Raven, The

Raven, The, poem by Poe, the title piece of a volume (1845), was several times revised in later publications. To Poe's account of writing it, in “The Philosophy of Composition,” must be added the influence upon the meter of Mrs. Browning's Lady Geraldine's Courtship and Chivers's Isadore. The poem consists of 18 six‐line stanzas, the first five lines of each being in trochaic octameter, and the sixth line trochaic tetrameter. The rhythm is varied by frequent syncopation, caused by effects of double rhyme and alliteration. The rhyme pattern is abcbbb, in which the b rhymes are based on the constant refrain, “Nevermore,” a word that merged Poe's favorite theme of grief occasioned by the death of a beautiful woman (in this case “Lenore”), the distinctive theme of despair at the denial of personal immortality, and the sonorous sound of the o and r in the refrain itself.

A weary student is visited in his room, one stormy midnight, by a raven who can speak the single word, “Nevermore.” Tortured by grief over the loss of his beloved, the student questions the bird concerning the possibility of meeting her in another world. He is driven to wilder demands by the repetition of the fatal word, until the raven becomes an irremovable symbol of his dark doubts and frustrated longing.