The Bird as a Metaphor for Grief in "The Raven"

Introduction

The Raven (The Raven in English) is the most famous poetic work of Edgar Allan Poe, written in 1845. The poet describes the anguish that it causes the death of his beloved. That anxiety embodied a black crow, after questioned, answered again and again: Never again, "Nevermore."

Discussion

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe: The first poem of modern times is "The Raven" which fixed, and immortal in the family tree, in the cypress, that perpetuates high in the imperishable.

Poe admitted having written the poem in a very methodical and logical, as he explains in his essay "The Philosophy of Composition, published in 1846. His intention was to attract both critics and satisfy popular demand. The poem partly inspired by the novel Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens, where a talking raven appeared. Poe borrows the complex rhythm and meter of the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning called the Court of Lady Geraldine (Lady Geraldine's Courtship). The poem uses internal rhymes, and much alliteration. The creative process of the poem described by Poe in his essay "Philosophy of Composition, which explains step by step methodology, used by the author for their implementation (Granger, pp. 13).

“Nevermore,” shouted the raven (Poe). The raven anguishes a man squawking “Nevermore,” driving him to the brink of emotional madness. Remaining calm and composed until he is paid a visit by the raven, the young man begins to fight with his inner thoughts. Coping with the death of his beloved Lenore, poet Edgar Allan Poe brings to light a suffering soul of a man filled with grief (Forsythe, pp. 18).

Throughout Poe's poem, the main theme of alienation and loneliness, brought forward through the hidden emotions of the speaker. Toward the end, of his poem, Poe's character reaches a point of hysteria in which the secret of the speaker's loneliness comes forth. His loneliness is the secret that he has been guarding all along. The raven brings the speaker's isolation to light, and the protection of his aloneness broke, when the speaker shouts, “Leave my loneliness unbroken” (Courson, pp. 566-570). As the poem progresses, the raven make the speaker nervous as his hysteria rises with each cry. He knows that, the raven possesses the secret of the afterlife, and he wants to know what it is with the hope that, this will help him be reunited with beloved Lenore. His imagination runs wild as his love of Lenore begins to fuel his inner turmoil. It is apparent that the speaker loves Lenore and that he would rather feel the pain of loneliness than bring back memories of her, as he introduces Lenore as “Nameless here for evermore”. He is unsure if he wants to give up his memories of her, so he goes insane with his agony (Korenowsky, pp. 72).

A common theme of the Romantic era that is used here is death. The speaker is so filled with grief that he cannot keep his composure. He grieves not because Lenore is dead, ...