Why the Raven by Edgar Allan Poe is the Best Poem of All Time

"Quoth the raven, 'nevermore.'" If you are completely unfamiliar with this line, poetry probably isn't your field. That's alright though; I'm here to make it a little more known. I am by no means a poetry expert, but there are a few poems that have been responsible for me having any interest in poetry. Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" is perched atop that list.

Poe (1809-1849) lived a tough life. He found himself orphaned at an early age due to his mother's death shortly after his father left the family. He is considered to be one of the first well-known Americans to attempt to make a living based solely on his writing. This decision made for a long and difficult financial road for Poe, one that eventually led him to enlisting in the army for a short while.

In 1845, just four years before his death, Poe published what is considered his most enduring work: "The Raven." Essentially overnight, this poem turned Poe into a household name. However, the publication of the poem netted him just $9.

While "The Raven" is not the only poem that has a special place with me, it was probably one of the first poems that opened up both poetry as a whole to me, as well as the dark, dreary writing style of Poe. It's difficult to pull a sentence from the poem to illustrate the style due to the exceptional length of the poem and get a full, cohesive idea of what the poem is about. The rhyme scheme is ABCBBB, or AA, B, CC, CB, B, B if you count the internal rhyme structure.

"The Raven" is, at its core, a poem of interior argument. The narrator is in mourning for a lost love who has died -in this case someone named Lenore- and is having a difficult time getting over her. The interior argument is based on the idea the narrator doesn't really know what he wants. He speaks of how much he wishes to be rid of the memory:

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
`Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

But in the same sequence of events, the narrator continues to demand and question the raven:

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

The narrator wants to be rid of the memory, but also finds some degree of comfort in attempting to understand the entire situation by asking questions. Therefore, he's figuratively going in circles, which not surprisingly, ends with his descent into madness. In the very next stanza, the narrator is cursing the raven and demanding his exit:

`Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting -
`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
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.'

Well, the raven doesn't leave. He just sits perched on the bust above the door, which gives the narrator no relief and soon after puts him into madness. As his anger increases, he begins with each passing stanza to demonize the raven. Upon the raven's entrance, the narrator believes him to be from the afterlife -the Nights Plutonian Shore- and sees him as someone to help ease his suffering. As the poem goes on, his frustration and anger increases as the raven offers no relief, but, in his mind, mocks him with his haunting "nevermore" responses. And by the end, the narrator characterizes the raven as a demon which eventually leads to the narrator's impending insanity.

This article just scratches the surface of all the potential analysis of the poem and hopefully serves as a gateway for any reader to further explore both "The Raven" as well as Poe's other poems and short stories, which are fantastic for the most part. But if my brief analysis was entertaining, that's enough for me.

Sources:
"The Raven and Other Poems" by Edgar Allan Poe