Poe and The Raven

In the confines of the 108 carefully composed lines of "The Raven," Edgar Allen Poe powerfully affects his reader. In "The Philosophy of Composition," Poe discusses the process of writing "The Raven." Reading these works gives the reader an idea of the complexity of the poem. The impact of "The Raven" is derived from Poe's careful calculation of each aspect of the poem. He leaves nothing in question, using each element, from word choice to tone, to create the poem's lasting effect. While reading the "Philosophy of Composition," the reader loses the emotion of "The Raven," but when the reader goes back to the poem, the technical insight makes the poem ultimately more effective.

"While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping" (Poe, "The Raven" 1331). The feelings Poe provokes with this line are curiosity and fear. In the two lines preceding, Poe has established the setting as a bleak night in which an exhausted student is poring over books of a mystical nature. The sudden "tapping" frightens the student, prompting him to reassure himself that it is nothing more than a visitor at his door. The reader is also startled by the ominous noise. In the first stanza of the poem, Poe plays on the instinctual fear people have of the night and, more specifically, of unexplained noises which emerge from the night. Poe insists in "The Philosophy of Composition" that effect is the key intention of a written work, and in "The Raven" the effect is achieved by the to

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the raven as the "Tempter," in the 15th stanza, implying he thinks the raven is the devil. Although Poe does not use "tempestuous," which means violent, furious, or passionate, this derivation of the word describes the emotional response of the student to the raven at the end of the poem. The definitions of these words are connected; thus, when Poe uses one of them, the meanings of the others are suggested. Intertwining words in this way magnifies the single word and contributes to the complexity of the poem. Words with mythical and religious implications also appear in "The Raven." The religious uncertainty of the student is revealed by the inclusion of both mythological reference and Christian references. In the eighth stanza, the student refers twice to the "Night's Plutonian shore," which implies the blackness of the underworld of Greek mythology. This reference refers to the status of Pallas or Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and the arts, on whose head the raven lands when he enters the chamber. Poe claims in "The Philosophy of Composition" that he uses Pallas because of the pleasing sound of the name and because the white marble of the statue creates a strong contrast to the bird's coloring. The mythological im

Category: Literature - P