Haunting the Canon: Poe's 'The Raven' and the Gothic Tradition

In this episode of 'Beyond the Verse,' podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, hosts Joe and Maiya present a detailed exploration of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven.'

They investigate the poem's intricate structure, analyzing its use of trochees, internal rhyme, and Gothic elements, touching on how 'The Raven,' published in 1845, contrasts with Poe's earlier works through its rhyme scheme and introspective themes, marking a significant shift in his literary approach.

Get exclusive PDFs on ‘The Raven’ available to Poetry+ users:

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For more insights into Poe's poetry, visit PoemAnalysis.com, where you can explore a wide range of analyzed poems, with thousands of PDFs, resources in our extensive PDF Learning Library, and more - see our Edgar Allan Poe PDF Guide.

The discussion delves into the poem's symbolic components, such as the raven perched on a bust of Pallas Athena, exploring classical allusions and the subverted portrayal of the raven as a symbol of wisdom and prophecy. The hosts also consider the poem's position in Gothic literature, highlighting tropes of isolation, the supernatural, and its alignment with works like 'Frankenstein' and 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.' They draw connections to classical myths, notably Orpheus and Eurydice, and explore related works in romantic and literary traditions. 

As a bonus topic, the episode addresses the poem’s mixed critical reception and its evolution into a beloved classic, noting its influence on later authors like Sylvia Plath and H.P. Lovecraft.

Transcript

Haunting the Canon: Poe's 'The Raven' and the Gothic Tradition (Transcript)
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Joe: [00:00:00] And the raven, never flitting, Still is sitting, Still is sitting. On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber's door, And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamplight o'er him, screaming, throws his shadow on the floor, And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, Shall be lifted to the sky.

Maiya: Welcome to Beyond the Verse, a poetry podcast brought to you by Poemanalysis.com and Poetry+. Now, on today's episode, we'll be talking about Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven. Thank you, Joe, for your reading at the start there. So today we're going to be touching on the Gothic genre. The raven as an animal and the significance of it throughout this poem, classical allusion, and critical responses to Edgar [00:01:00] Allan Poe's work as a whole.

Joe: . So I'm sure many of our listeners are already familiar with the name Edgar Allan Poe, even if not with some of his work. So Poe is an American poet, critic and writer who was born in 1809. He had a very troubled upbringing in which his mother passed away and his father left the family. His first major work, Tamerlane and Other Poems, was published in 1827, but this poem doesn't come out until 1845.

So Poe is 36 years old when this poem was published, and he actually passed away just four years later. Now up to this point Poe had been better known as a critic than a writer, and some of his criticisms were apparently fairly caustic. So Maiya and I have free rein to be as rude as we like about Poe, although I'm sure he wouldn't be. Now, we're going to get into the critical responses to the poem later on, but it's worth saying that when it was published in 1845, it had a huge impact in the country. Very, very popular with sort of regular readers, albeit the critical response was far more mixed, 

but Maiya, tell us about the poem. 

Maiya: Now, as you said, this poem was published in 1845. It was actually [00:02:00] published in a newspaper for the first time in the New York Evening Mirror, which I think massively adds to the reception in that, you know, this was something that most people were probably picking up on the corner on their way home from work.

It was something that immediately bloomed into the literary consciousness. Now, part of the reason this poem is important So well-liked by the public is that it served to intensify a lot of Poe's previous work. He had done a huge amount of legwork. His first major work was published in 1827 when he was 18 years old.

So he's had years of literary experience. Served on editorial boards by this point, as you know, to Joe, he was a critic. So he's been in these literary circles. Now, I know we use this term a lot when we talk about poems on this podcast, but this truly was a breakthrough poem.

Now, I've always found it really interesting that it actually comes, as you say, four years before the end of Poe's life, because he is someone that Gained so much traction after his death. [00:03:00] Now, we have so much to focus on in this poem today, but just to touch base on how it differs from the work that came before it, you're looking at a poem that is very introspective and follows a much less linear storyline.

