The Raven

Study Guide by Course Hero

TENSE
What's Inside "The Raven" is told primarily in the past tense as the speaker
recounts his experience with the raven, but the tense
occasionally moves into the speaker's present, most notably at
j Book Basics ................................................................................................. 1 the poem's close.

d In Context ..................................................................................................... 1 ABOUT THE TITLE

The title "The Raven" refers to the raven that visits and vexes
a Author Biography ..................................................................................... 2
the speaker on a winter's night.
h Characters .................................................................................................. 3

k Plot Summary ............................................................................................. 5

c Plot Analysis ............................................................................................... 6

d In Context
g Quotes ........................................................................................................... 8

l Symbols ...................................................................................................... 10
Gothic Literature
m Themes ........................................................................................................ 11 Gothic literature explores the dark side of the human condition:
death, loss, loneliness, nightmare, alienation, and the
e Suggested Reading ............................................................................... 12 supernatural. Many of Poe's poems and short stories deal with
one or several of these themes. His speakers and narrators
veer into melancholy or outright insanity, and they are usually
loners or outcasts living on the fringes of society. Much of his
j Book Basics work focuses on death or murder, presented with a creeping,
ominous mood of inescapability. Gothic literature generally
AUTHOR includes the following characteristics:
Edgar Allan Poe
Mysterious or supernatural plot elements
YEAR PUBLISHED Ominous and personified architectural settings
1845 Intense emotion and drama
Isolated, moody heroes
GENRE
Drama, Horror In "The Raven," a lonely scholar obsesses over his dead lover
until he's visited by a strange raven that speaks only one
PERSPECTIVE AND NARRATOR ominous word: "Nevermore." Poe uses the setting—midnight on
"The Raven" is narrated in the first person by an unnamed, a bleak December night—and the speaker's weak and weary
unreliable speaker. He is grief-stricken over the loss of his love, mindset, along with intensely sensual language describing
Lenore, and his mental state deteriorates over the course of death, ghosts, and angels, to evoke a mood of despair,
the poem. darkness, and slowly encroaching madness.
The Raven Study Guide Author Biography 2

Poetic Elements One Reading, One Effect

Poe believed that to be successful a work should be read in
Poe uses alliteration, or the repetition of initial sounds at the
one sitting and produce a single effect on the reader. In order
beginnings of words, to create rhythm and influence the mood
to solidify his desired effect, Poe wrote "The Raven" backward,
of the poem. For example, "While I nodded, nearly napping,
beginning with the third to last stanza. He chose his subject
suddenly there came a tapping." The repetition of the n sound
with the idea that the death of a beautiful woman would be
creates a mood suited for slumber. The sudden tapping
most affecting: "death, then, of a beautiful woman is,
startles the speaker as well as the reader.
unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world—and
The meter, or pattern of beats, of "The Raven" is designed to equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such
give it a musical rhythm when read aloud. "The Raven" topic are those of a bereaved lover." He also believed in the
comprises eight stressed-unstressed two syllable feet per line unity of impression, which was why he specified that a poem
(trochaic octameter). Poe adds to this rhythm by including should be able to be read in one sitting. To step away and
internal rhyme in each stanza, such as with "weary"/"dreary" come back later would ruin the effect. Many of Poe's works
and "napping"/"tapping." were written with this method.

