Analysis of "The Raven": Did Lenore die?

Cafe Society
1

I just helped my 12-year-old daughter understand the poem “The Raven” for an English assignment. I haven’t read it since I was in school myself, and in going through it learned much more about the poem than I had ever known. I also read a couple of analyses online to ferret out some of the more subtle points.

The poem refers to the “lost Lenore” but it doesn’t explicitly identify this loss. Analsysts generally identify this as a death, but is that the only possible conclusion? Could this have been a breakup? I know that Poe was rather dark so I certainly don’t quibble with it, I just don’t know the rationale. I think much of this must lie in the context of the author and the time in which it was written.

The narrator uses the Raven almost as a way of rubbing salt into his own wounds, asking questions to which he knows the answer will be “Nevermore,” such as will he ever again embrace Lenore. Of course, death would be one reason that this would be the only possible answer, but I can imagine a context where she left him.

So what happened to Lenore and what is the rationale for thinking so?

2

Well, if Lenore isn’t dead, then this is the most melodramatic breakup poem ever. I think that the lines -
“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”–
Merely this and nothing more.”

  • pretty much indicate that Lenore is gone past the realm of the living. Again, unless this is just melodrama at its peak, “dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before” would indicate something more than a former lover at the door seeking reconciliation.
3

So we’re stuck between Poe being a Goth or an Emo.

4

Not definitive but certainly suggestive, it seems clear to me that the question he puts to the Raven is if he will again meet Lenore (and embrace her) in heaven…

So my guess is either she’s dead, or so thoroughly ‘lost’ that the author only expects to see her in the next life. (And the reason he loses it when the raven goes ‘nevermore’ is because that implies either there is no afterlife, or that the two of them are headed in different ways.)

5

“Sorrow for the lost Lenore”

6

Poe’s own essay on his compositon of the poem, “The Philosophy of Composition”, leaves no doubt on the subject:

—“… the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world—equally is beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.”

The whole essay can be found here:

7

In the passage quoted by Chrisk, ‘distant Aidenn’ means essentially paradise (Eden), so I’d say she’s dead.

8

To paraphrase an authority on Dead or Not-Dead,

Lenore is definitely dead.

I think.

9

Lenore isn’t dead. Lenore is the narrator. More precisely, “Lenore” is the name he used as a transvestite prostitute and the poem is his lament that he is no longer working the streets and chugging cock. This is subtextual, rather than textual, but is nonetheless clear to the attentive reader.

10

Poe’s wife, Virginia Clemm, died at 24 of tuberculosis. The theme of a beautiful, frail, pallid woman dying of a romantically wasting disease pops up again and again in his poetry and fiction. See “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “Annabelle Lee.”

11

I don’t think there’s any doubt that she’s dead. To a modern reader (well, to me, anyway) this makes it hard to relate–the experience of loved ones dying in their twenties is blessedly rare today, and has been absent from my life and the lives of most people I know. Hence I actually prefer to read as emo, even though I know it isn’t what the author intended:

12

Or, as one of my high school teachers explained it, to turn Poe on, you only had to be three things, beautiful, blonde, and dead.

13

More broadly speaking, it was a popular theme for many Victorian writers. TB was a nice romantic disease; you’d get pale and thin, with rosy cheeks, and lie languidly on the sofa, gradually getting more ethereal and angel-like, until you simply faded away. (More practically speaking, it was also a polite disease with no need to mention bowels or any other indelicate bits of anatomy.) Anyway, many Victorians seemed to see connections between women, death, general ethereality and angelicness, decay, and the home–woman’s domain.

14

I always assumed she was dead for the simple fact that Poe wrote it.

15

I agree that “Lenore” is the narrator as well as the object of the poem, but for different reasons. A straight-forward reading will show they are the same person but unwilling to discuss it. The “bust of Pallas” shows that he belongs to a secret society of horror-story afficianados, but no one talks about the Fright Club.

16

Though it helps if you are 13 years old and his first cousin. :smiley:

17

You haven’t meet some of the girls I went to high school with. :slight_smile:

I think Lenore represents his late wife.

18

Well the expert says.

19

Poe’s mother also died of TB, BTW, but since he was only two years old at the time I doubt that had much effect on his literary obsessions.

20

We did a semester on Poe in high school, and I remember some of it. In addition to Aidenn, ‘the angels’ name her Lenore; the implication being that she has joined them.

I also remember that Pallas Athena is the goddess of Wisdom. Having the raven perch upon her bust is meant to show that he has wisdom. Since he came from ‘the night’s Plutonian shore’ – Hades – it is assumed that he knows about the Afterlife.

And so on.