It has a heightened sense of musicality. You're looking at a very complex rhyme scheme to stick with the whole way through. It goes A, B, C, B, B, B. And you'll notice from. Joe's lovely reading at the start there, that there is a real sense of repetition and power to the words that he uses Now, Joe, let's dive deeper into this poem. So where would you like to start?

Joe: Before we get into that itself, Maiya, thank you for your kind words about the reading. And I'm not massively enamored with Poe because this is a very tricky poem to read aloud. So I, you know, I had to struggle to get through that reading because, as you mentioned, this is a really complex sort of linguistic offering.

The use of internal rhyme, and as we're going to talk about later on, the use of repetition means it's very easy to sort of trip up when you read this poem. And that's exacerbated by the [00:04:00] fact that the meter that Poe is using is highly unusual. So the poem is written in trochaic octameter, which for listeners means that each line contains eight trochees.

Now, most sort of old fashioned poetry and a lot of sort of Shakespeare's work, for example, is written in iambic meters, often iambic tetrameter or iambic pentameter. Now, an iamb is a pair of two syllables in which the first syllable is unstressed and the second syllable is stressed.

And a trochee is sort of a metrical foot that is the opposite of an iamb. It's a pair of syllables in which the first syllable is stressed and the second is unstressed.

And it does sound unnatural. It feels very unnatural to read aloud. I think right from the off, Poe uses that meter to sort of slightly unsettle the reader, especially readers who would have been doing this aloud. It is deliberately meant to wrong foot you. So I think, you know, before we even get into the language of the poem, the meter right away is being used to, to unsettle the reader. In terms of the poem itself, I'd just like to sort of situate any listeners who haven't read the poem yet, or even some that have, or are a little bit [00:05:00] confused by it perhaps. So the poem takes place in in this chamber, and it's narrated by a solitary figure. Now Poe later said that this figure was an academic of sorts. That's not necessarily clear in the poem, although there are hints to it. His lover, Lenore is gone, presumed dead. Now he is sort of wallowing in this grief when he has several taps at the window and eventually goes over and opens the window at which point the titular Raven flies into the room and lands on the bust of Pallas Athena.

And we're going to talk a lot about the significance of that bust later on. The speaker then effectively engages in some kind of, you know, one sided dialogue with this raven, asking the raven questions. And the raven is able to speak a solitary word, the word nevermore. And so the poem progresses until eventually sort of overcome by his grief. The speaker sort of just slumps in his chair and gives up this One sided conversation. So it's a slightly unusual sort of conceit for a poem. This interaction with an animal. So I think that's where I'd like to begin this kind of. [00:06:00] Atmospheric, dark bird that forces its way into the poem and into the solitary figures chambers. Now, we're going to talk a little bit about the significance of Poe as a Gothic writer, the way in which he shaped the Gothic tradition. And already in the opening stanzas of this poem, we get several tropes that are going to go on to really define that tradition.

The idea of night, the darkness of the outside world and crucially the opening of the window representing that kind of moment in which the darkness from the outside is welcomed in and kind of enters into the speaker's life. But, you know, where would you like to pick up

Maiya: I mean, I'd really like to pick up on that sense of isolation. Now, just to list off a few Gothic tropes, I think it would be interesting for listeners to pick up on as we have this conversation, the 19th century gothic literary genre is really pinpointed by a few central tropes and themes. You're looking at a sense of mystery, as Joe said, that sense of darkness encroaching on the [00:07:00] individual. There's often supernatural elements and there is as well, something that we will touch on later, that interplay between the romantic and the gothic.

It's often Presented almost as a juxtaposition between love and fear. Now, I think the psychological element of this poem and the sense of isolation that you really get from this speaker is one that is absolutely worth drilling into. And The Raven serves for me as both an illustrator of that isolation, but also an interrupter. I think a very basic interpretation of this is that Raven is obviously a personification of that darkness. You're looking at this dark creature who is entering through the window, who is breaking into the space and becoming the only thing that the speaker is able to focus on. Now, yes, absolutely, that is a very relevant and very important motion, but when you look at The Raven as an interruption, I'd love to know [00:08:00] your thoughts on this, Joe. I think The Raven serves to disturb the speaker a little more than is evident in an original reading.

