NOTES: POE – “THE RAVEN”
Narrative Poem (Tells Story)
Setting = December, midnight, speaker’s chamber
Plot / Events
Exposition (opening) – Explanation of the speaker’s sorrow
Main Ideas / Summary {lines 1-24}
Reading to forget Lenore
Opens the door, but sees only darkness
Main Ideas / Summary {lines 25-60}
He thinks the tapping is the wind / Hope’s it’s
Lenore
A Raven flies in – Perched on a bust of Pallas
(Athena)
Main Ideas / Summary {lines 61-96}
Black Bird replies, “Nevermore” to the speaker’s
questions
Will he forget / rejoin Lenore?
Will his suffering end?
Main Ideas / Summary {lines 97-108}
The speaker orders the black bird back into the
night
The bird becomes supernatural – forever above his
door
His soul lifted nevermore = perdition (Lenore is in
heaven, but he is not)
LITERARY TECHNIQUES
“RAVEN”
Onomatopoeia – “rapping” / “tapping”
Mood – gloomy / bleak
Internal rhyme
“dreary . . .weary”
remember . . .December”
ALLUSIONS: REFERENCES
Pallas (Athena) = Greek goddess of wisdom
Nepenthe – Greek myth / Lethe (river of
forgetfulness – underworld – forget past life while
moving into Hades)
Gilead – Bible / Jeremiah (healing ointment)
Plutonian – Roman version of Hades underworld
CONTRAST
Black bird on a white bust of Athena
Alliteration (repeat consonant sounds)
“weak and weary”
“silken, sad, uncertain rustling”
“ . . .soul from out the shadow that lies
floating on the floor
Shall be lifted –
nevermore” – he also alliterates the “f ”
sound
Assonance (repeat vowel sounds)
“a sainted maiden whom the angels name
Lenore . . . a rare, radiant maiden . . .”
– he also alliterates the “m, l, and r” sounds
ROMANTIC IDEAS
Exotic Past – “ominous bird of yore”
Focus on self (torment of speaker)
Supernatural (the bird) / Gothic
(irrational side of the mind – speaker)