Poe uses assonance, or the repetition of a vowel sound, to

establish tone. For example, "over many a quaint and curious Sound and Meaning
volume of forgotten lore." The repetition of the long o sound
creates a tone that is mysterious. Poe experimented with tone to produce this desired effect on
his audience: "Melancholy is ... the most legitimate of all the
In addition, Poe uses onomatopoeia, or words that mimic poetical tones." He wanted "to produce continuously novel
sounds, to great effect. For example, effects, by the variation of the application of the refrain—the
"tapping/rapping/napping" produce a staccato sound that refrain itself remaining, for the most part, unvaried." In "The
mimics the sound of the tapping present in the poem. It was Raven," Poe stresses the monotony of the refrain "Nevermore,"
meant to be read aloud to evoke an effect, and also to as he manipulates its various meanings and possible
reinforce the poem's focus on speech. The raven speaks, intonations to bring forth the desired emotional effect of
providing the refrain of "Nevermore" in many of the stanzas. melancholy. Poe also states that the long o is the most
sonorous of all sounds in the English language. This deep,
The name of the speaker's lost love, Lenore, rhymes with the
ringing sound approximates the low moan of sorrow, loss, and
only word the raven utters, "Nevermore." It ties the woman to
perhaps even the supernatural: "over," "ghost," "only," and so
the idea of finality, of loss and endings, reinforcing the theme
on.
of the poem. With the use of alliteration, meter and internal
rhyme, assonance, onomatopoeia, and the refrain of
"Nevermore," Poe uses the sounds of the poem itself to evoke
his unity of effect and create an atmosphere of melancholy. a Author Biography

Poe's Philosophy of Childhood and Education

Composition Edgar Allan Poe's life was short and troubled. When Poe was
born on January 19, 1809, his father David and mother
Poe wrote the essay "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846) Elizabeth already had one son, Henry. After Poe was born they
after the success of "The Raven" to describe the process of had a daughter named Rosalie. Both parents were actors.
composing fiction. Before the young Edgar turned three, his mother had died from
tuberculosis and his father had abandoned the family. Similar
losses followed him throughout his life. He lost both his brother

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The Raven Study Guide Characters 3

Henry and his wife Virginia to either tuberculosis or cholera. Poe also left his mark on short fiction. His stories featuring the
fictional detective C. Auguste Dupin helped create the modern
Soon after Poe was orphaned, he was taken in by a wealthy detective genre and directly influenced later fictional
merchant named John Allan and his wife Frances, who had detectives such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.
known Poe's mother. Poe's siblings went to live with other Stories such as "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans
families. Poe started attending the University of Virginia in Pfaall" (1835), which involved a trip to the moon, and "Mellonta
1826, but he had to leave after just a year due to drinking, Tauta" (1849), which included futuristic transatlantic air travel,
gambling, and excessive debt, brought on in part by his foster were some of the first science fiction ever written. Finally, Poe
father's refusal to provide him with the resources he felt is known as the father of modern horror, especially
befitting a man of his station. He joined the army in 1827, and a psychological horror. He raised Gothic fiction—fiction that
year later he published his first book of poems, Tamerlane and combines horror, death, and sometimes romance—to high art
Other Poems, followed by Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor in stories such as "The Black Cat" (1843), "The Fall of the
Poems in 1829. Neither collection brought him much attention House of Usher" (1839), and "The Pit and the Pendulum"
or money. He entered the United States Military Academy at (1842). His work has inspired hundreds of adaptations,
West Point in 1830, but the Academy dismissed him when he imitations, and parodies.
flaunted their rules. (One longstanding rumor has it that he
showed up for drills wearing only a belt and a smile.) He never
graduated.
Death and Legacy
Poe fought depression and alcoholism his entire adult life.
Early Career and Writings These worsened after his wife Virginia died in 1847. He died
just two years later, on October 7, 1849, after being found
After leaving West Point Poe wrote for several years before delirious in a gutter. The cause of his death remains a mystery;
landing a staff position in 1835 as a literary critic at the it has been variously attributed to alcohol poisoning, rabies (a
Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, Virginia. That same fairly common virus at the time), pneumonia, or suicide, among
year, when he was 27, he married his 13-year-old cousin other causes.
Virginia. Poe became an influential editor at the literary journal,
but real fame came from his own writing. Although his early "The Raven" was among the works that cemented Poe as a
poetry didn't win him the praise he wanted, his later poems literary sensation. More than a century later, the poem remains
were highly respected. Works such as "Lenore" (1843), "The one of Poe's most famous and widely read works, exploring
Raven" (1845), and "Annabel Lee" (1849) unite technical themes common in his writings, such as death, loss, and the
precision with vivid imagery and explore themes such as supernatural. It also showcases his imaginative prowess,
unrequited love, death, and despair. musicality, and deftness with descriptive and emotionally
evocative language.
Poe's writing follows principles of composition he explored as
a literary critic and theorist. In essays such as "The Philosophy

