1 of 26

Write now Article Tools

Page 3 of 3

now, coming from his latticed window. He flings open the shutter, and in steps "a stately raven" that perches on a bust of Pallas Athena above his door.

I've never understood why the speaker comments, "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou, art sure no craven." How and why would such an indignity have befallen the bird that the speaker also somehow determines to be advanced in years? With Poe minor disbelief, is suspended. His sepulchral mood is sustained, and queries logical are immediately forgotten and resurface "Nevermore."

The poem's magical appeal - conveyed through rhymes interior and exterior, heightened by studied repetitions and alliterations like "grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt" - affects me as keenly as it did on my first reading. I know about little Edgar Poe's drug and alcohol problems, his quirky sexuality, the borderline incest of his marriage to Virginia Clemm, a 13-year-old cousin; his excessive devotion to his biological mother as well as his mother-in-law/aunt, the mysterious circumstances of his death.

Still I treasure and read his verse and particularly this poem. It transports and bewitches with morbid delight. I have difficulty appreciating the poetry of the French symbolists, but I applaud their appreciation and expressions of indebtedness to Edgar Allan Poe.

Learn more about this author, Kerry Michael Wood.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

• << previous page
• 1
• 2
• 3

Add your voice

Know something about Poetry analysis: The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe?
We want to hear your view. Write now!