He’s the root of both traditions, like Elvis is for both modern country and rock 'n roll.
As an aside, Anne Rice would have to stand tippy-toe on her mother’s upright coffin to kiss Poe’s backside.
That’s interesting. I took it to mean the narrator’s eternal grief (symbolized by the raven) overmastered his reason (symbolized by Athena). I am notably idiotic about symbolism though.
Anyway, as Roger Corman showed us, Lenore is not in fact dead, but living in sin with Boris Karloff. However, the narrator (Vincent Price) did think she was dead.
Is nepenthe legal? Where can I buy some?
I heard Polydamna can hook you up.
Ah, the eternal triangle. Studies have shown that most women harbor fantasies of being the filling in a Karloff/Price sandwich.
I would interpret it the same way.
Reading this thread makes me ready for some football (we have a tendency to read passages from the poem before games here in Baltimore) or sex (I met a girl named Lenore in college, wooed her by reading this poem and then wound up banging her all night long. sigh Good times.).
She’s not quite dead.
If that first stanza isn’t a description of the narrator getting his chocolate starfish nuzzled by the head of a john’s tool; well, then I don’t know what it could be about.
She will be soon, she’s very ill. Here’s your ninepence.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who made that translation, used internal rhymes in a number of places. I wonder if they’re in the original German.
Also, Rossetti translated it in 1844. And “The Raven” was published in January 1845.
Fascinating. But my Googling hasn’t found any mention of a connection.
And Rossetti said his “The Blessed Damozel” was inspired by “The Raven”.
Actually, Poe was just miffed because there was this one time, Lenore’s hat fell off. He kinda went off the deep end and wrote this big long rant thing, and it all got taken out of context.