h Characters
of Composition" (1846), he developed ideas about artistic
creation and the short story that are still extremely influential.
Chief among these are his emphasis on brevity and portraying
characters truthfully; exploring the ways people think, feel, and
behave in real life; and ensuring every element in a work, from The Speaker
the first sentence to the last, contributes to "unity of effect."
For Graham's Magazine, he reviewed American author The speaker is a scholar mourning the loss of his beloved
Nathaniel Hawthorne's first volume of stories, Twice-Told Lenore. He tries to keep his mind off of her by reading, but he
Tales. Hawthorne was not well-known at the time, and Poe's is beset by melancholy thoughts of her. When a raven enters
praise for Hawthorne's innovative writing style and "unity of his room, he is at first amused, and then angered by its
effect" helped change that. responses to his questions of life, death, and the afterlife. He

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The Raven Study Guide Characters 4

gives in to despair.

The Raven
The raven says only one word—"Nevermore"—that the speaker
interprets in different ways to answer his own questions. The
bird serves as a device to explore the speaker's grief.

Lenore
Lenore is a young woman. The speaker refers to her as a "rare
and radiant maiden."

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The Raven Study Guide Plot Summary 5

"Nevermore." The speaker is surprised that the raven can

Full Character List speak, even though the word it says doesn't make sense in
context. The raven says nothing else, sitting silently on the
Character Description statue.

The speaker is a man sitting alone in his

The Speaker
room thinking about a lost love. Stanzas 10–12
The raven is a bird that flies into the The speaker mentions with a sense of sorrow that the
The Raven
speaker's room. raven—like everyone else in his life—will leave him in the
morning. Once again, the raven croaks, "Nevermore." He is
Lenore Lenore is the speaker's dead love. shocked, but then explains away the bird's utterance as a sign
of the bird's previous owner's terrible misfortunes. He still finds
the bird interesting and amusing, and so takes a seat in front of
the bird and the bust. He tries to figure out what the bird
k Plot Summary means by "nevermore."

Stanzas 1–3 Stanzas 13–15

On a midnight in December, the speaker reads over old books As he sits, he thinks of his lost love, Lenore, who will never
for the purpose of easing his sadness over the death of his again sit in the chair. At the thought of her, the speaker feels
beloved Lenore. He falls into a doze, only to wake when he something in the air and smells incense in the closed room. He
hears a knock on his door. As he sits debating who could be at gets angry, asking for a potion of some kind that will make him
his door, his imagination begins to run away with him. forget Lenore and the memories of her that torture him. The
raven replies, "Nevermore," enraging him further. The speaker
calls the bird a prophet, but whether for good or evil remains to
Stanzas 4–6 be seen. He asks the bird if there is "balm in Gilead" that will
quell the pain of his remembrance. The Raven answers once
He finally convinces himself that it is just a late-night visitor at again: "Nevermore."
his door and asks for forgiveness for his hesitation in
answering. He'd been napping, he explains to the visitor as he
approaches the door, and wasn't sure he'd actually heard the Stanzas 16–18
knocking, thinking it might have been a dream. However, when
he opens the door, there is no one there. He stands in the Next, the speaker asks the bird if he has any hope of reuniting
doorway, gazing into the darkness and doubting his senses. He with Lenore in heaven. The raven replies with the same answer
thinks he hears a whispered word—"Lenore"—before going as always, driving the speaker into further fits of rage.
back inside his room. Soon he hears a tapping at his window. Furiously he orders the raven to leave him to his loneliness and
He suspects it is the wind and goes to investigate. despair. The raven again says, "Nevermore." The final stanza,
which moves into the present of the speaker's retelling, sees
the raven still sitting in the chamber, perched on the bust of
Stanzas 7–9 Pallas Athena. The speaker has succumbed fully to his despair
and sees himself engulfed in the raven's shadow forever.
When he opens the window a raven steps inside. It flies into
the room and perches on the bust of Pallas Athena that sits
above his door. At first the speaker is amused by the raven's
manner. He asks the bird's name, to which the raven replies,