I think it really becomes, as you say, a one sided conversation that creates an echo chamber. Now what do you think? I agree.

Joe: I completely agree. And as you mentioned, gothic literature sort of relies upon the conflation of the natural and the supernatural worlds. And initially, when this raven sort of enters this space, We the reader sort of presuppose that this is what this bird is going to represent. It's going to represent some kind of interlocutor between the speaker and the supernatural world.

And that's actually what the speaker wants from it. He sort of asks the bird, these questions about things that no mortal being even a human could ever know. He wants to know whether he will see Lenore again in heaven, whether or not there'll be reunited. I mean, these are strange questions to ask the bird. the wisest person alive, let alone an animal that can only say [00:09:00] one word. And as the poem goes on, the futility of that experience, that yearning for supernatural connection, becomes exposed. The Raven continually lets the speaker down because it only says this word, nevermore. And while that word might appear very prophetic, if you answer every question, With the same answer, that answer ceases to be considered wise and ceases to be considered prophetic because it's clearly just the only thing you have to offer.

Maiya: And don't you think it's fascinating that, you know, in that stanza that you read at the start of this episode, The raven is positioned with lamplight over him, he is being illuminated, he is positioned as this prophetic figure that is meant to be important and is meant to have the answers.

And as you go through the poem and come to understand that the raven doesn't have the answers, you really create a sense of distrust, 

despite the way that the imagery actually illuminates that animal.

Joe: 100 percent and this really, I think, goes back to that point I made about Poe's use of [00:10:00] trochees in this poem, because I think the use of the raven is deliberately meant to to unsettle the reader. And if I could just, if you'll indulge me for a moment, just to touch upon some of the tropes that sort of ravens as birds have accumulated throughout literary history, because my goodness, in my research for this episode, I've struggled to think of an animal that's been more commonly found in the literary world than the raven. It goes back thousands of years across multiple literary traditions and several And what I'd like to touch on is just some common threads that run through those things. So I think one thing that's really important is that the raven is associated with the Norse god Odin, he supposedly had two ravens that would fly around the world and bring back knowledge to him.

So right away you have the symbol of the raven as something that has the answers to your questions. Now Poe is definitely touching upon that tradition. And actually, of course, as we've just discussed, subverting that because this Raven doesn't have the answers that he's looking for. But the other thing that I think is interesting to touch on with regard to the Raven, and [00:11:00] this is especially significant because of the bust that the Raven in this poem perches on, which is the bust of Athena, which again establishes a connection to the Greek and Roman canon, the Olympian pantheon of gods. Tradition, the Raven is associated with the Greek God Apollo, who is the God of prophecy. So again, it doesn't seem like a crazy idea that Edgar Allan Poe's speaker should look to this bird for some kind of prophetic answer. I believe it's the first bird mentioned in the poem. Hebrew Bible. It features in the Quran. Of course, , many of our British listeners will know that there is a famous story about ravens in the Tower of London, and if ever the final raven leaves the Tower of London, the Kingdom of England will fall. The bird is laced with symbolism. And I think that Poe is deliberately drawing upon our expectations of this bird only to leave us disappointed. And that disappointment, I think, is intended to replicate the sense of disappointment. The speaker feels the speaker wants to know the answer to his questions by choosing a bird that is so [00:12:00] imbued with meaning Poe kind of almost encourages his readers to put their faith in the bird as well.

So that was my deep dive on ravens, but I know Maiya, that you want to touch upon another literary portrayal of a bird that you think has some kind of resonance for this poem.

So take it away.

Maiya: I think it's very important to note that Poe isn't reinventing the wheel here, using an animal as a symbol or to convey a specific message or to set the reader up for something is a very, very common trope. And one poem that always comes to mind when I read this is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Now, this was published in 1798, and I'd be shocked if Poe hadn't read this poem and based at least some of his poetic intention on it. Now to summarize for listeners who aren't aware of this poem, very simply it tells the story of a sailor who is out at sea and interacts with an albatross. Now the albatross in this poem represents a very similar [00:13:00] sort of prophetic figure but one of disaster.

