Fraser Taylor
Mr. Dowhaniuk
ENG-4UI
Mon Apr 8 2013
The Raven The poem “The Raven” is a poem that is recognizable world wide as being a masterpiece of recent literature and one of, if not the best, poems that Edgar Allan Poe ever written. “The Raven” is written by Edgar Allan Poe and was first published on January 29th , 1845 and was first printed in the “New York Evening Mirror”. Poe received only a few cents for the first publication, and there was no such idea as copyright back then, so anyone could just print off his works. This is part of the reason that Poe lived in poverty, because it was hard to make a living as a writer back in those time. For the majority of Poe’s life, he struggled to get by all the way up to his death. Poe has inspired many other writers including Stephen King, and also is an influence to the writer of Sherlock Holmes, based off Poe’s invention of the detective story, which is Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue”. “The raven” is a story of a man who is slowly losing his mind over his lost “Lenore”. It never says who Lenore actually is, but most assume it was his lover. The poem uses imagery, repetition and symbolism to help create the mood and style of the writing, and to help get the message across to the readers as to what Poe is trying to say. The poem “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe is a sad tale of a man who is slowly losing his mind from the death of his lost Lenore, because love is a very powerful emotion.
The poem “The Raven” uses a lot of repetition to create the atmosphere and the feeling of the poem. The repetition creates an almost hypnotic or trance like state in the reader and helps the reader to connect with the possibility that the narrator who is also the character in the poem, is losing his mind. Moreover, The repetition gives the poem a spooky feel and there is a rhyming pattern that is tied to the repetition all throughout the poem. This not only makes the poem more fun to read, but screams at the reader that the narrator is going crazy. When the narrator is repeating oneself and talking to oneself right in the beginning of the poem, the readers immediately begin to realize or think that the reader may be going crazy over grief. The trance that the poem creates draws the reader deeper into the poem and almost makes the reader feel as though they are in the poem or can see what is happening to the reader. “As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. ‘Tis some visitor’ I muttered ‘tapping at my chamber door” (Poe). The rhyming in the poem paired with the repetition creates the “insane” feeling the reader gets when they are reading and almost lulls the reader into a hypnotic state. Hence, the repetition in “The Raven” helps the reader to realize that the narrator/character is going mad because of his lost “Lenore” and love itself is the cause of his insanity.
Furthermore, Poe uses a lot of repetition in “The Raven” to create a certain feel that all readers get of the character going crazy throughout the poem. This lulls the reader into a hypnotic state. The repetition paired up with the rhyming pattern in the poem not only help the reader to connect with the narrator, but they also help certain words to stand out in the poem. “Poe also uses repetition not only to conform his rhyme scheme, but to emphasize the words as well. “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee- by these angels hath sent thee” (bookstove raven).
Secondly, Poe uses lots of Imagery to really make the reader feel that they are in the poem and to help them into the characters shoes and experience what he experiences. The imagery makes the poem so enjoyable to read, and keeps the reader focused on what they are reading because it is appealing to all five of their senses so they are experiencing the poem in every way. When literature has imagery in it, it paints a picture inside every readers mind of what they are reading. The reader sees the characters, the scene, the mood of the