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The Raven Study Guide Plot Analysis 6

c Plot Analysis Setting and Mood

Poe uses atmosphere to build the dread evident in the last line
of the poem. Every choice he makes is designed to create one
The Supernatural singular effect on the reader. To that end, Poe chooses the
time of day and year for a specific purpose. It is midnight, the
References to the supernatural are rife within "The Raven." closing of the day, in December, the last month of the year. The
While Poe never confirms whether the raven is a supernatural day is ending and the year is ending, reinforcing the imagery of
entity or a product of the speaker's subconscious, an argument death already present in the poem, as when the speaker notes
can still be made from clues within the text. how "each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the
floor." Images and words combine to evoke death—the dying of
He first hears a knock on his chamber door, only to open it and
the day, of the year, of the fire, of Lenore. This line also
find no one there. Yet before opening it, he is struck with a
enhances the supernatural element of the poem by introducing
terror of the unknown. Overcoming his fears, he gazes into the
the idea of things beyond our knowledge at work with the
empty corridor and thinks he hears a whispered "Lenore" in
mention of a ghost, soon to be reinforced by a mysterious
response to his own whispered question. He's already grieving
knocking and the feeling of a strange presence.
for his lost love, already primed to be haunted by her ghost as
he tries to lose himself in study to stop dwelling on his The room the speaker sits in also sets the mood of the poem,
memories of her. and it is complete with all the trappings of Gothic literature.
The speaker sits alone in the dark on a bleak, stormy
With the arrival of the raven, more supernatural elements creep
December night. He's studying to distract himself from
into the poem. The raven itself is often used as a supernatural
constant thoughts of Lenore, his dead love. Shadows are
emissary, a way of communicating with the unknown. The
thrown throughout the room by the light of the dying fire. He's
speaker questions where the bird might have come from. He
disturbed by the arrival of the raven in a flurry of wind and
equates the bird's source with Pluto, the Roman god of the
swirling curtains, an entrance rife with drama and portent.
Underworld, cementing further the idea of ghostly
communications about the afterlife. Poe seeds the poem with images of darkness that encroach
more and more on the speaker. It's night, the fire is dying, and
In a later stanza, the speaker thinks he smells incense from
there is a storm brewing outside the room. When the speaker
"some unseen censer swung by Seraphim," which brings the
opens the door, all that greets him is a darkened, empty
supposed presence of angels into the poem. Is the speaker
hallway. The raven is a black bird that casts a long shadow that
hallucinating or is he being visited by a heavenly being? Is he
will eventually envelop the speaker, symbolizing the darkness
being haunted by actual creatures or by the grief in his own
in his soul.
mind? The angels are a heavenly force, negated by the raven's
own darkness and its answers of "nevermore" to the speaker's
queries.
Rationality and Madness
The raven is given more sinister intent by the end of the poem,
as it stays perched on the statue of Athena. It looks down on As "The Raven" progresses, the speaker is consumed with his
the speaker, seemingly casting some kind of spell on him, memories of Lenore. She's mentioned in passing in the second
snaring his soul in its shadow. Whether the speaker stanza, "Nameless here for evermore." She is always on his
succumbed to his grief or the sinister force animating the mind, as shown in the fifth stanza: "And the only word there
raven is something we are left to ponder. The poem walks the spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" / This I whispered,
line between suggesting the presence of forces of the and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"—." When he
subconscious and forces of the supernatural, giving it much of opens his door to find no one there, he immediately makes the
its narrative punch. jump to Lenore. This is another instance of the Gothic
sensibility that infuses the poem—the possible presence of the
supernatural. Was there someone at the door or did the