It's a symbol of foreboding, And I'm sure many of our British listeners will be aware of the very common phrase and albatross around your neck. It is something that holds you back, something that stops you from reaching your full potential. Now, Poe's raven here reminds me of Coleridge's albatross. I think they are absolutely interconnected.

And I would really like to, as you say, deep dive a little bit into the symbolism of that raven for Poe's speaker,

because for both of The bird becomes a conduit of the speaker's mental state, really. They become, um, they become a through road, really, to understand what is going on in the speaker's mind. And I think where we have all of these set expectations in Poe's Poem, that the raven is simply a figure who is going to represent one singular [00:14:00] thing, this raven for Poe actually offers us. a conversationalist, in a sense. And I think you said this earlier, Joe, it would be very easy to look at a poem like this and assume that because there is one singular human speaker, you're looking at a poem that is very deeply introspective and you're only getting one point of view.

But actually by inserting this secondary character, you're creating a bit of tension that I think really allows this poem to open up in a way it wouldn't if it was just a monologue.

Joe: I love that point. And I think that what the presence of the animal does to the poem or the novel or the film, whatever kind of artistic production it is, is change the lens through which that human character can and should be viewed. And I think this poem really touches upon that kind of. Not really spoken about, but that cornerstone of art. I mean, there are so many examples, pieces of art that touch upon the relationship between [00:15:00] mankind and the animal world. I mean, and I think this is one of the most formative of those. If I could just, you know, give a couple of examples, 

I think this poem is at sort of one end of the spectrum alongside things like Moby Dick. I mean, the relationship between Captain Ahab and Moby Dick and that novel is another similar relationship in which you have a human character that pours themselves into this animal to the point where they create this other character. They manifest. The version of that animal that they wish existed. Now, actually in that poem, Moby Dick is an adversarial figure, but Ahab seeks to create that adversary in order to satisfy something within him. I guess at the other end of that spectrum, you would have poems like those that appear in Ted Hughes's collection, Crow, which I think is definitely drawing upon the iconography of Poe's poem.

But that. figure is imbued with so much more agency. The figure of Crow is one of the great literary creations of the 20th century. An animal that is a [00:16:00] trickster, that is intelligent, that is witty, that is arrogant, that has all of these human emotions. All of the things, perhaps, that Edgar Allan Poe's speaker wishes the raven could provide, but doesn't.

And I think that in that regard, this poem sort of occupies a middle ground between those different ways of presenting animals in literature.

Maiya: That's a really interesting point and as you were talking, it made me think of the fact that actually we are forgetting that there is a third character in this, which is Lenore as Poe opens this poem, the speaker is actually waiting for Lenore. They are expecting, regardless of the fact that we are under the impression that she's passed away, there is still that grief and that hope that Poe Speaker has, that it actually might be Lenore knocking at the window. Now that places Lenore and the Raven in conversation because

I think where you have. The original introduction of this kind of very [00:17:00] one sided lover figure, by contrast, when you are introduced to the Raven, you do interpret them almost as a sort of adversarial figure, or at least a figure who offers a slightly more negative take to what the speaker is looking for.

Now I say adversary in a very loose term there, but I think it does create a sense of tension, yes, between the Speaker and the Raven, but also by virtue of the contrast between someone who you're expecting to be full of light and love, and you have this very physical representation of darkness and disappointment, really.

