrs. Allan died of tuberculosis. Poe angrily confronted his foster father about his extramarital affairs; for this candour, he was disowned. Believing that Allan would never reinstate him as heir, Poe deliberately violated rules to provoke his dismissal from the Academy. In 1835, Poe began his career as editor, columnist, and reviewer, earning a living he could not make as a writer of stories and poems. That same year, he married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, and lived with her and her mother during a period marked by illness and poverty. Virginia died of tuberculosis in 1847. Poe died, delirious, under mysterious circumstances, in 1849.

He perfected the Gothic horror story with “The Fall of the House of Usher” and originated the modern detective story in “The Gold-Bug” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

While going over the reading , keep these questions/ideas in mind:

• What are some themes/ messages that you see in the text?
• What does this speech make you feel/think of?
• What does a raven represent to you?
• Do you see examples of Ethos(credibility), Pathos(emotion), Logos(Logic), and Kairos (Rhetorical Situation)?
• Do you see examples of the rhetorical strategies from the Rhetorical Strategies PowerPoint?
• What are some ways this text is convincing?
• Can you begin to connect to the words in the text. What about these word choices, imagery, allusion, makes you feel a particular way? Explain.

Essay 1 Prompt

What does it mean.

How does the text use specific rhetorical strategies to deliver its intended theme/message?

TITLE/AUTHOR+THEME +STRATEGIES=Thesis

Requirements:

• Proper MLA Format
• 3-5 pages (Full pages)
• Works Cited Page

Lecture-Rhetoric- "The Raven" 00:08:19

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Raven — Rhetorical Analysis Of The Raven By Edgar Allen Poe

Rhetorical Analysis of The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe

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Edgar Allan Poe: Interpretation of “The Raven” Essay

“The Raven” is considered to be one of the greatest masterpieces in American literature. Reading the poem for the first time, the image of a lonely person who grieves the death of his beloved woman appears in one’s mind. But with careful analyzing it can be associated with larger social, cultural, and historical issues, which influence the meaning and the interpretation of the poem itself.

First of all, death is an unavoidable event in the human life span, which can be understood by everyone in society. The physiological torture of the person in the poem represents any bereaved individual, who is left on the earth to cope with the loss, regrets, and grief, and with the realization that death is a present reality, and it has changed life forever. No wonder the author chose the metaphors and symbols to highlight the depressing tone in the poem.

Edgar Allan Poe tried to make emphasize the theme of death. This poetic trick is felt throughout the artistic work of the author. In this respect, one can judge Poe’s “The Raven” as an additional point on the main character’s despair. To run the gamut of the whole idea reflected in the poem a reader should be familiarized with the rest of Poe’s works. For instance “The Fall of Ashers” represents the same idea of death in peoples’ life span. An accurate reader should make some conclusions as to the motives that drove Poe in composing such a great and full-of-sorrow poem.

One of the suggestions that dominate Poe’s talent in writing “The Raven” was the succession of terrible events the author encountered in his life. Perhaps, this was the main reason for Poe’s addiction to alcohol. On the other hand, it is strange while looking at his brilliance in writing while nothing pleased the author in life. One of the suggestions is the death of his mother when Edgar Poe was a little boy (Hayes 194). He and his brother adored their mother after her death. They were devoted to the power of motherhood. Unfortunately, a new tremendous hit appeared in Poe’s life when his brother died. Later on, the author will write on this case the following strokes: “There can be no tie more strong than that of brother for brother – it is not so much that they love one another as that they both love the same parent” (Hayes 194). Hence, the first reason for writing “The Raven” is implied in Poe’s personal life tragedy.

Transforming the image of the raven into more realistic shapes, one might point out the place on which it perched. It was a bust of Pallas, an ancient goddess of wisdom. To describe the symbolic interpretation of it, Poe described the truth of life realized through the inevitable death. The raven is about to tell the narrator some wise remarks. These are interrelated with other moments in the poem striving at the end of the social life of a human being. It is a mentioning of “bleak December” or “midnight”. These features tend to be associated with a decline of something that people used to have in their life. This feature interpellates direct notes on historical and cultural issues.

For instance, the author uses quite enough symbols and metaphors reflecting the essence of the mythological explanation of life. To be precise, it is not so much that Poe is inclined to strengthen some definite philosophical or religious trend, as that he wants to encompass prolific thoughts in their diversity. Thus, Poe’s vocabulary in the poem includes such words as Balm in Gilead (from The Old Testament of the Bible); Plutonian (taken from Roman mythology, the ancient god of the underworld), and some others (Hallqvist para. 3). It reconciles a huge versatility of Poe’s language in his works. Doing it in the wrong way and using some trivial patterns, the author’s works would appear boring, dull, and uninteresting.

