The Raven

The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe--a dark romanticism poet--, is one of Edgar Allen Poe's more famous dark works. Here is a literal translation of the poem.

A man is sleeping from reading a book, and he hears a small tapping noise on his chamber door. He shakes it off thinking it is only a visitor. He sleeps again, but wakes to the same tapping noise again. He goes to the door opens it, but he finds no one there. Then he hears a tapping noise on the window, and as he opens up the window, a raven flies into his room and sits on a bust of Athena, the greek goddess of wisdom and war. He asks the raven what his name is and it replies. "Nevermore." He asks of Lenore, his dead wife whom he grieves, and the raven again replies, "Nevermore." He then asks if his suffering for Lenore will ever go away, and the raven replies, "Nevermore." He tells the raven to leave him, but the raven, alas, says, "Nevermore."

This poem is dark and mystical, and from the literal translation, one would not know this. However, Poe uses many literary devices to make this poem how Poe intended it to be. For one, he uses illusion, or referencing something of another piece of work or art. "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." (Poe, 258). Here, Pallas refers to Athena. Athena was the protector of wisdom and innocence, and in the poem, she is used as protection of the man's mind. A raven was commonly used as a symbol of death. As the raven flies and sits on the bust of Athena, it symbolizes that the innocence, the wisdom, and essentially, the man's mind, dies, or he goes insane.

Poe also uses repetition in his poem to set the dark theme. The raven continues to say, "Nevermore," and only that word. The raven says nothings else but that. And as the man asks the questions to the raven, and the raven gives him these terrible replies, the man perishes in his anguish and grief.

Poe's poem is a symbol of darkness and death. The man, suffering from the loss of his beloved Lenore, loses his mind in his grief. He talks to a raven, believes the answers from the raven, and goes insane. The man loses himself in his sadness and suffering. The Raven symbollically shows us that when one wallows around in his or her grief and suffering and does nothing to escape it, they eventually lose themselves, and their innocent selves die in their anguish.