Edgar Allen Poe

Biography

● 1809-1849

● Boston, Mass.

● orphan

● author, poet, editor

● mystery, macabre, gothic, short stories

● Romantic era

The Raven

● motif embodiment of grief caused by loneliness and →separation death of Poe's mother→

● ravens usually symbolize omens or bad luck

● animal lack of clarity speaker receives → → AND interprets in his own way

● foreshadowing

Title & Themes

● death, love, hope and despair

● the human imagination

● the power of the dead over the power of the living

tit l

eth

emes

Literary Features

Repetition

● builds tension

● hypnotic effect abandon our conception of reality & accept →speaker's vision of reality

● reinforces meaning and emphasizes important words

● 'Nevermore' causes the speaker's mood changes → represents permanent state of madness→

→ loss of hope → circular aspect - 'unity of effect'

Literary Features

● pathetic fallacy “bleak December” (7)→

● time of night “a midnight dreary” (1)→

● trying to forget his sorrow through books “vainly I had sought →to borrow from my books surcease of sorrow” (10)

● dark, sombre, hopeless

● “sad”, “uncertain”, “nothing”, “darkness”, “doubting”, “fearing”

Mood & Diction

Literary Features

● 6 or 7 line stanzas sestets or hepastichs' ending in either 'Nevermore' or →'nothing more'

“Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore - Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore

'Tis the wind and nothing more!” (34-36)

“Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!' Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'” (100-103)

● appeal to authority apostrophe & imperative→

● end rhymes accumulate accelerate the rhythm→ →

● irregular rhyme scheme fear, disharmony→

Sentence Structure & Rhyme

Literary Features

Imagery

● contributes to overall atmosphere

● emphasizes the mood

“→ each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor” (8)

→ "And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming."(105)

“→ deep into that darkness peering” (25)

“→ Take thy beak from out my heart” (101)

● “silken sad uncertain rustling” (13)

● “doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before” (26) juxtaposition of doubt & dream→

● Lenore l→ ack of details suggests she symbolizes something; love, beauty, truth, hope...

● Midnight witching hour→ →darkest part of night

● December symbolizes de→ ath

● the bust of Pallas Greek goddess of wisdom→ → irony

Alliteration

Literary Features

Symbolism

The Tell Tale Heart

Title & Theme

● paranoia

● mental deterioration

● refers to end of story & the reason he is 'caught'

● telling a tale of his guilty feelings

● alliteration

● foreshadowing

● personification

Literary Features

● Old man's eye “He had the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with → a film over it.” → speaker is fearful of the vulture dead or dying?→ → 'film' suggests unclear vision, parallels our view of the story, filtered through his eye confusion→ → catalyst for the murder

● Claim to sanity ironic b/c symbolizes his insanity→ → 'hypersensitivity' overcomes him and forces him to confess; inability to tell the difference b/w real and imagined sounds “→ The disease had sharpened my senses -- not destroyed -- not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute.”

● The watch symbol of the life and time of the old man→ → inevitability of the old man's death and the murder → countdown until the speaker takes action

Symbolism

Literary Features

● makes us anxious & intensifies the drama

● heightens the conflict

● the reader feels the distress of the speaker

● repeated imagery of the heartbeat increases tension & awareness

→ "a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton”

“→ hellish tattoo of the heart […] grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder”

Repetition

Literary Features

Imagery

● Poe gets rid of detail to emphasize the speaker's obssession

● uses metaphors & similes to emphasize the speaker's fear

“→ my blood ran cold” “→ chilled the very marrow in my bones” “→ a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider”

● contrast b/w light and dark good and bad?→ → speaker thrives in the darkness, not in the light of public scrutiny

“→ I put in a dark lantern […] closed, so that no light shone out” “→ as black as pitch with the thick darkness” “→ a single dim ray”

Mood & Diction

Literary Features

● sinister, suspenseful

● varies b/w paranoia and excitement

● mysterious speaker & old man related?→ “→ I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.” → speaker's inability to distinguish b/w the old man's identity and his physical eye

→ keeps the reader interested, asking questions

● “haunted”, “dim”, “black shadow”, “silence”, “dark as midnight”

● eerie word choices a sense of forboding→

Bibliography

● Lorcher, Trent. "Poe Poetry Analysis: Symbolism in 'The Raven'." Bright Hub Education. iVillage, 17 Jan 2012. Web. 20 Nov 2013.http://www.brighthubeducation.com/homework-help-literature/49960-symbolism-in-the-raven/

● "Poe's Short Stories." Sparknotes. N.p.. Web. 20 Nov 2013.http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/section6.rhtml