Edgar Allen Poe wrote many poems and short stories. One of his most famous poems is titled “The Raven”, and was first published in 1845. It was written to tell a story; the story of a heart broken man and his encounter with a raven. It was meant to be a horror, or scary piece of literature, and so it is. I chose to analyze this poem by looking at its title, by looking at its diction, and by looking at the elements of poetry found within it. These will prove that Poe wanted us to get a haunted feeling from this poem, along with grasp its deep story line.
You can tell a lot about a poem by its title. The title of this poem is “The Raven”. From the title, you can already tell that this poem involves a raven, in one way or another. Several times in this poem it mentions a raven, the one of which the title talks about. “Quoth the Raven” (48), says the poem at one point. It also states, “In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore”(38), and “But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust spoke only/ That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.”(60-61). This is one way to analyze a poem, but we have yet to cover the next two.
Another way to tell a lot about a poem is to look at the diction of it. Diction is basically a fancy word for saying vocabulary, meaning we need to look at the words used by the author for this next way to analyze poem. Poe used a lot of different words, unique in their ways, to support his theme. He uses these words to describe topics, such as the raven himself. “What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore.” (71). It says at one point in this poem. Ghastly suggests that the bird was horrible, while gaunt means it was also used to describe the physical appearance of the bird. He also uses certain words to make the poem scarier. These words include, but are not limited to, “denser” (79), “Plutonian” (98), “evil” (84), “devil” (84), and nevermore.”(84). That was the second way to analyze “The Raven”, so next comes the third and final way used to analyze this poem.
Looking for the different elements of poetry can help you understand a poem better. In “The Raven” you see the following elements of poetry: rhyme, tone, image, and repetition. Rhyme shows up constantly throughout “The Raven”. It is used to add emphasis to different words. One example of this is “On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before./Then the bird said ‘Nevermore.’”(59-60). “Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;-/ ‘T is the wind and nothing more!” (35-36) is another example of rhyme. In each excerpt of the poem, emphasis is being placed on the word ‘more’, whether it is nevermore or more. The tone is shown throughout the poem. It’s the way someone would read a certain line of the poem. Take this part of the poem, for example:
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!-prophet still, if bird or devil-
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-
On this home by Horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore-
Is there- is there balm in Gilead? – tell me- tell me, I implore!
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
If you were to read it aloud, you would put anger in it. Anger would be the tone you would take with that one paragraph in the poem. Imagery is shown by the describing words, such as “ghastly, gaunt, and ungainly.” (71). By hearing those words describing the raven, you immediately think of a horrid beast of an animal. Another word that makes us believe this about the raven is “wretch” (81). Repetition is also shown throughout the poem “The Raven.” Several things are repeated. For example, the name “Lenore”(10) is said quite often. Lenore is the name of the narrator’s deceased lover, whom he still loves. Also, the Raven utters the words “Nevermore” (84) frequently throughout the poem. This adds suspense, in which a plot can build.
I believe that Poe succeeded in his goal of giving us a haunting poem. I also believe that his use of repetition helped us grasp the deep story line of this poem. By looking at the title of a poem, looking at the diction of a poem, and looking at the elements of a poem, I was able to figure out the true meaning of ”The Raven”, and came to the conclusion that it is a horrifying yet legendary piece of literature.
This Essay was also written for English class. (I got a 200/200) It is on "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. I actually enjoyed this one, 'cause I finished it and scored well. "Why did you choose such a difficult/creepy poem, Balletninja?" Oh, I just wanted to make my English teacher's brain hurt. >:D *Shot*