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The Raven Study Guide Plot Analysis 7

speaker imagine the knocking? Is the speaker being haunted give him—"Nevermore"—but compelled to ask anyway. The
by Lenore? Is it all in his head? Is he mad? Is he a reliable breakdown of his mental state is reflected in his narration. He
speaker? These are questions we have to ask as we continue alternately begs and yells at the bird in later stanzas, eventually
on with the speaker's story. ordering it out of his house. The narrative voice changes from
one of logic to one of madness.
The speaker's emotional state shifts throughout the course of
"The Raven," and the narrative voice reflects this change. In the When the bird tells him that he will not be reunited with Lenore
first stanza he is calm, if weary and melancholy. As the poem in the afterlife, the speaker loses hope entirely, his reason
progresses, his agitation grows as his imagination or the overthrown. This is evident in the final lines of the poem: "And
supernatural begins to assault him. 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
Once the raven appears, the speaker attempts to explain its the floor; / And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating
presence and strangeness through rational means. Again, on the floor / Shall be lifted—nevermore!" The speaker is no
there is an air of the otherworldly about the bird's arrival: "In longer seeking escape from his remembrance, he is wallowing
there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore; / Not in his grief. The speaker's despair has overwhelmed him, his
the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed logical arguments abandoned as the bird sits atop the bust of
he; / But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom, looking down on him.
door." The raven is described with human characteristics; the The final image intimates that rationality (Athena) has been
speaker uses aristocratic terms, giving it a proud air. It does overthrown by irrationality (the raven). With the final line, we
not ask permission, but rather steps inside as if it owns the can see that he has succumbed to a grief-driven madness and
place. the dread that has been haunting both the speaker and the
reader has finally arrived.
The speaker is first pleased by the arrival of the raven, and
amused by its behavior. He wonders if it was sent by angels as
some messenger to bring him comfort. Here the speaker's
state of mind is suspect. He is attributing human behavior to an
animal. Is he mad? Has he gone insane from the grief of losing
Lenore or is there more to this raven than meets the eye?

His rational arguments continue to break down as the raven

gives him one word answers. At first, the speaker is amused by
the bird's aspect, going so far as to ask for its "lordly name,"
and surprised when it answers him. But as the poem
progresses, the speaker's explanations and questions become
more desperate and his mental stability must be called into
question. He thinks he smells incense: "Then, methought, the
air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer / Swung by
Seraphim," reminding us of his deteriorating mental state and
the Gothic sensibilities of the poem. Are there angels present
or is this just a delusion brought on by grief? He grows more
anxious and angrier with each of the raven's utterances of
"Nevermore." Now, he believes the bird was sent by dark
forces to torment him, to deprive him of the hope of being
reunited with Lenore.

Eventually the speaker yells at the bird, calling it, "Prophet!"

said I, "thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—" and
pleading with it to give him answers to his questions. He verges
on hopelessness, already suspecting the answer the bird will

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The Raven Study Guide Quotes 8

by the foul weather. The raven is given a noble descriptor and

g Quotes assigned a feeling of great age and import.

"Once upon a midnight dreary." "But, with mien of lord or lady,

— The Speaker
perched above my chamber door—
/ Perched upon a bust of Pallas."
This opening line establishes the mood of the poem by offering
a bleak setting. — The Speaker

The speaker likens the bird to a nobleman or woman,

"Vainly I had sought to borrow / personifying it and giving it human characteristics. It enters his

From my books surcease of rooms as though it belongs there and then sits on the statue of
Athena, the goddess of wisdom.
sorrow—sorrow for the lost
Lenore."
"Tell me what thy lordly name is on
— The Speaker the Night's Plutonian shore!"

The speaker introduces Lenore and her death. He uses study — The Speaker
to fend off his sorrow and grief at her passing.

