Edgar Allan Poe Appreciation / Interpretation Thread

Cafe Society
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As was inititally discussed in this thread, I must make a presentation to my American Lit class (this Monday… eek!) about Edgar Allan Poe.

The presentation aside, I’m utterly fascinated by the man and his work. I’m simultaneously incredibly interested and drawn to the varying stories of his life and death and the incredible volume of differing interpretations of his many writings, and put off by the undertaking of the immense task of immersing myself into the tremendous quantity of written words about his life and work, not to mention his writings themselves.

I intend this thread to be a place where fans of the man and his work can post their thoughts on the matter, but I’m also hoping to have some of my questions answered and hopefully to have new ones brought up.

In reading Poe (and I admit to only recently having read “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Raven,” and “Annabel Lee”), I am having a difficult time placing him within the Romantic/Transcendental period of which he was considered a part. Comparing Poe to his contemporaries of the time, like Emerson or Fuller or Thoreau, is like the proverbial comparison between apples and oranges. While he demonstrates the Romantic era belief in the individual, he did not seem at all to care to explore man’s place in society as an individual, but rather spent more time on the concepts of mental illness, drug abuse, murder, and the darker emotions like anger and guilt and grief.

His stories seem focused on the mood over the person (and yet he manages to explore the inner person), and they seem so entirely different from anything else at the time (that I’m aware of). I’ve heard him called a Dark Romantic, but I am having difficulty finding any information on his contemporaries in that genre. Shelley perhaps? It seems to be a European trend rather than American, which is interesting in and of itself. Are there any American Dark Romantics other than Poe? Was Poe considered a Romantic merely because of the time he wrote in, or is there Romantic/Transcendentalist beliefs in his writings that I am missing?

That’s an idea I’d like to focus on in my presentation, but without further information I’ll find that difficult.

I’ve been focusing primarily on “The Raven” (as with TFotHoU I could easily spend more than the hour I have allotted to discuss it in its entirety) and just have to say that Poe is the most deliberate writer I’ve ever seen. He blows Toni Morrison out of the water in that respect, and I thought it wasn’t possible to get any more deliberate than she.

I’m especially grappling with the imagery of the raven perched upon the bust of Pallas Athena. She’s the goddess of wisdom, but I can’t seem to tackle the full import of the symbolism. The raven, a symbol of death and the beyond (whose role in superstitions in various cultures throughout time, I must say, is incredible), sitting atop a goddess of wisdom–or the mind if you will. The narrator is surely thinking of his lost Lenore and the raven surely signifies his connection with the dead/beyond, but what is the full symbolic purpose of the bird perched on the bust?

Also, despite knowing that the bird speaks but one word, the narrator finds himself unable to resist asking it questions. I find this intensely interesting. Is this perhaps significant of the aspect of human nature that makes us make inquiries even when we know the answer to the question, just to hear it answered?

Wow. I’m so blown away by this poem. The more I think on it, the deeper I am drawn in!

Any thoughts?

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So long ago…
To me, people of wisdom (usually the elders) are within the short grasp of death…opposite of his youth that cannot fathom the death of Lenore. Well, that just might be the best line of B.S. you’ll see on this thread, but that’s what I thought years ago.

If you don’t have it, get Alan Parsons Project’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Get the later cleaned up and remastered version (1987). It’s music derived from the stories of EAP w/ the late Orson Wells narrating in a couple parts of it. Apparently, Alan P was quite inspired by EAP as well. That album implored me to go to the bookstore to buy the complete works of EAP and read his works, alas, rarely of late.

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“Surcease of Sorrow” happens to my all time favorite phrase. I wish I could incorporate the word “surcease” into my daily vocabulary.

Beyond that, I’m an avid Poe fan, but more of his poems and his seeming mastery of poetic language than his stories. I’ve yet to read a poet who is more evocative and can turn a more perfect phrase/line of prose.

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Re: the bird and the bust of Pallas

I’ve been volunteering at my local elementary school gifted class recently and we’ve been studying Poe, and The Raven in particular. I hadn’t given it tons of thought until now, but remember that just about every woman in Poe’s life died on him. So perhaps that raven indicates death hanging over yet another female figure.

