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The Raven

The Raven

Tales and Poems
PoetryHorrorMystery
Pages
352
Published
1845
Language
English

Synopsis

On a bleak December midnight, a grief-stricken scholar sits alone among his books, half-reading and half-mourning his lost love, Lenore. A tapping at his chamber door gives way to the arrival of a stately raven, which perches above the doorway and answers his every anguished question with a single word: "Nevermore."

As the narrator's questions grow more desperate, the bird's unchanging reply drives him from idle curiosity into torment and despair, until he can no longer tell whether the raven is a prophet, a demon, or a projection of his own breaking mind.

First published in 1845, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" is one of the most famous poems in the English language, celebrated for its hypnotic meter, internal rhyme, and mounting atmosphere of dread. A compact masterpiece of Gothic verse, it distills grief, memory, and the longing for the dead into a single unforgettable night.

Prose complexity
7/10

Vibe

DarkMelancholicCreepyAtmosphericMysterious
Writing5.0Impact5.0Characters5.0Plot5.0Atmosphere5.0

Genres

Horror Mystery Short Stories Poetry Classics Gothic Paranormal

About the author

E
Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.[1] He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in...

Characters

LenoreSupporting

The narrator's beloved, dead before the poem begins.

The RavenSupporting

The uncanny bird that answers only "Nevermore."

All characters in The Raven

Frequently asked questions

  • When and where was "The Raven" first published?

    Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" was first published under his own name in the New York Evening Mirror on January 29, 1845 (it had also appeared, credited to the pseudonym "Quarles," in the February 1845 issue of The American Review, which circulated slightly earlier). It was collected in book form later that year in "The Raven and Other Poems" (Wiley & Putnam, November 1845).

  • What does the raven's refrain "Nevermore" mean?

    "Nevermore" is the raven's only word, repeated in answer to every question the grieving narrator puts to it. Poe himself explained the poem's design in his essay "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846): he wanted a single, melancholy refrain capable of endlessly varied application, and settled on a non-reasoning bird trained to speak one word, so that "Nevermore" could shift meaning with each question asked of it, driving the narrator's grief for his lost Lenore toward despair and self-torment.

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