The speaker speaks to the raven as if to a human, as if it will

answer him. He makes reference to the god of the underworld,
"And the only word there spoken and ties the raven to images of death and darkness.

was the whispered word,

"Lenore?"" "Quoth the Raven "Nevermore.""

— The Speaker — The Speaker

Upon finding no one at his door, the speaker briefly wonders if The raven's response to every question the speaker asks is
it is Lenore's spirit reaching out to communicate with him, "Nevermore." The speaker assigns different meanings and
giving a supernatural air to the poem and making us doubt the intonations to the bird's response.
speaker's reliability.

"Other friends have flown before—

"In there stepped a stately Raven
/ On the morrow he will leave me,
of the saintly days of yore."
as my Hopes have flown before."
— The Speaker
— The Speaker

The raven appears at the speaker's window, brought by there

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The Raven Study Guide Quotes 9

The speaker fears the raven will abandon him, as hope has as a prophet—foretelling the future—or as an infernal beast. He
abandoned him. Lenore's death has left him grieving and wonders if the raven has been sent by the devil or simply
despairing of the future without her, to the point that he feels arrived due to the storm. He is assigning supernatural agency
hopeless. This drives home his feelings of isolation. to the bird.

"Then, methought, the air grew "Is there—is there balm in Gilead?"
denser, perfumed from an unseen
— The Speaker
censer / Swung by Seraphim
whose foot-falls tinkled on the Gilead is heaven, and the speaker asks the raven if he will be
reunited with Lenore when he dies. That would give him hope
tufted floor." and make the memories easier to bear.

— The Speaker

"Tell this soul with sorrow laden if,

The speaker thinks he smells incense in the air and ascribes it
to angels from heaven, where he believes Lenore awaits him.
within the distant Aidenn, / It shall
Whether he is visited by the supernatural or is just hallucinating clasp a sainted maiden whom the
due to madness is left up to interpretation.
angels name Lenore."

"Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe — The Speaker

and forget this lost Lenore!"

Again the speaker asks for confirmation that he will meet
Lenore in the afterlife, hoping for a more palatable answer. His
— The Speaker grief is turning to madness as he begins to hound the bird for
an answer it cannot give.
The speaker wishes to forget his memories of Lenore since
they cause him so much pain. He'd rather forget her than go on
remembering what he's lost. "Take thy beak from out my heart
and take thy form from off my
""Prophet!" said I, "thing of door!"
evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
— The Speaker
/ Whether Tempter sent, or
whether tempest tossed thee here The speaker orders the bird away after receiving an
unsatisfactory answer. It has killed his dream of reunion with
ashore."" Lenore.

— The Speaker

"And my soul from out that

The speaker associates the raven with the supernatural, either
shadow that lies floating on the

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The Raven Study Guide Symbols 10

he tries, the speaker cannot figure out the logic of the bird's
floor / Shall be lifted—nevermore!"
one-word answers. The triumph of the unknowable over the
rational, the id over the ego, is expressed in the final image of
— The Speaker
the raven, perched on the bust of Pallas Athena (the goddess
of wisdom and patron of scholars), looking down at the
The speaker has given in to his despair. The raven sits on the defeated speaker. The unknowable has won.
bust of Athena and watches over the speaker as he sits in the
chair and gives himself over to his madness.

The Bust of Pallas Athena

l Symbols
Pallas is a reference to Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of
wisdom and battle strategy. The speaker is a scholar, so it

