I'm supposed to analyze "The Raven" for english, and I kinda need2 get the meaning of it . . . Is the phrase "Night's Plutonian shore" supposed to mean anything symbolically? (Or even literaraly. I DON'T GET IT!)

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Answers

The Night's Plutonian Shore is kinda the bowels of Hell. It is from Greek/Roman Mythology.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Try the poe decoder. I think its at www.poedecoder.com but look it up

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001

"Night's Plutonian shore" is mostly there for euphonious atmospherics, but the gist of it is this:

Pluto was the Roman god of the underworld and the dead, and Poe is saying the night is "Plutonian", in other words it is 'like' the underworld - sort of cold and dark and creepy. Poe is also imagining the night as if it were a kind of ocean of darkness spread over the earth - so that's why it has a shore - of all things - in his chamber, because his chamber is lit.

"Night's Plutonian shore" is meant to suggest all this imagery in a couple of words, even though, when you get right down to cases, it doesn't really mean anything in particular.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001

To add. The symbolism is important and used in several other poems. The shore between life and death, the past of memory and the future, the land of the unknown barely touched by the borderland experience of dreams. (Annabel Lee, A Dream within a Dream). Night is the kingdom of Death from which his Persephone(Lenore, Ananbel lee) may send him hope.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001

Few people have noticed, but "Night's Plutonian shore" was actually a misprint. Poe intended to speak of "Night's Plutonium shore". This refers to the time the Curies came to his door in the dead of night and broke his quill in a very menacing and threatening fashion, then 'borrowed' ten dollars off him. They never paid him back.

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2001