Biljana Mihalek

XIX Century American Literature

Professor Aleksandra Izgarjan
April, 2010

THE RAVEN: THEMES

Introduction

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the major representatives of American literature. In order to
talk about any of his works it is necessary to take a brief look into his life, which greatly
influenced his writing.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston in 1809, as the son of travelling actors. He lost
his parents early and was taken into the home of a Richmond merchant John Allan. Althought
he was never adopted, he used his foster father’s name as his middle name. He was given a
fairly good education partly in Europe, partly in America. Poe had a bad relationship with his
foster father. The two of them had a lot of disagreements, one of them being Poe’s choice of
career and lack of interest in the mercantile business. (Heart, 593)
Poe attended the University of Virginia, but due to his squandering way of life he fell
into gambling debts and left the University within a year. This lead to another quarrel with
John Allan, and Poe ran away to Boston. There he published Tamerlane and Other Poems
(1827), after which he entered the U. S. army in hope to regain John Allan’s patronage. After
the death of Poe’s foster mother all chances of a reconcilliation were lost, so he moved to
New York where he worked as an unsuccessful writer and published works in magazines
(Heart, 594).
For some time he lived with his aunt Mrs. Maria Poe Clamm in Baltiomore. Mrs.
Clamm became a kind of a motherly figure to him. Her daughter, Virginia, who was much
younger than Poe later became his wife. They got married when she was only thirteen years
old. After twelve years of marriage, Virginia died and this had a great impact on Poe’s life
and writing. He began drinking and became an alcoholic. He died in 1849, when he was
fourty (Heart, 594).
Poe’s greatest accomplishemnts in his literary career were achieved in Philadelphia.
He worked there as editor of various magazines and also wrote critical essays. Later he moved
to New York again. His way of life and bad reputation threatened to ruin his career, but then
in 1845 “The Raven” appeared in the Mirror and in the collection The Raven and Other
Poems (Heart, 595).
It is probably his best known poem. Its significance lies in the fact that it captures all
the essence of Poe’s writing, from themes and symbols, to the atmosphere and effect he
wanted to achieve and provoke in his readers. It is also the best example of his own theory on
composition of literary works. The main subject on which the focus will be directed at are the
themes present in the poem.

Poe’s “Philosophy of Composition”

Before turning to the themes in the poem, a few words must be written about Poe’s
essay, “The Philosophy of Composition”. In this essay Poe gives an analysis of how a literary
work should be written, and exemplifies this through “The Raven”. It may as well be said that
it is Poe’s theory of poetry, and fiction also.

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 Poe believed that a literary work should be carefully planned out before any writing
takes place. Everything is carefully calculated and planned in advance, as he wrote himself,
“Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its
denouement before anything be attempted with the pen” (Poe, “The Philosophy of
Composition”, 2). This basically means that a writer must have a conception of overal effect
and precise denouement before actually writing something down. When writing he believed
the author must start with the kind of effect he wants to produce, or what kind of feeling he
wants to evoke in his readers, and work from there on. The plot must be precisely planned in
advance. In his essay Poe clearly states that the creation of his poem is based on careful
planning and logic, as if he were solving a “mathematical problem” (Poe, “The Philosophy of
Composition”, 7). No aspect of the poem is accidental.
The first issue Poe elaboates about in “The Philosophy of Composition” is the length
of a literary work. He stresses that in order for a literary work to achieve a single effect, it
must be read in one sitting. If a poem is too long it will be “deprived, through the extremes of
its length, of the vastly important artistic element, totality, or unity of efect” (Poe, “The
Philosophy of Composition”, 10). Thus, a poem should have a limitation of about one
hundred lines. “The Raven” has one hundred and eight. His next move was to decide on the
effect the poem would produce in his readers. Poe’s aim was to achieve “the pure elevation of
soul... which is experienced in consequence of contemplating the ‘beautiful’.” (Poe, “The
Philosophy of Composition”, 13). Poe believed that beauty should be in the focus of his poem
as the subject matter. The emotion of sadness which we have all experienced, is the one that
should also be included in a poem. The universal feeling of sadness, which connects all
people, is something everyone of us can realte to, and it is the emotion Poe wanted to evoke in
his readers. The former elements being defined, Poe had to decide on the tone. The type of
tone which is most complementary with beauty and sadness is that of melancholy, and “is
thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones” (Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition”,
14).
Combining beauty, sadness and melancholy Poe used the theme of the death of a
beautiful woman, since it is “unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world” (Poe, “The
Philosophy of Composition”, 20). Most of his poems feature this as a main topic. Brankica
Pacic also explains:

