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The Raven Literary Devices Essay

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Darkened Emotions Known for its mystical atmosphere and darkened rhythmic tone, “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe was first published in the year 1845. Once the poem ended up getting published it rocketed Poe’s popularity. Critics were all over him. The critics were not just interpreting Poe’s work, but as well as critiquing it. They wanted to know everything about it. As we begin to break down the poem into stanzas and examine it for its true meaning we start to see the many different rhetorical and literary devices used to help express the true meaning of this writing. In the first stanza we see the poem’s speaker expressing how they are tired and weak, and reading. As he 's about to fall asleep, he hears something tapping at his door. The …show more content…

In stanza 12 we see the narrator wheeling his chair around, staring at the bird, and attempting to figure out what all of these means. Although the narrator draws no explicit conclusion, descriptive words such as "grim, ungainly, ghastly, and gaunt" displays the narrator 's true negative attitude toward the bird. In stanza 13 we see that the narrator is still staring at the bird trying to take it in and understand why this bird is there, but the only thing staring back at him are the fiery eyes of the bird, burning the narrators heart. He ponders how he will nevermore see his lost Lenore. This stanza says what it means. That there 's a bird, specifically a raven, in the living room with fiery eyes staring at the narrator and all he can think about is his lost love. As we move along in the poem we get to stanza 14 were we see the narrator sensing the arrival of angels who burn incense. He suspects the raven 's purpose is to help the narrator forget about his sorrows. He asks to drink a magic potion for that purpose. The raven replies, with the same word it has been saying this whole time "nevermore." Angels end up arriving and the narrator hopes that he will be spared from despair and sorrow. We know that by the keywords in this stanza: quaff meaning to drink and nepenthe being a drug used in ancient times to make people forget their

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