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I don’t know if Poe knew this, but the raven was a symbol of wisdom in Norse mythology.

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Yeticus Rex, I don’t believe that to be a line of BS at all. It makes sense, in a morbidly Poe-istic way, that with the wisdom of age comes with the price of knowing that it will be short lived.

With spiritual and intellectual growth (read: wisdom, perhaps specifically attained through the experience of mourning a lost love), one must also realize that every day death draws nearer.

Deep stuff, I’m definitely bringing it up during the presentation, but first I have to ponder on it longer!

Second Echo, wow. That’s some heavy stuff for kids of that age, no? I remember a teacher reading “The Pit and the Pendulum” to my 5th grade class and being blown away and immediately hooked, but now years later I’m still digging at the writing. How do they perceive it, as a creepy story about a bird and a sad guy?

Your point blew me away though. I read many instances of people associating the character of Lenore with Poe’s dying wife Virginia, but you’re right in that most of the people, not just women, Poe loved in his life died. He could be saying that it seems to him that death hangs over all women (the true earthly vessels of wisdom) in his life.

Captain Amazing, I do not know if he knew either, but I believe he was well aware of many of the mythological and superstitious representations the raven had throughout history. He was a well read man and was obviously familiar with Greek mythology (He mentions both Pallas Athena and Pluto in “The Raven” alone), and it stands to reason that he may have been aware of their significance in Norse mythology as well.

In doing some research on the bird and its many positions in various cultures throughout history, it’s quite amazing how many superstitions and mythological references there are to it.

For example, apparently there is a belief that if the ravens that roost on the Tower of London were to ever leave, the Tower (and thus the Crown and thus the Country–arrogant, eh?) would fall–so they clip their flight feathers.

Throughout a great many cultures they represent death, or death’s heralds, or harbringers of death; and yet in others they represent good luck and light and wisdom. I find this interesting to no end and wonder if even Poe knew how deeply his symbolism ran.

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For anyone keeping score at home, I’ve discovered that Poe’s contemporaries in Dark Romanticism were predominantly European. His American contemporaries include Hawthorne and Irving, with nods to Cotton Mather, Johnathan Edwards, and Charles Brockden Brown for cultivating the seeds of the supernatural that the others would reap.

European contemporaries include: Horace Walpole (Castle of Otranto), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Rime of the Ancient Mariner), Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein).

I’m probably the only one interested in that, but I figured I’d put it out there anyway :slight_smile:

Back to “The Raven.” Can someone perhaps explain, or at least offer a fresh opinion, on why the narrator asks questions of the raven while knowing that it speaks but the one word?

I believe it human nature to need questions answered regardless of the answer, so long as some sense of closure can be reached. Am I alone in this? Is, perhaps, the narrator’s sincere grief driving him to ask the questions he does, knowing the answer the bird will give, so that he might sink further into his depression? Is this an unhealthy brooding on his part or his way of coping?

I’d be interested to hear any opinions on that matter as I’m quickly boxing myself in and could use a fresh outlook.

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We were taught, (a long time ago…), that the Raven sitting on the bust of Pallas Athena symbolized that death conquers all, even wisdom.
I think this best sums up Poe’s thinking on life:
From “LEIGA,” the last verse of the “Conqueror Worm”

“The Angels all pallid and wan,
uprising, unveiling, affirm.
The play is ‘The Trajedy Man’
and its Hero the conqueror Worm.”

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While he acknowledged himself that “Annabel Lee” was inspired by his wife’s death, wasn’t “The Raven” written much earlier in his life, before all of the wanton dying?

And I’d never really fgiven it much thought before, but I always thought of the bust of Pallas as telling us more about the narrator of the poem, than about the raven itself. This is also the sort of guy who reads “quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore” for recreation; it fits that he’d have a bust of Pallas above his door.

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Actually, “The Raven” was published in 1845, towards the end of Poe’s life (he would die around 1849, I believe). As he wrote that poem, his wife lay dying of tuberculosis in the next room of their home. Poe knew what was coming, since both his birth mother and his adoptive mother both died of it when he was a child.