Having selected the nature of the effect and the tone of the poem, Poe then proceeded
to determine the topic, the setting and the versification of the poem. Since he believed
that melancholy is the most suitable feeling that poetry should aim at, then death,
which is the most melancholy subjec, inevitably became Poe’s next choice. The only
one topic that connects death with beauty is death od a beautiful woman. The tone and
the topic further determined the form of the poem, the nature of its protagonists and
the quality of versification (Pacic, 75).

Poe also gives explanations on how and why he chose the refrain “nevermore” for its
force of meaning and sonorousness. It was the first word that came into his mind (Poe, “The
Philosophy of Composition”, 18).
If we go back to the question of pre-planning the poem, Poe also elaborates about
having written the climax first and working from there on. The gloomy and mysterious
atmosphere he creates and which prevail in the poem represent one of the main
charactreristics of Poe’s writing. (Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition”, 21,27).
All in all, this essay provides us with an analysis of “The Raven” by its creator
himself. Thus, it is unavoidable reading material for interpretation and better understanding of
the poem.

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Short Summary

A lonely scholar almost falls asleep while studying in his chamber on a tempestuous
night. What he is trying to do is distract his thoughts from his beloved, who had died. He is
interrupted by a tapping on his door, but when he opens it he finds no one there. After
returning to his chamber he hears tapping once more, but this time on the window lattice. As
he opens it, a raven comes flying in and sits perched on a bust above the chamber door.
The man inquires the bird, and the raven surprisingly answers by uttering the word
“nevermore” (Poe, “The Raven”, 48). At first the man is amused by this and doesn’t give it
much importance. But line after line, the raven is granted more and more significance. The
man starts to interpret the appearance of the raven in different ways, trying to decipher if there
is more to the bird than its superficial appearance may imply. He identifies the raven with a
prophet and messenger from the underworld, and starts asking questions about his love
Lenore. The raven gives him the same answer each time. Even though he is aware of the
irrational nature of the raven’s answers, he continues to ask questions. His state of mind
progresses from mere amusement to a kind of frenzy, as if sinking slowly into madness.
In the end the man realizes that this “conversation” will not lead him anywhere, and
that he should not try to make any sence out of the birds answer. (www.poedecoder.com)

Themes

Edgar Allan Poe is a writer who created a clearly distinguishable and recognizable
style for himself. This he partly achieved by using the same themes in his works, which
became a usual characteristic of his. Some of these are death, unusual settings, and exotic
characters. However, one of the most common themes is the death of a significant woman in
the narrator’s life. (www.poedecoder.com)
There is a great number of topics that we can discuss when “The Raven” is concerned.
Most of these are connected or complement each other, forming a signle theme together. The
main theme of “The Raven” is the death of a beautiful woman. To analyse this theme first we
must look back on the essay “Philosophy of Composition” where the poet himself explains
why he chose this particular one.
Poe aimed to write about something that people will be able to understand and to
which they can relate to, a poem that will be “universally appreciable” (Poe, “The Philosophy
of Composition”, 13). He always tried to write in the way to be original and leave a certain
effect on his readers. His aim was “composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and
the critical taste” (Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition”, 8). Also, in order to achieve the
unity of elements in the poem, he had to chose an appropriate topic, one that results as the
combination of the subject matter of beauty, the emotion of sadness and the tone of
melancholy. Death, he considered to be the most melancholy topic. To accompany death with
the feature “most poetical in the world” (Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition”, 20), chosing
the death of a beautiful woman was unavoidabe as the main theme.
Death as a theme can be recognised from the very begining of the poem and it streches
throughout, till the very end. It is introduced by the narrator stating that he seeks comfort in
his studies, in order to forget about his lost love. He seems to be isolated from the outer
world, from reality, in his chamber, which represents a “typical Poean setting; the
hermetically closed room is heavily draperied and cushioned where no sound of the living
world can be heard. It represents the student’s inulated mind” (Pacic, 76). He is grieving over
the death of his beloved Lenore. We do not learn much about this woman. She could have
been the narrators wife, lover or even sister. We do not know what she looked like, nor even
how she had died. All we can state about her is that she was a very important figure in the

