My name is Trang Phan and I am currently writing a research paper on Edgar Allan Poe's poem, The Raven. My question to you is what does the raven, the bust of Pallas/Athene, and the chamber door symbolize? I have been researching for two weeks and I still have not found anything on this topic, I have figured out what they all mean individually, but not altogether. Please help me if you can. Your help and consideration is much appreciated. Thank you.

Trang Phan

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2002

Answers

Well, how clever IS a writer being? lots of traps for the overactive imagination of someone who is NOT the writer. Evidence points to Poe;'s first preference being the Owl, the bird of Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom, part of the trinity of the Moon, the Night. The Oracle. Well, the owl was out but many of the classical allusions concering Athena and the Owl remained. Plutonian shores etc. Why? the owl had been done. The Owl's voice was more limited and Poe liked the word and sound of "Nevermore." So your search would have been much clearer had the classical unity of the symbols been maintained. Curiously, the raven is the emblem of Odin's wisdom, an unacceptable mythology here. Otherwise it is a carrion bird, a sign of death.

The chamber is the dream room, the place where visions enlighten the dreamer. Poe of course derives much of his Muse inspiration and many poems on the subject of dreaming dating from a very early dream experience. In the Iliad the gods visit many people in dreams, but often to deceive.

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2002

did you read the philosophy of composition by poe also

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2002