Poe's famous poem, The Raven, begins with a studious man sitting in his luxurious chambers on a winter’s night, pouring over his books. He receives an unexpected visitor in the form of a raven. The bird, which seems to have supernatural qualities, refuses to leave, and torments him with the repetition of a single word, “Nevermore.”
The Raven
The raven symbolizes not only death, but disconsolate grief. The narrator of the poem has lost someone he loves, and the bleak despair that lurks in his subconscious never quite leaves him. It catches him unaware, in moments of lonely solitude, and like the dark form of the raven, forever casts a gloomy shadow.
The narrator yearns to know the answer to the question of whether he will ever see his love again in the afterlife. But the raven is very implicit in his reply: he will see her nevermore. This reply, which causes heartbreak and despair, is unarguable because the raven is capable of speaking only one word. The raven may not be a real creature but his subconscious bringing up these doubts. The narrator, who is pessimistic about the idea of a hereafter, will be tormented by this question until the day he dies because it is unanswerable here on earth.
Lenore
The narrator in the poem is grieving over the death of a woman, perhaps a wife or lover. The poem never does say how she died, or exactly what their relationship was to each other. But his grief is apparent in every line.
As in many of Poe’s short stories and poems, Lenore represents lost love. This “rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore” is Poe’s idealized conception of the perfect woman. She is the essence of truth and beauty and all that is good in the world and in his life.
The Poem’s Setting and Narrator
The setting of a “bleak December” at midnight adds atmosphere to the poem, and is symbolic of the narrator’s mood and state of mind, which is one of darkness, death and despair.
The chamber in which the man is sitting is representative of his life, filled with empty riches. It is a sheltered but lonely state of existence, as opposed to the inclement weather, an empty port in a storm.
Allusions to Mythology
To better understand the poem, it helps to know a few terms in mythology that occur throughout the work.
The bust of Pallas on which the raven perches is significant, as in Greek mythology Pallas Athena is the goddess of wisdom. In the narrator’s mind, the raven has chosen this perch to imply that it is speaking from some mystical wisdom.
The “Night’s Plutonian shore” has its roots in Roman mythology. Pluto is the god of the underworld, and the “Night’s Plutonian shore” represents death. In another passage, Aidenn refers to Eden, or heaven.
"Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe".. Nepenthe was a drug similar to morphine that the ancients used to relieve suffering and to cause a blissful forgetfulness of sorrow. Though it has not been proven that Poe had an opium addiction, Poe suffered all his life from depression and alcoholism. It is possible many of Poe's ideas for his poetry and short stories came to him in the form of morbid dreams.
In summary, the narrator of The Raven is pondering the possibility of an afterlife and exploring the age-old question of whether he will ever see his loved one again, and his subconscious fear is that the answer is “nevermore.”
Sources:
http://www.poedecoder.com/essays/raven/
Readers may also enjoy these articles about the works of Edgar Allan Poe: Edgar Allan Poe Short Stories: Themes of Guilt and Confession, and The Three Famous Detective Stories of Edgar Allan Poe.
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