Getting closer to the character of the author, “The Raven” solely helps to understand his cries and sorrows. Furthermore, insisting on Poe’s invoke to the wholeness of the aesthetical heritage of humanity, one agrees that the trouble of Poe surpasses such troubles about to happen in any other life. At this point, one can notice the pivotal caveat as per social reality. The entire nature of it concerns people living in all times and epochs.

Edgar Allan Poe realized reality through the limb of human experience, heritage, traditions, and cultures as well as through personal contemplation. In this peculiarity of the author, one can render his works. “The Raven” is without any doubt one of the most gorgeous works in American poetry, despite its “decadent” mood of narrating. The conceptual part of the work responds to the far-reaching issues of what the sense of life when it is destroyed is. Looking at the symbol of the “ebony bird”, one should conclude that in the variety of different cultures the raven is considered with wisdom and longevity. Moreover, in the case of Poe’s poem, this image refers to “incomprehensibility” of what one is eager to know or achieve urgently. It is shown in the repeated word “nevermore” in the poem.

To sum up, the theme of grief, sorrow, and hardships of life is heard in the poem by Edgar Allan Poe “The Raven”. The whole interpretation of the poem showed points on not only the author’s life troubles, but through them, it holds features of broader cultural, historical, and social domains. In this respect, the observation of Poe’s poem should possess a more distinct and critical view on the diversity of symbols and metaphors used. Further, still, readers are better to get acquainted with life prospects and other works of the writer, so that to have a clear idea about their mutual influence on each other.

Works cited

Christoffer Hallqvist. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”. 1998. Web.

Hayes, Kevin J. The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Poe, Edgar Allan, and Barger, Andrew. Edgar Allan Poe Annotated and Illustrated Entire Stories and Poems. New York: Bottletree Books LLC, 2008.

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IvyPanda. (2021, December 12). Edgar Allan Poe: Interpretation of "The Raven". https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-raven-by-edgar-allan-poe/

"Edgar Allan Poe: Interpretation of "The Raven"." IvyPanda , 12 Dec. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/the-raven-by-edgar-allan-poe/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Edgar Allan Poe: Interpretation of "The Raven"'. 12 December.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Edgar Allan Poe: Interpretation of "The Raven"." December 12, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-raven-by-edgar-allan-poe/.

1. IvyPanda . "Edgar Allan Poe: Interpretation of "The Raven"." December 12, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-raven-by-edgar-allan-poe/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Edgar Allan Poe: Interpretation of "The Raven"." December 12, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-raven-by-edgar-allan-poe/.

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The Raven Argumentative Essay

“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” – Edgar Allan Poe.

Inhumed in the words that each of us writes is a set of fundamental beliefs, morals, or other such human elements, and these are impacted by the beliefs and morals of those in the world around us. He’s saying that truly beguiling writing stems from the devastation, desolation, and suffering of this purgatory world that no on has yet made out alive. ‘The Raven’ is another piece by Poe, and is an immensely enthralling, thought-provoking, andhonest yet also possibly supernatural, narrative poem which was published in January, 1845. Throughout this poem,Edgar intricately uses imagery, suspense, and his own personal internal conflict to explain the inexplicable; within each and every person is a sentence – and if it is spoken – it has the power to obliterate their lives. The man in the poem was much like his author; doleful, eerie, and maybe even a little bit mad.

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This specific piece of his conveys and explains Poe’s anguish into something that compels and haunts his audience because of it’s captivating horror. Overall, this is a legendary poem in which Edgar often uses literary and poetic devices to set a suspenseful and somber mood for his readers. First off, Poe uses imagery in the poem to help set the mood. “Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, and each separate dying ember wrought it’s ghost upon the floor.” Specifically, the words “bleak December” and “dying ember wrought it’s ghost upon the floor” by using words that automatically make people think of loss, bad weather, or gives them the creeps. Another example being, “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.” (Edgar Allan Poe Stanzas three through five)The opening line of the stanza consists of consonance, alliteration, and internal rhyme, then the speaker was so intrigued but also slightly afraid of the curtains flittering and Poe does not let his audience in on why. Though there are a few theories, them being comprised of demonic movement of the curtains, which would cause the most stalwart individual to mutter to himself, or the he could be delirious. Eventually and reluctantly, the narrator gathers his backbone to speak to the “visitor” at his door. He opens the door and stares into only darkness and then starts dreaming about the unattainable and murmurs, “Lenore.