Joe: And I think that there's no denying that the Raven symbolically throughout literary history has functioned as kind of a harbinger of death and destruction. And one thing that's perhaps understated in that literal tradition, but I think that you're touching upon and Poe as well, is the fact that the Raven also has a relationship with lovers. So there's two stories in particular, I think, that sort of speak to [00:18:00] that. The first is the one I mentioned earlier on about Odin having two ravens. Of course, that's one of the most famous depictions of these ravens. Taken from the Poetic Edda, which is kind of the source for a lot of the Norse myths, and one thing that's very notable in this poem is that the raven is alone. So already you have that sense of this thing that should be a pair is here. Isolated in this poem, just as we have the speaker who is cut apart from his lover. But the other one, I think the other relationship that Ravens have with lovers is that story of Apollo that I mentioned earlier on. And it functions as kind of a bit of an origin story for the Raven itself, which obviously for any listeners who might not be aware is noted for its sort of jet black feathers is that Apollo sent the Raven to spy on a lover. And when the raven came back reporting that the lover had been unfaithful to Apollo, Apollo sort of cursed it and charred it black. Before that, the raven was portrayed as something white. So again, I think there's a really interesting story to touch upon there, because first of all, it's another example of the raven being a source of knowledge.

[00:19:00] It's sent out by Apollo and expected to bring back knowledge. But the other thing, of course, is that the Raven becomes synonymous with bad luck. It brings Apollo the wrong news, the wrong answer.

Just like in this poem, every answer it gives, even though they are the same word, seems to be increasingly negative. And actually it really sort of grinds away at the speaker. Every time, the word nevermore is spoken by the raven, the speaker grows less and less hopeful that he will ever see Lenore again. 

Maiya: Wow, yeah, I mean that's a really interesting origin story, really. And it does make me rethink this poem, because as you look at those final few stanzas, I'm always struck by that contrast between light and dark.

Obviously, Lenore is presented as, An angel, a sainted maiden, you know, rare and radiant is the terminology that Poe uses, and in the penultimate stanza, you actually have this very strong and very aggressive interaction between [00:20:00] Poe's speaker and the raven where he is shrieking at the raven.

And demanding answers. But one of the things that they really, really labour in this poem is that darkness. Poe's speaker demands of the raven, Get thee back into the tempest and the night's plutonian shore. Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thou soul hath spoken. Leave my loneliness unbroken. This really, really heavy sense of weight and darkness and guilt and upset is really all bundled into this presentation , of the Raven.

And I think unlike a lot of the poems we analyze on this podcast, where we sometimes say, Oh, you know, the title is a bit of a soft landing. This poem, I think, is the exact opposite. I think it sets out, with that raven, exactly how Poe intended.

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Joe: I just like to start this second half of the podcast by focusing in on that image of the bust that the raven sits on and refuses to move from despite it. the speaker's protestations, and it's a bust of Pallas Athena. Now, Athena, as many of our listeners will know, was the Greek goddess of wisdom, battle strategy, and various other things as well. So, Maiya, I'd love to get your thoughts on why Poe chose [00:22:00] this bust, what the symbolism of Athena might represent within the poem, and kind of Why is it so important that we get the contrast of the bird and the bust?

Maiya: I must admit on my first readings of this poem, I was always a little struck by the bust. It really occupies a very concrete space within the poem. And I think that serves in a lot of ways to really contrast a lot of the more abstract feelings that Poe is trying to offer the reader. Now, one of the reasons I say that is because The poem itself is very, very dark.

We did touch on this in the earlier part of the episode. There is a real sense of weight and heaviness that accompanies the poem as a whole. In fact, very literally, the speaker is sat in the dark with a small light that is only shining on the raven and this bust.

So, in terms of a visual, any reader, any listener is really drawn in immediately to that focal point of the poem. And I think having a focal point for a poem like this is [00:23:00] vital. I do, however, think it also adds into this whole mythology that we've been discussing about wisdom and about knowledge. In the same way that Athena represents wisdom and knowledge, and the raven is intentionally meant to represent the same, you now have two figures whom the speaker is looking at and calling to.

One that sits in the speaker's office or room, day to day, and yet neither can offer him the answers. On a slightly third point, and I'd love to know what you think about this, Is, I think it adds into the poem where there is that sort of lack of feminine element because of Lenore's absence.

Athena does occupy a slightly different position in the sense that she is a female bust that is engaging in that interaction between these two characters. Now, Joe, I know I've thrown a lot at you there, but I'd love to know your thoughts on One, her presence as a concrete figure. Two, that sort of feminine aspect that it brings. [00:24:00] And three, that wisdom that she is meant to imbue and clearly isn't.