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narrators life and that he loved her very much. Her death is something he cannot get over, and
causes him imense suffering. As we can see, the themes of death and love are closely
connected. The narrator had lost someone he cared for very much. He tries to ease his pain by
studying, tries to take his mind off the loss which is causing him so much agony and pain.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to help him. The memory of Lenore is ever present in his
mind. Even his surroundings, the room he is occupying, serves as a reminder of Lenore.
It must be pointed out that Lenore, or the loss of a beloved woman is an
autobiographical element from Poe’s life. There are two possible interpretations for Lenore.
Firstly, we can consider her to be Poe’s mother. His mother was a beautiful actress and she
died when he was a young boy. Her death was probably something that had a great impact on
Poe’s life. Later he was taken into the home of the Allans, but it seems that his surrogate
mother never cared enough for him. Poe was craving for attention and love from a woman all
his life, looking for a surrogate mother and lover. The second person to whom Lenore can be
attributed to is Poe’s wife, Virginia. Virginia was actually the daughter of Poe’s aunt Mrs.
Maria Poe Clamm. They got married when she was only thirteen years old. He loved her
immensely. Virginia was a very delicate young woman, and suffered illness for a long time.
When she died of tuberculosis Poe slowly started deteoriating. He became totally distracted
with grief, and this lead to drinking and he became an alcoholic. It is no wonder his main
subjects are grief, death, love, since he experienced them firsthand (Bradley, 737).

It is not surprising that the idyllic, unearthly love he has often pictured in his stories
should always end in death, for death, first of his mother, then Mrs. Allan, and then his
wife Virginia, was one of the most constant facts of his life. (Pacic, 65).

Madness and the possibility of the existence of the supernatural are again two themes
intertwined and present in the poem:

...Until at length the lover, startled from his original nonchalance by the melancholy
character of the word itself, by its frequent repetition, and by a consideration of the
ominous reputation of the fowl that uttered it, is at length excited to superstition, and
wildly propounds queries of a far different character- queries whose solution he has
passionately at heart- propounds them half in superstition and half in that species of
despair which delights in self-torture- propounds them not altogether because he
believes in the prophetic or demoniac character of the bird (which reason assures him
is merely repeating a lesson learned by rote), but because he experiences a frenzied
pleasure in so modelling his questions as to receive from the expected "Nevermore"
the most delicious because the most intolerable of sorrows (Poe, “The Philosophy of
Composition”, 21).

At the begining we are presented with a scholar, absorbed in his studies. He seems
perfectly sane and normal. A reasonable man, an educated man, his only problem being his
grief. When the raven appears and the poem slowly progresses towards its climax, we start
questioning the narrators sanity. It is not the fact that he is having a conversation with a bird
that makes him seem on the edge of reason. It is the great tragedy of loss and the pain that
follows it, which torture this man’s heart and soul and drives him into a frenzy. The narrator
gets completely drawn into the mysterious appearance of the bird. Although the poem never
actually oversteps the boundaries of the real, a superstition will emerge out from the
desperateness of the grieving man. We also get a few hints of the supernatural, as the narrator
tries to guess the bird’s origin, intention and purpose (Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition”,
35).

