The Raven Literary Devices

Written in 1845 by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven” is a famous dark and melancholic poem written in a way to create a more despair and sad atmosphere. This Gothic sense of literature uses themes of grief, lunacy, and loss to tell the story of a man who while grieving the passing of his lover, encounters himself with a talking raven who repeatedly only says the word

“Nevermore” (Poe 48). Through the many literary devices incorporated throughout the poem,

Edgar Allan Poe constructs a haunting and sinister atmosphere that reflects the grief and lunacy that the man of the poem goes through. This essay will go through each literary device found in

“The Raven” and how each literary device impacts the poem and the story in a certain way

(Jung 2).

Through

When the action slows down Edgar Allan Poe uses soft “W” sounds such as “was, whispered, and word” (Poe 33-34), these words calm down the stenza and the reading of the reader. The author’s selection of words that contain the same sound control the intensity and tone of them poem. Using these words gives the reader a more immersive reading experience to match the tone of the poem.

Although that is one common literary device found in the poem, there are many others throughout it. For example, the literary device is repetition. This may be seen as the most prominent and very used device in the poem. Edgar Allan Poe uses the literary device of repetition to develop and change the poem's theme. In this case, he also uses repetition to emphasize the narrator's obsessive thoughts that he is constantly having throughout the poem.

One example of the use of repetition in the poem is the repetition of the phrase “Quoth the raven” (Poe 48) which is used to establish a sense of rhythm and in a way serves to establish the idea that the raven in the poem is there to be some sort of messenger of the

Along with describing the curtains using the word “ghostly”

(Poe 8) he explains that the color of the curtains is purple which in a way is used to create an image in the reader's head that the narrator of the poem has certain sad emotions that correlate to the color purple being a more somber tone of color (Poe).

Along with the very familiar literary devices that have been seen in this essay so far, there are still many more devices that play significant roles in creating this piece of writing.

Another literary device used in the poem is the rhyme scheme. The literary device of the rhyme scheme is the device in which it refers to the pattern of rhythmic words at the end of each sentence to create a more musical note to the tone of the poem. The rhyme scheme of this poem follows the ABCBBB and the B rhyme tends to follow the “or” sound which is found in the words “ door, Lenore, and even nevermore” (Poe 22 24). The use of the pattern is made to create a more interesting story to follow through the poem. Another use of the rhyme scheme seen in the poem is the use of the words “tapping, napping, and rapping” (Poe 3 4 5). The use of the rhyme scheme highlights the speaker's grief as it is used to create a sort of