” “Lenore” is reiterated back to the man and the poem has begun to fully disclose a sense of the agony and heartsickness experienced by the narrator. He eternally yearns for his lost love so prodigiously that he begins whispering her name, perilously apprehensive for her response. Edgar’s readers are left with a cliffhanger: does the man actually hear Lenore or is he just crazed? In conclusion, Poe impeccably concocted and contrived imagery through persistent actualizing of a grotesque verity. Secondly, ‘The Raven’ is in the genre of Gothic Romantic so in this writing when Poe chose suspense as one of his literary devices to implicate into his poetry it was not surprising. His repetition of the word “Nevermore” creates a discerning feeling of insecurity and enthrall throughout each verse. In stanzas three through five (In paragraph two) the narrator’s setting of a bleak December, alone at night, and eerie tapping on his door with no answer planted a seed of fear.

After the man finally opens the door, speaks to the darkness, and hears a reply of his dead love, the question left is she truly there, or is the man deranged? He created suspense when he brought a practicable ghost reincarnated or possible madman into the picture. Ensuingly when he begins talking to the raven more thrill was composed because of the conflict of the raven’s perchance of being evil. “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.”‘ (Edgar Allan Poe, Stanza 9) Lastly, Edgar’s internal conflict with himself has taken major part in this poem. As a child, his father abandoned him and his mother died a year later, so he was soon put into a similar environment with his new adoptive father being a gambler. Later in life, his sadness continued with him, and he became a chronic alcoholic and opium abuser.

Despite his fame and wealth from all of his writing success, it meant nothing to him, he didn’t write for other people’s entertainment, Poe would write for himself and for other people’s ignorance and arrogance. In this poem, the protagonist is mourning for his loss of someone he seemed to have loved, a woman named Lenore. Edgar saw the world in a way not many do, and some call him crazy, but others think of him as realistic; his morbid and cynical point of view. Edgar Allan Poe once said, “I was never insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.” (Edgar Allan Poe) The man’s loss in ‘The Raven’ seemed to have driven him mad, he was no longer sane and it was because Lenore had died, he could not handle such a horrific idea, and the worst part is it was no longer just an idea, it became the man’s reality. His loss became too much to bear, the opium abuse and drinks became endless; he was trying to kill his sadness.

Conclusively, ‘The Raven’ by Edgar Allan Poe is a tremendously significant and intriguing piece of poetry. His use of imagery makes his audience enamored to his details, making them feel as if they were in the room with him. When Poe used suspense it made the overall poem much more dark, almost evil. His internal conflict was the reason he was writing ‘The Raven’ in the first place, and he believed writing doesn’t hurt you. “If a poem hasn’t ripped apart your soul; you haven’t experienced poetry.

(Edgar Allan Poe) This poem’s mood is bleak but his use of suspense make it absolutely riveting. Edgar Allan Poe went through a lot, and his poetry meant something important; his poetry hurts.

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Edgar Allan Poe

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The unnamed narrator is alone in his house on a cold December evening, trying to read. As he is about to fall asleep, he hears a quiet knock at his door, but decides to ignore it. He says that he has been reading in the hopes of relieving his sorrow over Lenore , his beloved, who has passed away. Though he tries to convince himself that nothing is there, his curiosity and fear overwhelm him. He eventually opens his door, speaking “Lenore?” into the darkness. When he hears tapping at his window, he opens that, too, and a Raven flies inside his room, landing on a bust of Pallas . The narrator jokingly asks the Raven’s name, and is surprised to hear it respond “Nevermore.” He mutters to himself that the Raven will probably leave him just as his friends and loved ones did, to which the Raven responds once more “Nevermore.” The narrator then seats himself directly in front of the bird, trying to understand what it means by “Nevermore.”

Suddenly, the narrator perceives that angels sent by God have caused the air to become dense and perfumed. Anxious, he asks the Raven if the angels are a sign that heaven will relieve him of his sorrows, to which the bird says, again, “Nevermore.” With the same response, the bird rejects his hope that he might see Lenore again in heaven, as well as his impassioned request for the bird to leave him alone. Finally, the narrator tells us that the Raven has continued to sit atop his chamber door above the bust of Pallas, and that he will live forever in its shadow.

Jeff Martin, Associated Press Jeff Martin, Associated Press

Curt Anderson, Associated Press Curt Anderson, Associated Press

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/hundreds-pack-funeral-for-roger-fortson-the-black-airman-killed-in-his-home-by-a-florida-deputy

Hundreds pack funeral for Roger Fortson, the Black airman killed in his home by a Florida deputy

STONECREST, Ga. (AP) — Hundreds of Air Force members in dress blues joined Roger Fortson ‘s family, friends and others at a suburban Atlanta megachurch on Friday to pay their final respects to the Black senior airman, who was shot and killed in his Florida home earlier this month by a sheriff’s deputy.

