I need to do a research paper on Edgar Allan Poe and his "The Raven", can you help me or give me some research on this so I can complete my assignment?

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2002

Answers

From scratch. Well, try www.eapoe.org for articles and texts and bibliographies. Can be described truly as Poe's biggest popular hit and one of(and the fuirst) international hit from America. Poe's own description of "The Raven" in its creation can be found in the semi-truthful "The Phiosophy of Composition" essay. Other poems and stories like "Eleonora"(tale), "Lenore" help with certain facts. The choice of bird? Owl had been done. Parrot too. Some allusions in his poem fit best the owl, night bird, companion to Pallas Athena. The poem is a tale in istelf, a first person obsessive monologue like other of Poe's stories where the narrator defeats himself right before our eyes, in this case by him setting up a dialogue with his symbolic one-word companion. The drama of his self-producing despair traps him in the present reality of his loss. The rhythm and lines are similar to Elizabeth Barrett's "Lady Geraldine's Courtship"(1844), a favorite author of Poe's. The dread produced by the poet's incurable sorrow, angst and despair are so personified(though not necessarily supernatural except in his mind) makes this a chilling poem for all readers, so much so that they may miss the point made here and many other disturbing Poe works. That whatever happiness one may take comfort in from past memory or future hope, the present is one of simple loss, the only eternal sign he has rooted in the existential, continually dying now. Nevermore.

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2002