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Poetic Devices In Poe's The Raven By Edgar Allen Poe

Decent Essays

I chose Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” for my poem. In the poem there is a gloomy tone set for the entirety of the poem. How does Poe do that? What poetic devices does Poe use? Poe is well known poet that has many poems that are set in this type of mood. I do believe this one is different than the rest. Poe uses the raven as a symbol of weariness. I would argue Poe had a lot of demons at the time of this poem that he was fighting, and the raven itself, Poe speaks about in the “The Philosophy of Composition”, is meant to symbolize Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Poe is using the raven to symbolize the loss of many loved ones that Poe had to endure. Poe immediately sets the tone of the poem by writing in the very first line “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary...” he is describing the night as dull and depressing by the word choice he uses. The narrator of “The Raven” is dealing with the death of his wife, Lenore, and is constantly trying to forget his lost love as Poe shows:
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore. (Lines 9-12)
The Raven has eighteen stanzas that each contain six lines. The initial seven stanzas set up the setting and the storyteller's gloomy, naive perspective. Weak and exhausted with misery and heartbreak, the speaker continuously looks for a

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