The Raven makes sense that he would have a small statue of her in his
chambers. The bust of Athena also represents the rational
mind or ego and logical thought. The raven lands and perches
atop the bust, placing itself above reason and logic. It
Poe wrote in his essay "The Philosophy of Composition" that supplants the speaker's ordered mind, taking precedence over
he meant for the raven to be the primary symbol in the poem. rationality. Even as the speaker attempts to ascertain the
Ravens were often viewed as harbingers of death, evil, and the raven's presence in his room through reasonable questions, we
supernatural. The speaker is lost in grieving remembrance of can see him growing more and more unstable with every
Lenore when the raven appears to him. The bird can be viewed answer of "Nevermore." He's approaching his breaking point.
as a supernatural emissary, a way of communicating with the When, in the final stanza, the raven sits unmoving atop the bust
unknown. of Athena, it symbolizes order overthrown by chaos, and the
speaker's loss of rational thought. The known has succumbed
Ravens were also viewed as messengers, especially in Norse
to the power of the unknown.
mythology where the two ravens that served Odin, the father
of the Nordic gods, were called Thought and Memory. The There is also a physical juxtaposition of the statue and the bird.
speaker is torturing himself with memories of his lost love, and The bust of Athena is made of marble or other pale stone. The
the raven could be a physical manifestation of those memories. raven is a black bird. We see a contrast between the light and
the dark, white and black, day and night, life and death. This
Unfortunately, when the speaker asks the raven for assurance
type of symbolic contrast is common in Gothic literature. The
that he will see Lenore in heaven, the raven tells him,
bust and the bird serve as visual representation of the two
"Nevermore." Here, the raven represents a different kind of
forces that pull at the speaker and help sustain the effect of
ending in death. Instead of reuniting in the afterlife, the lovers
the poem.
will be parted forever. Death is truly the end. The raven is the
death of hope that was sustaining the speaker.

The raven also symbolizes the unconscious or the unknowable.

The speaker is a scholar, a man of thought and fact and logic.
Pluto
He is rationality, the ego or a person's sense of reality and
identity. The raven represents the unknown, flying in from a
dark storm at midnight, a physical embodiment of the id or Pluto is the Roman god of wealth and the underworld (taking
impulse behavior. The speaker attempts to reason with the the Greek Hades' position in the pantheon). The speaker
bird, explaining its presence at his window, its ability to speak, mentions that the raven could have come from "Night's
its apparent knowledge; but his reason ultimately fails him. The Plutonian shore." This a reference to darkness (Night) and
bird is the incarnation of the unknowable, and no matter how death (Pluto), and ties in to the idea of ravens being

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The Raven Study Guide Themes 11

messengers or harbingers of death or ill omen. Coming from speaker obsesses over his reunion with Lenore, losing his hold
"Night's Plutonian shore" also reinforces the idea that the bird on rationality.
might actually possess the knowledge the speaker seeks
about the afterlife and could explain why he questions the The speaker is the one who assigns context to the raven's

raven about seeing Lenore again. answers. The raven only speaks one word, which the speaker
ascribes meaning to. He asks the same question in several
When the speaker rages at the raven after getting an answer ways, hoping for a different answer, even
he does not like with "Prophet still, if bird or devil," he ties the though—rationally—he realizes the raven is probably repeating
raven more closely to the underworld by calling it a devil. While the only word it knows. His grief has driven him to madness.
the ancient Greeks and Romans did not have a Christian hell, Once his hope is dashed by the raven's final answer, he
they did believe in a level of punishment in the underworld that succumbs to his grief-fueled despair. The raven has
functioned like hell. The raven is associated with the darkness overthrown reason, as symbolized by its perch upon the bust
and death of the underworld. of Athena. Rational thought has succumbed to madness.