Joe: Okay, so I guess the first point of those is the fact that the bust represents, on the one hand, a kind of stillness and silence, but on the other hand, a kind of permanence, not only because the association of any kind of statue with something solid, but also because a statue is of somebody from the ancient world, the classical world.

So I think the certainty and the confidence evoked by that bust serves to emphasize the uncertainty of the speaker, right? That this is a bust and a kind of object that has existed for hundreds and thousands of years and learned. Men mostly throughout history have sort of kept these things in their homes and their offices, and yet the speaker remains uncertain and in fact grows increasingly less certain and less confident in his own assertions in terms of the feminine.

I mean, I confess I hadn't really thought of that. I suppose there would be two things that I would sort of focus on there. The first would be. Again, just like Lenore, Athena's voice is absent. The silence [00:25:00] of the women in this poem, and this again speaks to some of the tropes that go on to shape gothic literature in this century.

I mean, women are largely absent from a lot of these gothic texts. If we think about, a few decades after this poem, you have the publication of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a novel in which women are noticeable for their absence. Going back to a little bit earlier in the century, you have the story of Frankenstein, again, a novel in which men dominate proceedings. So I suppose on the one hand, this is very much sort of in vogue, the idea of women, being sort of silent and absent in these gothic texts. I guess the other thing we could talk about if we're associating the bust of Athena with The dead figure of Lenore is that the bust could represent some kind of mausoleum, you know, the, Lenore's death could be sort of manifest in the symbol of that bust. And on your point on wisdom, I, and I'd love to touch on this as an example of a wider trend within the Gothic tradition, because if you think about this figure being a sort of solitary male academic, That is very much in keeping with the kind of gothic [00:26:00] male figures I've mentioned from other texts. So the figure of Dr.

Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the figure of Dr. Jekyll in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, these very educated, solitary men who go on to make really catastrophic decisions. Now again, I think this is definitely a callback to sort of a Faustian tradition of the fact that the accumulation of knowledge does not imply wisdom. You can be very clever and very learned, but it does not mean that you have good judgment. And again, we see this writ large in Poe's poem, where you have somebody who is clearly educated, and yet we find them talking to a bird and growing frustrated that the bird doesn't give them the answers to their problems. Knowledge does not imply wisdom. And I think that this relationship and the symbol of the bust is a nod to the Faustian tradition of male figures. That make bad decisions in spite of their intellect not because of it

Maiya: I mean, I really love the idea that actually this [00:27:00] poem is one that, although maybe not fully present, is really verging on the monstrous. You know, the texts you've mentioned are obviously exploring these really huge, monstrous figures. You're looking at Mr. Hyde, you're looking at Frankenstein's monster.

It's an interesting one to look at when so many people consider this poem really the starting point of gothic literature. And I know you and I obviously have our own opinions about when it truly started, but you can't ignore the fact that it really does encapsulate so many themes from the tradition. And I think serves as a pretty good explainer to anyone that is wanting to understand a little bit more about Gothic literature, whether it is through a poetic lens or through maybe fiction, 

I would really like to focus on that sense of the monstrous though, because we've spoken about how we can locate darkness in this poem and What it comes through, but we've not really spoken about the purpose of it and I know I'm throwing this to you a little bit out of left field, Joe, but what do you think that darkness actually serves [00:28:00] to do within this poem?

How is it represented almost as that monstrous figure?

Joe: Well, it is a difficult question, but i'll have a stab at it. I think The clue for me lies towards the end of the poem. In the moment that the speaker, perhaps in a throwaway fashion, perhaps not sort of alludes to the fact they know where this Raven has come from.

Speaker mentions the fact that he believes this raven has come from the Plutonian shore. And again, I think this is one of the big clues about the relationship between the speaker and the darkness that we've mentioned, because the Plutonian Shore refers to the Greek or Roman version of the underworld.