People lined up well before the start of the service at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest to file past the open coffin and say their goodbyes to Fortson, who was shot six times by a deputy responding to a May 3 call about a possible domestic violence situation at Fortson’s apartment complex in the Florida Panhandle. He was 23.

READ MORE: Sheriff deputy’s killing of Black airman in Florida renews debate on police killings and race

Fortson’s face and upper body were visible in his Air Force uniform, with an American flag draped over the lower part of the coffin. After viewing the body, many mourners paused to hug one another.

“As you can see from the sea of Air Force blue in front of me, I am not alone in my admiration of Senior Airman Fortson,” Col. Patrick Dierig told mourners.

“We would like to take credit for making him great, but the truth is that he was great before he came to us,” said Dierig, who commands the 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Air Force Base in Florida, where Fortson was stationed.

Fortson grew up in the Atlanta area before he joined the Air Force. He was a senior airman who served in overseas combat zones and was stationed at Hurlburt when the deputy killed him.

His sister Raven Fortson spoke fondly of her brother, but bemoaned how his life was cut short.

“I thought Roger was the coolest person in the world. He was supposed to have a million more accomplishments,” she said.

READ MORE: Grief persists after Florida deputy shoots U.S. airman Roger Fortson

The funeral came a day after Fortson’s mother vowed to get justice for her son. At a news conference held by the family and their lawyer, Ben Crump, Meka Fortson spoke glowingly about how her son had always stayed on a positive path and had never been in trouble or shown signs of violence.

“Roger was light. There was not a stain on his name. He will not be put to rest in darkness because he was light,” she said.

She also had a message for Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden: “You’re going to give me justice whether you want to, Sheriff Aden, or not,” she said.

The deputy, whose name has not been released, shot Fortson six times within moments of Fortson responding to the deputy’s knocking and opening the door of his apartment while holding a handgun pointed at the ground.

Sheriff’s officials say the deputy acted in self-defense while responding to a call about a possible domestic disturbance in progress at the apartment complex.

The Fortson family and Crump, though, argue that the shooting was completely unjustified, saying Roger Fortson was home alone at the time FaceTiming with his girlfriend and that the deputy had gone to the wrong unit.

Aden has disputed allegations that the deputy went to the wrong unit, saying at a May 9 news conference that he’s aware of comments that “falsely state our deputy entered the wrong apartment.”

Two weeks after the shooting, the sheriff has yet to release an incident report, any 911 records or the officer’s identity, despite requests for the information under Florida’s open records act.

Police radio traffic played at the news conference Thursday bolsters the family’s contention that the deputy may have gone to the wrong apartment. In the recording, a dispatcher said all they know about the disturbance was “fourth-party information.”

“Uh, don’t have any further other than a male and female,” the dispatcher told officers. “It’s all fourth-party information from the front desk at the leasing office.”

Crump also highlighted two portions of the deputy’s bodycam video in which the deputy asked a woman who was leading him around the complex, “Which door?” The woman responded, “Um… I’m not sure.” Seconds later, she told the deputy that she heard a disturbance two weeks before that, but “I wasn’t sure where it came from.”

The bodycam video shows the deputy arriving at a Fort Walton Beach apartment building and speaking to a woman outside who described hearing an argument. The deputy then went up an elevator and walked down an outdoor hallway.

The video shows the deputy banging on the door and stepping aside, seemingly out of view of the door. Twice he shouted: “Sheriff’s office! Open the door!”

Fortson, who legally owned a firearm, opened the door while holding a handgun pointed toward the floor. The deputy shouted, “Step back!” and then shot Fortson six times. Only afterward did he shout, “Drop the gun! Drop the gun!” The deputy then called paramedics on his radio.

Fortson was talking to his girlfriend on FaceTime and grabbed his gun because he heard someone outside his apartment, Crump said. The deputy then burst into the apartment, he said, citing the account of the girlfriend, who has not yet been identified.

The case is among many around the country in which Black people have been shot in their homes by law enforcement personnel.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating and the deputy has been placed on administrative leave.

Fortson was stationed at Hurlburt Field near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. He was a gunner aboard the AC-130J and earned an Air Medal with combat device, which is typically awarded after 20 flights in a combat zone or for conspicuous valor or achievement on a single mission.

He was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron as a special missions aviator, where one of his roles was to load the gunship’s 30mm and 105mm cannons.

Anderson reported from St. Petersburg, Florida.

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