m Themes Death and the Afterlife

Madness and Despair "The Raven" explores man's relationship with death,
specifically the effect of a loved one's death on those left
behind. We see the progression of the speaker's grief
throughout "The Raven." He sits alone in his room—a room and
"The Raven" is a poetical study of grief. The speaker attempts a chair where Lenore once sat, as he says in a later stanza:
to stave off his sorrow at the passing of Lenore using rational "But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
means, but grief is not rational. As the poem progresses, he /She shall press, ah, nevermore!" The speaker is engulfed in
veers further and further away from rational thought. The bust memories of Lenore, and he retreats to his books to find
of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, looks down on him from the solace from remembering. It is possible that the speaker looks
very beginning of the poem, but she—representing rational through his books of "forgotten lore" seeking a way to bring
thought—is overcome in the end by the symbolic despair Lenore back from the dead. It would certainly be in keeping
embodied in the raven. with some of Poe's other works, such as "Ligeia" or "The
Masque of the Red Death," where characters attempt to cheat
Throughout the poem, the speaker is trying to convince himself
death. Regardless, the speaker is attempting to stave off the
of something. First, he convinces himself that he is not being
pain of Lenore's loss through study.
haunted by Lenore when he opens the door to his chamber to
find no one there. He clings to his rational explanation of the Upon the raven's arrival, the speaker asks for the creature's
sound of knocking. When the raven appears, he attempts to name: "Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian
reason its presence at his window, saying that it escaped from shore!" The speaker, and Poe by extension, already equates
its master and fled the storm. Its speech, he supposes, is the the raven's presence with death, tying the two together with
bird parroting a word it heard from said master. his reference to Pluto, Roman god of the underworld and
overseer of the afterlife. Because ravens were often seen as
The speaker is trying to ground the strange circumstances in
messengers, associating the raven with Pluto suggests that
the ordinary, but with little success. As he continues to
the bird brings a message from beyond.
question the bird, he grows increasingly upset with every
response of "Nevermore." His reason begins to break down, as In a later stanza, the speaker asks, "Is there balm in Gilead?"
he becomes desperate for a different answer. His rational Gilead is another name for heaven; the speaker is asking if he
attempts to deal with the raven cannot overcome the will see Lenore again in heaven. Death may have taken Lenore
strangeness of the situation in the face of his grief. The from him too soon, but he desperately hopes to be reunited

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The Raven Study Guide Suggested Reading 12

with her in the afterlife. Poe takes a darker view as to the Interpretation, vol. 31, no. 1, 1998, pp. 23–31.
afterlife in "The Raven" than in other poems such as "Lenore."
The raven's answer to his question is "Nevermore," destroying Pahl, Dennis. "Sounding the Sublime: Poe, Burke, and the

the speaker's fragile hope in reuniting in the afterlife. There is (Non)Sense of Language." Poe Studies, vol. 42, no. 1, 2009, pp.

nothing to hope for after death. 41–60.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Philosophy of Composition." Graham's

Magazine, vol. 28, no. 4, Apr. 1846, pp. 163–67.

Loss and Grief

"The Raven" is a study in loss and grief. The speaker's lover,

Lenore, has died. Thoughts of her consume him, even when he
tries to distract himself. Many scholars have drawn parallels
between the speaker and Poe, who likewise lost his wife at a
young age. (Poe's wife, Virginia, was suffering from
tuberculosis when he composed the poem.) Though "The
Raven" is not considered biographical, the speaker's feelings
of grief are incredibly vivid and affecting. The loss of a loved
one is a universal experience, and Poe chose this theme of loss
to deliver the most profound effect he could.

When the speaker asks the raven if there is any hope he might
be reunited with Lenore after his own death, his question
mirrors those same hopes and fears within the reader. The
speaker's reaction of outrage and anger at not getting the
answer he wanted from the raven reflect common feelings of
anger and grief at being denied what is most desired.

There is another type of loss at work in the poem: the loss of

the past. There are many allusions made to the bygone era: the
speaker reads "forgotten lore," the raven is from "saintly days
of yore," the bust is of Pallas Athena, an ancient Greek
goddess. The antiquated language used in the poem reflects a
time long past. An obsession with the past is also a convention
of the Gothic, as mentioned above. Not only is the speaker in
mourning for a lost love, he is mourning a lost way of life or
world that has succumbed to time.

e Suggested Reading
Fisher, Benjamin Franklin. The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar
Allan Poe. Cambridge UP, 2008.

Freedman, William. "Poe's 'Raven': The Word That Is an Answer

'Nevermore.'" Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism: History Theory,

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