The Raven

Death seemed to follow Poe around like a vulture, picking upon the corpses of his most beloved. There were many women in Poe’s life whom he cherished and lost. His mother and foster mother’s deaths affected him terribly, and when he was around 15 Poe had lost his first love, Mrs. Jane Stith Craig Stanard. Mrs. Stanard died on April 28th, 1824. It’s been speculated that she had died from brain cancer. Mrs. Stanard was an eccentric women, and was later prone to bouts of insanity, no doubt the symptoms of her disease. Poe had met her through a classmate and was enamored with her.

After her death Poe often visited Mrs. Stanard’s grave at Shockoe Hill Cemetery, where his foster-mother Frances Allan would later be buried. Mrs. Stanard’s death was the second instance of a woman whom Poe loved dying in her prime. However Poe’s love for Mrs. Standard was more akin to that of puppy love. Mrs. Standard was twice his age and a married women.Whether Poe loved her romantically or not is up to the interpreter. Whatever the case may be, Poe was still deeply affected by her death and wept at her grave often. However no death of women affected Poe so deeply as Virginia Clemm’s.

Virginia Clemm was Poe’s first cousin and the love of his life. They’d met in 1831 when she was 8 and Poe was 24 and had developed a very unique partnership. Although the true nature of their relationship inside wedlock is speculated, it is known that they were a very happy couple. And it wasn’t until Virginia contracted tuberculosis that Poe really became the Gothic writer he is famous for.

Some of Poe’s greatest works were made during the 5 years of Virginia’s illness. Poe’s psyche became wrought with guilt, depression, and longing. Knowing Virginia’s time was short, Poe’s passion for the afterlife and interest in the macabre fully aroused and inspired the Gothic nature of his writing. “The Raven,” written on January 29th 1845, really captures the romantic and sorrowful recesses of Poe’s soul brought about by his dying muse Virginia.

“The Raven” is a poem that tells the story of a poet longing for his lost love Lenore. Sitting alone in his chambers late at night and mourning over his lovely Lenore, the poet hears the sound of tapping at his door. Trying to convince himself that it is nothing while becoming increasingly more paranoid, the man eventually checks to see if he has a visitor, sadly calling out to his lost Lenore only to be met with an eerie response.

“ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—

Merely this and nothing more.”

The Poet is trying desperately to forget Lenore, repressing and denying the raven at his door, yet he cannot let go of his love, calling tentatively to a ghost in the night. The terrible weight of her death has slowly been eating away at his soul, until the quiet continence he’d been so contenting himself in explodes in a fit of hysteria towards the raven.  

After the raven had arrived the Poet beings asking it questions, hoping the angels who named his Lenore had taken her to heaven, only to receive the response of “nevermore” from the raven. He then asks if the raven is from hell, a demon come to haunt and torment him with the death of his beloved.

“ Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

This quote near the second to last stanza of the poem really

captures the desperation to wallow in his morning solitude. The realization that he will never see his lover again had become too great a sorrow for the poet to bear; yet the raven continues to dig its harsh words (beak) into his heart, the man asking continuously, when shall I see my beloved Lenore? “Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

This tragic role played out by the poet is one Poe knew he’d

soon be playing himself. Tuberculosis was a death sentence in the 1800’s, and although Virginia went through small bouts of recovery, Poe could not afford to keep her in such fine health. “The

Raven” was massively popular with the people. The poem even appeared in the New York Evening Mirror. Poe was even nicknamed “The Raven” by fans, and performed many readings of the tale for massive audiences. Unfortunately the “The Raven” only brought Poe fame, the poem only earning him a measly 14 dollars, which would equate to 429 dollars and 86 cents in 2017. No amount of fame would be able to save Virginia.

It was only a matter of time before Virginia’s death and “The Raven” in my opinion, was Poe’s attempt at consoling himself, but like the lonely poet, Poe would continue to grieve and suffer from Virginia’s death; forevermore craving the afterlife and pondering its existence for the lost soul of his beloved wife. The dark romantic aspects of “The Raven” are what make it the perfect example of Gothic literature. There were no monsters lurking in the dark, no horrors to be found. The true terror lies within the poet's own mind, the grief and sorrow that continued to consume his soul allowed him to summon demons of his own in the form of the raven. Nevermore would he see his Lenore, and that is the true fear of it all.

Link to “The Raven”  

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/48860