Pluto is the Roman iteration of the Greek god Hades, who was in charge of the underworld. So again, maybe the speaker is simply being hyperbolic. Another interpretation is they are saying that this raven has come directly from the underworld, or I guess, in a sort of more Judeo Christian context, directly from hell. And that, I think, is very much in keeping with the Faustian tradition I mentioned earlier on, in which a figure from hell is [00:29:00] sent to kind of tempt people. The human speaker, the academic and learned human speaker. So I think if we go along those lines, that the Raven is not some kind of ambivalent figure that is simply projected upon, as we were sort of alluding in the first half, but perhaps is actually there to deliberately exacerbate the feelings that the speaker has in order to tempt them to perform some kind of monstrous act. So whether or not we believe that that Plutonian comment is simply a throwaway remark, or we believe that it's sort of a real accusation that the speaker feels the raven has been sent from hell to tempt him in a kind of Faustian manner. There is definitely an association between the bird and the poem and some kind of hellish or classical dark tradition. Now Maiya, I’d absolutely love love to get your thoughts on that. Am I miles off?

Maiya: I don't think you're miles off at all. And actually, as you were talking, there has been something that's been kind of orbiting my head a little bit with this poem. And it falls a little bit more into the [00:30:00] romantic tradition than it does the classical. But just as you were talking about the fact that the speaker recognizes that this raven has come from a hell or an underworld, I think it's actually worth in this poem touching on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

For listeners who aren't aware, Orpheus and Eurydice is a classical Greek myth in which Orpheus loses the love of his life, Eurydice, and goes on a journey into the underworld to find her. When he does, he is promised by Hades that he can have her return to life with him as long as he journeys

all the way out of the underworld on this very arduous journey, but doesn't look back at her once. He can only look at her once they are on the shores of the real world. Now this is one of the most tragic stories of the classical world. Orpheus gets to this last step of his journey from the underworld and believing that he is on the shore, he turns [00:31:00] around to look at Eurydice and she disappears forever.

Now, I really didn't form this connection until you were just speaking, Joe, but this sense of the knocking at the door, this raven coming in, being something that is born from the hell, he was expecting it this whole time to be Lenore. I think, actually, instead of looking at the darkness as being channeled through the raven, what is monstrous in this, is the speaker's reaction.

Is the fact that this is the greatest letdown of his life. He was expecting, hoping with that smallest piece of him, that it might just be the love of his life that he lost at the window, at the door, finally returning. And instead he gets this Raven that keeps telling him, no, never again, never more. This is it for him.

And you really see that panic start to come into the speaker's world. At the opening of this poem, he is. He's questioning, he's a bit confused, but he's [00:32:00] not really dead set on who it is, it's more the suspense and the mystery of it. But as you get to that end where he is shrieking at this raven, all you feel is that grief and I, see much more clearly now the parallels between that classical allusion and, and this.

But I'd love to know if you, if you think I'm completely on the wrong 

Joe: I think you might be spot on. And I think one of the things that this conversation hopefully to listeners is really demonstrating is that this poem kind of represents a moment in time because there is so much that we can look back at through the lens of this poem, but there's also so much that this poem is Anticipating. So I was just thinking when you were talking about that image of the lost lover, and especially knocking at the window. This poem, as we've said, is published in 1845. Just two years later, you have the publication of Wuthering Heights. And for many of our listeners, they'll be aware of that kind of very, very iconic scene in chapter four, where there is a knocking at the window, and the window is opened and [00:33:00] is a ghost of the lover. Again, crucially, if we consider the sort of parallels between this poem and that chapter, just like in this poem the speaker is disappointed not to see Lenore, You know, they don't quite match up in the novel. The person at the window is actually the quote unquote right person. It is the ghost of Kathy, but the person in the building is the wrong one.

It's not her lover Heathcliff. They are still kept apart. And what you have there is this poem, which, I mean, it's, it's incredibly rare that you can do this with a literary text as clearly as this, where you can look back at it and you can say, okay, I can see how Poe's poem is in dialogue with classical texts like, The story of Orpheus from Ovid, or in dialogue with the likes of Faust from Goethe or Christopher Marlowe, but also projecting into the future into texts that have not yet been written and still able to sort of lay the foundations for those dynamics.

