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"The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe. It was published for the first time on January 29, 1845, in the New York Evening Mirror. Noted for its musicality, stylized language and supernatural atmosphere, it tells of the mysterious visit of a talking raven to a distraught lover, tracing the lover's slow descent into madness. Certainly Poe's most famous poem, its publication made him famous in his day, and today it remains one of the most recognized and respected poems in literature.
Interpretation
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"The Raven", like other works by Poe such as "The Black Cat," "The Imp of the Perverse," and "The Tell-Tale Heart," is a study of guilt or "perverseness" (in Poe's own words, "The human thirst for self-torture"). Although we are told in those stories that the narrators have killed someone, in "The Raven" we are only told that the narrator (appropriate term for poetic voice) has lost his love, Lenore. (Lenore is imported from an earlier poem, "Lenore" (1831) which was itself a massive reworking of "A Pæan"; both are also about the death of a young woman).
"Guilt" should not be taken here in either the standard legal or moral senses. Poe's characters usually do not feel "guilt" because they did a "bad" thing—that is, the story is not didactic (in his essay "The Poetic Principle" Poe called didacticism the worst of "heresies"); there is no "moral to the story." Guilt, for Poe, is "perverse," and perverseness is the desire for self-destruction. It is completely indifferent to societal distinctions between right and wrong. "Guilt" is the inexplicable and inexorable desire to destroy oneself eo ipso.
"The Raven" is also an excellent example of arabesque, mental suffering, writing as well as grotesque, or physical suffering. In addition to the narrator's physical terror throughout the poem, there are a great many psychologically disturbing sequences and images described as well.
The narrator quickly learns what the bird will say in response to his questions, and he knows the answer will be a negative ("Nevermore"). However, he asks questions, repeatedly, which would optimistically have a "positive" answer, "Is there balm in Gilead? Will I meet Lenore in Aidenn?" To each question the Raven's predestined reply is "Nevermore", which only increases the narrator's anguish.
The themes of self-perpetuating anguish and self-destructive obsession over the death of a beautiful woman are in themselves the most poetic of topics, according to Poe (see his essay "The Philosophy of Composition"). The torture which the bird has brought to the narrator was already in the narrator's ruminating character—the bird only brought out what was inside. The raven itself is a mechanical process: deterministic, preordained, one word being the bird's "only stock and store." The narrator throws himself against this process in a form of masochism, and lets it destroy him and consume him ("my soul from out that shadow... shall be lifted—Nevermore!")
Why or how Lenore was lost is unknown, but the narrator is torn between the desire to forget and the desire to remember. Death without cause is standard for Poe (See "Ligeia," "Eleonora," "Morella," "Berenice," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Oval Portrait," "Annabel Lee," "Lenore," "A Pæan," "The Bells," and others). The female beauty dies without cause or explanation—or she dies because she was beautiful. In the end, the narrator clings to the memory, for that is all he has left. What the raven has taken from him so cruelly is his loneliness—but this cruelty he brought upon himself, for he cannot resist the urge to interrogate the raven. He is fascinated by the bird's repeated, desolate reply. The speaker repeatedly asks it questions in the hope that it will say "yes" (forevermore)—or perhaps out of a morbid desire to be again told "no" (nevermore).
Although the bird seems a hallucination, it is in fact real (this is not to say that the narrator does not hallucinate at all, however), with real black feathers and a real croaking of the single word, "Nevermore." Ravens can be taught to speak. Poe's raven is thought to have been inspired by the raven Grip in Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens. Dickens's bird had many words and comic turns, including the popping of a champagne cork, but Poe emphasized the bird's more dramatic qualities.
Allusions
The narrator believes that the raven is "from the night's plutonian shore," or a messenger from the afterlife because Pluto is the Roman god of the underworld (also known as Hades in Greek mythology).
The bust of Pallas Athena that the raven perches on plays a large role in the poem. Poe says in "The Philosophy of Composition" that the pale bust was meant to serve as a visual contrast to the dark bird.
He also mentions the Balm of Gilead and Aidenn.
Publication history
Following its publication in the Evening Mirror, "The Raven" appeared in numerous periodicals across the country, including The American Review (February 1845), New York Tribune (February 4, 1845), Broadway Journal (vol. 1, February 8, 1845), Southern Literary Messenger, (vol 11, March, 1845), London Critic (June 14, 1845), Literary Emporium (vol 2, December, 1845), Saturday Courier, 16 (July 25, 1846), and the Richmond Examiner (September 25, 1849).
"The Raven" was also published independently in 1845 and has appeared in numerous anthologies, starting with Poets and Poetry of America in 1847. Poe was also inspired by the popularity of his poem to publish his essay "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846) explaining his alleged process for writing the poem and creating its refrain of "Nevermore."
Later works paired "The Raven" with premier illustrators. Notably, in 1858 "The Raven" appeared in a British Poe anthology with illustrations by John Tenniel, the "Alice in Wonderland" illustrator (The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe: With Original Memoir, London: Sampson Low). "The Raven" was published independently with lavish woodcuts by Gustave Doré in 1884 (New York: Harper & Brothers). In 1875 a French edition with English and French text was published with lithographs by the famed Impressionist Édouard Manet and translation by the Symbolist Stephane Mallarmé . A lot of 20th century artists and contemporary illustrators crated artworks and illustrations based on "The Raven": Edmund Dulac, Ryan Price, Bill Fountain, George A. Walker, István Orosz, Frantisek Jonás, Gahan Wilson and Mark Summers.
One of the earliest known parodies of "The Raven" was written by Robert Barnabas Brough in 1853, titled "The Vulture; An Ornithological Study", published in Graham's Magazine.
A parodic translation into Russian concludes with the narrator asking the Raven to name the cities of Chile. When the Raven answers "Nevermore!" the narrator decides to stop listening.
References
- The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, "Poems", edited by Thomas Ollive Mabbott, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
See also
External links
- "The Raven" - Full text of the first printing, from the American Review, 1845
- "The Raven" - Full text of the final authorized printing, from the Richmond Semi-Weekly Examiner, 1849
- The Raven illustrated by Édouard Manet' at Project Gutenberg
- The Raven illustrated by Gustave Doré' at Project Gutenberg
- The Raven Study Guide
- Garrison Keillor's rendition of "The Raven" (RealAudio)
- Reading of The Raven by LibriVox
- Audiobook recording with accompanying text of "The Raven".
- The Poe Decoder - Essay on the symbols, words and composition of The Raven
- -Video of Vincent Price giving a dramatic reading of the Raven