How did "the raven" resemble poe's loss for women in his life? this is very important please answer

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2003

Answers

This isn't the exact answer but it is close. I stumbled upon it as i was doing research for my english class. PlanetPapers.com is a good place to start an essay. Hope this helps.

http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/4394.php

In “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe, one sees the internal torment of a man in mourning for the lost love of a maiden, named Lenore that has died. The narrator expresses a sea of emotions over the vision of a raven haunting and taunting him.

This paper examines how Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", "Annabel Lee", and "The Fall of the House of Usher” all depict the tragic loss of young and beautiful women. Poe describes Lenore, Annabel Lee and Madeline as young and achingly beautiful and all three women die premature and tragic deaths. In "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee", Poe mourns their tragic loss, while in "The Fall of the House of Usher”, Poe is clearly simply horrified at the gruesome and tragic death and he is not so deeply wrought with grief over the loss of someone he loves. It considers how Poe’s depictions of women in his literary work reflect his personal experiences with the premature deaths of his young and attractive wife and mother. Poe’s depictions remain relevant to readers of all ages and nationalities, as they speak to the universal misery of tragic loss and mourning.

"Poe’s poem "Annabel Lee" recounts the perfect love of the narrator and his child bride Annabel Lee. As in the Raven, Poe delves into the tragic loss of a beautiful woman within the lines of “Annabel Lee”. Annabel Lee’s similarity in age to Poe’s young real-life bride is striking, and the poem can be seen as a reflection of Poe’s grief over the loss of his young wife. As in “The Raven”, Poe focuses on the beauty of the young woman who dies tragically. The stars and the moon even remind the narrator of the young woman’s beauty after her tragic death. “Annabel Lee” focuses primarily on the depth of the feelings of between the two young lovers, while “The Raven” focuses more clearly on the grief at the loss of the young woman. In “Annabel Lee”, the narrator tells a tale of a kingdom by the sea, where both he and Annabel Lee lived, and that they “loved with a love that was more than love”."

With insistent meter and captivating rhyme schemes, Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee” and “The Raven” are both very similar. However, in their views of love, namely the loss and mourning of beautiful women, they differ greatly. Through analysis of the two poems, the reader observes that whom Poe had chosen for a speaker, the tone and the sound effects are all factors in both poems that make two poems with a similar theme contrast.

Both poems mean the same thing and follow the same theme or “melancholy topic” as Poe called it in his essay. They both depict a speaker who is severely depressed over the death of a beautiful woman. Poe gave a sense of madness in their character, though, which made them obsess and think constantly about their lost love. They could also both be interpreted as obsessed speakers with intense and undying love. Yet, the two poems differ in their meaning. “Annabel Lee” is much more optimistic than “The Rave” is, especially since the speaker in “Annabel Lee” feels like he will always be with Annabel Lee, where as the speaker in “The Raven” is convinced that he will see Lenore nevermore.

The tone and sound effects play a huge role in interpreting the two poems. “Annabel Lee” tends to sound a lot more like a children’s song, so the reader is forced to read in-between the lines and find the optimism, while in “The Raven,” the meter and tone and rhyme scheme all contribute to the sound that makes readers find the poem overwhelmingly scary. However, if one were to paraphrase both poems, they would be equally as dark, yet it is the meter, tone and rhymes that pull the poems to opposite poles making one almost optimistic and the other horrific.

Each poem depicts a lover grieving. The speaker in “The Raven” has been nearly moved to madness by his grief and heartache. While it is understood that the speaker in “Annabel Lee” is also grieving, one finds that he has comforted himself by allowing himself to know that she will always be with him, even though her body is in her grave. Through taking the same story and writing it twice, but with different tone, meter, and sound effects, (and changing the names a bit,) Edgar Allan Poe has sold the same poem twice.

In his ever-popular poem “The Raven”, Poe takes his readers through the heart of misery with an overcastting shadow of terror. The narrator is a man home alone at night lamenting the loss of his love Lenore. As he reads and nods in and out of sleep, a rapping at his door wakes him, eventually leading him to the infamous Raven. While he at first seeks to understand this black and mysterious bird, momentarily forgetting about the death of Lenore, he is suddenly struck with the idea that this bird is sent from either Heaven or Hell. Does it send word of Lenore? Can it tell him where her soul now resides? As it perches on the bosom of Pallas, goddess of wisdom, only one word will escape its beak: “Nevermore”. Instead of bringing peace to his broken heart, it only seems to breed more anguish. Reflecting the narrator’s soul the bird will fly ‘nevermore’, becoming a permanent resident of his home, alongside anguish and torment. Poe’s apt description of the pain and terror that this man is experiencing demonstrates his love of words and their power to control the human heart.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2003

Sorry to disappoint your approach, but the "Raven" was published in late January, 1845. Not yet any loss among "Poe's women", if we except his mother's death, when he was about three years old, and the death of the mother of one of his best friend (Mrs Stan-n-ard), when about fourteen. "Lenore" is just an ideal feminine figure, and not at all any actual (deceased) person in Poe's life.... His own wife Virginia died in February, 1847. You may, I hope, forget any biographical reference in this wonderful... COMPOSITION! Yours sincerely, Raven's Shade (Belgium).

-- Anonymous, November 20, 2003

You make a good point. But Poe knew that his wife was sick more than 5 years before she actually died. Maybey he wrote the raven as the future event that he knew was going to happen soon enough. he will see lenore nevermore and he will miss her and wont beable to forget about her. he might be writing all the feelings he is going to have.

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2003

We may naturally agree with Mr Gallegos' clever hypothesis and last observation. But, to my mind at least, it seems always "dangerous" to adopt any biographical explanation for fictional works of art. If we take another example among Poe's tales, "Eleonora", published within the "Gift" for 1842 (actually issued during the Fall of 1841, and thus written still before...), we shall find another mourning lover, at the loss of his sweetheart (how many "analysts" have given and still give "consistent" biographical interpretations about this effective romantic story!), but I have a lot of scruples to believe any "visionary" power in Poe, when we become well aware of the fact that Virginia's (Poe's wife) onset of tuberculosis began to be observable in... the end of January, 1842, as well described by Poe himself in a letter (Febr.3, 1842) to his friend F. W. Thomas ("...she ruptured a blood vessel..."). Yours sincerely, Raven's Shade (Belgium).

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2003

Poe lost many women in his life time including that of his mother, foster mother, and cousin/wife. Due to his losses of female role models in his life Poe created an idealistic view of all women. This explaines the reason why all feminine characters in his stories/poems are revered.

-- Anonymous, October 19, 2004