I'm doing a paper about the origin of Edgar Allan Poe's distictive writing. I want to an analysis on The Raven. I need some help. All I need is what he was writing about or who. I don't need too much information just enough to write a page about. Thanks.

-- Anonymous, May 18, 2002

Answers

On the surface, the speaker is obviously talking about the Raven. But he is also sad about the loss of his Lenore. So I think basically, the speaker is writing about despair and self- torture over the loss of his loved one. ( I don't know about the wording there...) He learns early on that the Raven can only say ONE WORD, and that is "nevermore". BUT he keeps asking the Raven questions; he KNOWS the answer will be "no", but he asks questions where he wants the answer to be "yes". So he's torturing himself with despair, asking questions when he already knows the answer. I hope that helps?

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2002

See Poe's own explanation(somewhat disingenuous) in "The Philosophy of Composition" at www.eapoe.org. Fabricated as a typical Poe poem on the theme with no particular woman in mind at the time.

Like his some of his short tales, this is an ingenious obsessive monolgue where the mind splits off the meaning of the visiting Raven's repetition. The poem itself is based on repetition moving from meaning to meaning and emotion as well to the poet completely terrifying and crushing himself with despair.

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2002