I think it's an absolutely fascinating way of talking about a literary text is to look at [00:34:00] how does it intersect with that which came before and that which came after. 

Maiya: And it's definitely worth looking forward with poems like this.

And this poem undoubtedly has an afterlife. It was incredibly, incredibly successful. And even more so after Poe's death. , a few people that I would like to mention that were very heavily inspired, , Sylvia Plath's poem Lady Lazarus. It uses some very pointed gothic tropes, it looks at a very literal rebirth, , H. P. Lovecraft, who is better known as a horror fiction writer, does write some poetry that I think is really worth checking out, , particularly the poem The City, which was written in 1919, and of course some of Emily Dickinson's later work as well, was edited.

somewhat inspired, maybe not so much by this poem, but by the Gothic trope as a whole. Now, Joe, I have a question for you. This poem is, is so well loved in the public consciousness and so well received by people who read it now, but critics at the time really [00:35:00] didn't seem that keen on it. Do you know why?

Do you think there's a particular reason for that?

Joe: Well, it's a fascinating question and yeah, I think it's, it's worth touching upon the fact that Some really significant figures in the poetic world, both at the time and in the decades afterwards, really had some quite harsh things to say about this poem. I mean, the transcendental poet Ralph Waldo Emerson said he found nothing in The Raven. Sort of worthy of his time. Uh, the Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner, William Butler Yeats, who Maiya and I did an episode on his poem, the Second Coming. So if any listeners haven't checked that episode out yet, I strongly suggest you do so. He said the poem was vulgar. I mean, there was some really quite visceral responses to this poem, in terms of why, I mean, it's a complicated question. I do think that it is. indicative of a kind of level of snobbery against writers of certain types of literature. So again, what we have to remember is that while the Gothic tradition now has a kind of prestige that's associated with it, and we study [00:36:00] these texts as major contributions to the literary canon, it's worth remembering that Gothic literature was kind of salacious.

It was literature written for predominantly female readers. , it wasn't considered. As highbrow as we now view it, but also Edgar Allan Poe's legacy is that of a driver of different kinds of genre fiction, particularly detective fiction. So the iconic character of Sherlock Holmes owes an awful lot to different short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe.

And again, just because texts acquire sort of esteem in retrospect doesn't mean that that's the way they were viewed at the time. So I think that's part of it. I guess the other thing that it reminds us is that sometimes critics get things wrong, put simply.

I mean, in the same way that critics make mistakes with films and books and TV shows from the last 50 years. Critics are making mistakes at the time. They're not infallible. There isn't always correlation between what regular readers think and what critics think.

Okay. So, you know, if you ask literary critics, what's the greatest novel of all time, they'll tell you it's Ulysses. But if you ask a member of the general public, they'll tell you [00:37:00] it's the Da Vinci code. Right. And both of those opinions can coexist. If you think about the Bronte sisters, you know, the iconic sisters from Yorkshire, and I'm sure that Maiya and I are going to get onto a, one of the Brontes at some point, maybe even all three at once.

I don't know. That'd be a fabulous episode, but the Brontes co authored a collection of poems under their pseudonyms that sold a grand total of two copies. The Bronte sisters, who are some of the most iconic writers in the history of literature, their first collection of poems had more authors than readers. However, Normally, with time, the cream rises to the top. And I think, hopefully, as we've discussed in this episode, this is a poem that is saying an awful lot, that is engaging in dialogues, both contemporary and classical, and even delving into the future.

So I think we'll never know for sure why individuals didn't take to poems. But in terms of a broader public consciousness, I can see why regular readers really found it [00:38:00] worth reading at the time. And I can absolutely see why you and I are still discussing it 175 years, almost after its publication.

Maiya: Well, thank you, Joe, for that fabulous piece of insight. I am sure we could have carried on talking about this poem for many, many more hours, but unfortunately that is all we have time for today.

Now, our next episode is going to be on the fantastic poem, Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka. And I for one cannot wait to have our discussion about that, 

Mai: But for now, it's goodbye from me.

Joe: And goodbye from me and the whole team at poemanalysis.com and Poetry+.