As to why the narrator keeps questioning the bird, I’m not sure. I do know that in the poem, the narrator at first believes the raven to be loose from some neglectful master who only taught the bird that one word. A it becomes clear the raven won’t say anything else, it seems like the narrator’s depression starts to overtake him and he wants the raven to leave him be (“Take thy beak from out my heart and take thy form from off my door”), but it stays put until finally he is resignd to his fate of never having his despair lifted.

BTW, just thought I’d throw in an interesting fact: Poe recieved a grand total of $14 for The Raven. That’s it. He did not do well with money.

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In Romantic-era poetry generally, and certainly in Poe, there are likely multiple layers of symbolism.

While Athena as a female figure may well also evoke the women lost to Poe, I think primarily the “Pallid Bust of Pallas” represents not just wisdom, but wisdom and knowledge elevated and worshipped, yet ultimately, pale, hard, cold, without feeling or real relevance, and nothing more than an ornament and a perch for the mocking symbol of Death.

In this it echoes the “Many a Quaint Volume of Forgotten Lore” over which the Narrator ponders, weak and weary, futilely seeking solace or some insight as to the meaning of Lenore’s death. The volumes, repositories of wisdom and knowledge, provide the narrator with no respite, and are thus described dismissively as “quaint” and “forgotten”.

The Narrator’s “dialog” with the Raven is, then, symbolic of the questions the Narrator has been asking in his pondering: Does my love for Lenore have any meaning in the face of her death? Will she live on in spirit? Will we be reunited? The Raven’s repeated answer is symbolic of the universe’s refusal to engage in dialog – its refusal to give answers. The Narrator asks again and again, but the Raven refuses to yield, or to acknowledge him in any way. Its one word merely reflects the Narrator’s despair back on him, confirming his fears, and leaving no room for hope.

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Yes, “The Raven” was first published in 1845, four years before his death. His wife Virginia died of tuberculosis in 1847, but suffered the effects of the illness for years before finally succumbing.

Poe’s birth mother died in 1811 of pneumonia more likely than tuberulosis, and I’m unsure of the cause of his adoptive mothers death in 1829. Medical records being what they were, it’s hard for biographers to determine anything with accuracy. Poe has neither a birth certificate, nor a death certificate on record anywhere, and his cause of death too remains a mystery (an intensely interesting story in itself).

Tragic, isn’t it Second Echo? He spent his whole life mired in poverty, and even when he had chances to escape it, he mucked it up. He only attained true commercial and monetary success after his death.

Umbriel, you summed exquisitely what I spent an hour and a half stumbling over today during my presentation.

No matter how many times I read interpretations of the symbolism, and no matter how many different and logical interpretations I read, I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around it. That either speaks to the greatness of the poem or to my own stupidity. I’m hoping for the former :wink:

I’d also like to add that I find Poe’s way of giving the word “Nevermore” a different meaning at the end of each stanza to be nothing short of genius.

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I would say that there are at least four phases in how he view the raven. First, he thinks of it as a natural being, which just happens to be taking shelter from the storm under his window. It’s not until after the bird has been around for a few stanzas that he concludes that it was “Caught from some unhappy master, whose unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster”. Then, he starts seeing it as supernatural, but at first thinks it’s a good omen: “Wretch! I cried, thy god hath lent thee, by these angels he hath sent the respite, respite, and nepenthe”. It’s only after the bird denies this, as well, that he concludes it’s a demon or spectre.

And if you want odd little contradictions in the poem, I’ve always been fond of “the dirges of his hope”. Not a juxtaposition you usually see.

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I have a volume of the collected works of Poe and I like to dip into them occasionally for entertainment value. Some of my favorites that I keep returning to over and over are of course The Raven and Anabel Lee, but also The Bells and Ulalume. I love reading them aloud.

In his short stories, my favorites are the well-known works, The Masque of the Red Death, The Tell-Tale Heart and the Pit and the Pendulum. A lesser-known story that has always intrigued me with its vivid imagry is Descent into the Maelstrom. It’s not that deep of a story (ha!) but just the idea of being in such a terrifying mess is very interesting.

Other stories I’ve found confusing. What is the story where everyone on the ship dies? Hmm, it’s been a while since I read it and I was all geared up for this fabulous conclusion and … I don’t remember what happened. I’d better go re-read and report back. (I’m at work or I’d check my book!)