Composition 102

Professor Kratz

Questions on “The Raven”

  1. Poe uses big, difficult words like: implore (instead of “beg” or “ask”), obeisance (instead of “bow”), ebony (instead of “black”), mien (instead of “feeling”), countenance (instead of “look”). He also uses classical, literary terms like: lore, yore,“radiant maiden,” Pallas, Plutonian, & Nepenthe. And religious terms like: censer, saintly (describing the raven), Seraphim, prophet, balm, Gilead, & Aidenn (i.e. Eden). What can we conclude about the poem just from Poe’s diction?
  1. There is A LOT of repetition in this poem: “nothing more” (6, 18, 24, 30, 36, & 42), “Nevermore” (48, 54, 60, 66, 72, 78, 84, 90, 96, 102, & 108), “As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door” (4), “So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating / ‘’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door— / Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;— / This it is and nothing more’” (15-18), etc… Why does Poe repeat so many words and lines?
  1. What’s the tone of the passage below? How does it differ from the tone of the rest of the poem? Why has Poe changed his tone in this way here?

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—

Darkness there and nothing more. (24-29)

  1. What does the raven represent? Remember: it’s a “stately Raven of the saintly days of yore”; a“Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore”; “this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore”; “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!”And…it talks!
  1. Furthermore, when asked “what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore,” the raven identifies itself as “Nevermore.” What does it mean that the raven’s name is “lordly”? Or that it comes from “the Night’s Plutonian shore”?
  1. Does it matter that the story is set “once upon a midnight dreary” (1) and “in the bleak December” (7)? Why?
  1. Does it matter that, before the raven comes, the narrator is reading “over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore” (2)? Why?
  1. The narrator names Lenore 8 times in the poem, but says that she is “nameless here for evermore” (12). In what sense is she nameless? Where is “here”? Why is “here” italicized”?
  1. Closely read the following stanza:

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—

Merely this and nothing more. (25-30)

Staying as close to the textual evidence as possible, tell me what the narrator might be dreaming when he “dreams [what] no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

  1. Why is it significant that it’s upon a bust of Pallas Athena (Greek goddess of wisdom) that the raven perches?
  1. In stanza ten, the narrator reasons: “‘Other friends have flown before— /

On the morrow he [the raven] will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.’” Is it a good thing when the raven contradicts him, saying “‘Nevermore’”? Why?

  1. Why is it significant that the raven first makes the narrator smile: it “[beguiled] my sad fancy into smiling” (43 & 67)? Why/how does the narrator’s attitude toward the raven change? Why is this change important?
  1. In stanza fourteen, the poem becomes suddenly full of religious images: “Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer /

Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.” How do these images impact your experience?

  1. What is the narrator really asking when he says “is there balm in Gilead” (89)? What does it mean when the rave responds “Nevermore”?
  1. What does it mean that, at the end of the poem, the “Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting / On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door” (103-4)?
  1. What’s “The Raven’s” rhyme scheme & meter? Do they look/sound anything like the rhyme scheme and meter of the witches’ discourse in Shakespeare’s Macbeth (below)? If so, what might we say about this parallel? Does the relentless rhythm have any resonance with the “beating of my heart” mentioned by the narrator in line 15? If so, why is that important?

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

THIRD WITCH

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witch’s mummy, maw and gulf

Of the ravined salt-sea shark,

Root of hemlock diggedi’ th’ dark,

Liver of blaspheming Jew,

Gall of goat and slips of yew

Slivered in the moon’s eclipse,

Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,

Finger of birth-strangled babe

Ditch-delivered by a drab,

Make the gruel thick and slab.

Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron

For th’ ingredience of our cauldron.

  1. Who is narrating? When/where is the narrator relative to the story he’s telling? What kind of narrator is he (participant/non-participant)? What is he doing just before the events he relates? What is his mental state? Can we trust him?