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 The narrator starts quizzing the raven, aking its name first. But then he seeks answers
to more and more serious, but irrational questions. The only answer he ever gets is the word
“nevermore” (Poe, “The Raven”, 48). As a learned man, he should be aware that this answer
is the only one he can get, because it is very likely that it is the bird’s “only stock and store”
(Poe, “The Raven”, 62). Even so, he continues with asking questions to which he can never
get a valid answer. The narrator yearns to find out something, anything in connection with
Lenore. He needs to know that she exists in some other form, in a world beyond his own. He
tries to give other possible explanations for the raven’s presence and obsesses about the
meaning of the word it utters. The narrator starts to consider the bird a messenger from the
Plutonean shores, the world of the dead. Also he will call the raven a prophet. This implies
that he starts believing in the irrational, the supernatural – just to find an explanation. He asks
questions related to Lenore. He wants to find out about her, where she is and if he will ever
see her again. He wants to know the future but it drives him mad to know the negative
answers to the questions in advance.

The replies of the bird come from the student’s innermost consciousness and express
his terror that Lenore is lost for ever and that they will not, even in death, be reunited
(Pacic,77).

What he does is a kind of self-torture that can be seen as another theme. Poe himself
wrote about it in “The Philosophy of Composition” calling it “the human thirst for self-
torture” (Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition”, 35). Anguished by the death of his beloved
Lenore, and increasingly aware that the raven can utter only one single word, the narrator
compulsively puts questions the answers to which only heightens his pain. Why he does this
we can only guess. He is a desperate man, still loving the person no longer beside him.
Perhaps he would not be able to bare a positive answer. He is wallowing and torturing himself
on purpose. The narrator does not want to feel happines, he does not want to forget, because
he still isn’t able to move on. The only thing he does want is to be attached to the memory of
his love. This self-torture will lead us to the end of the poem, where the main themes all
combine, leaving us with an unpredictable ending. The tortured narrator, devoted lover, is left
to continue in his misery. He does not want to believe what the prophet is telling him, but at
the same time believing it. He does not know what will happen next, and all of these
confusing circumstances are slowly pushing him towards madness. His soul can no longer be
lifted, as if he were living a life-in-death, or death-in-life. The very end of the poem
foreshadows death. But this time it is the narrator’s death, especially if the raven is percieved
as an ill omen and the messenger of the dead. The lover is only biding his time and waiting to
die.

The student experiences spiritual death and becomes conscious of that fact that not
only Lenore is irrevocably lost, but that his life has become death-in-life, buried under
the raven’s shadow that presses heavily upon the floor (Pacic, 77).

In the last stanza the narrator finally stops in trying to find moral in the bird’s
utterance. He realises there is no point in that. The raven becomes an emblem of “Mournful
and never ending Remembrance” (Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition”, 38).

Conclusion

It is no secret that Poe wrote with the intention to please the tastes of the reading
public and of the critics, as he confesses this himself. This was the exact reason for the usage

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of popular themes that he incorporated in his works. He used gothic elements, elements of
crime and mystery, but also universal topics which people are easily able to understand and
realte to, such as love, death and loss.
“The Raven” is Poe’s major work which turned him into a national celebrity. Due to
its force and originality it became popular right after publication. The poem was soon
reprinted, imitated and parodied. Even though it brought him fame, it did not bring wealth.
Still, it has been a great influence on many modern works, as well as films, television, music
and more. (www.wikipedia.com)

References

 Heart, James D. The Oxford Companion to Literature, New York, Oxford University
Press, 1983. (593-595)
 Pacic, Brankica. The Big Ten Major Nineteenth Century American Writers, Nis,
Univerzitet u Nisu, 1991. (61-78)
 Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Philosophy of Composition”. Available at
http://www.bartleby.com/109/11.html. Last visited at May 17, 2010.
 Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Raven”. Available at http://www.bartleby.com/102/84.html.
Last visited at May 17, 2010.
 http://www.poedecoder.com/essays/raven/
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe