2.  Edgar Allan Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children.  The January 1845 publication of “The Raven” made Poe a household name.  Poe was an educated man with an extensive vocabulary. “The Raven” uses ancient and poetic language which seems appropriate since the poem is about a man spending most of his time with books of “forgotten lore’”

3.  “The Raven” is written backwards…The effect is determined first, and the whole plot is set; then the web grows backwards from the single effect!  Poe chooses death as his topic: universally understood.  Poe believed the death of a beautiful woman was the most poetical use of death… this idea relates to beauty.

4.  A lonely man tries to ease his “Sorrow for the lost Lenore” by distracting himself with old books.  He is interrupted while he is “nearly napping” by a “tapping on his chamber door.”  Opening the door, he finds “darkness and nothing more.” Into the darkness he whispers, “Lenore”, hoping his lost love had come back, but all he hears is an echo.  As he hears the tapping again, he “flung open the shutter” and in steps a Raven, the bird of ill-omen.

5.  The man asks the Raven for his name, and surprisingly it answers, croaking “Nevermore.”  The man welcomes the Raven, asking what he means…when the Raven answers again, “Nevermore”, the man pulls up a chair; a chair that reminds him of his lost Lenore.  Painful memories create agitation in the man, who is disturbed by the Raven’s irrational response, “Nevermore.”  Finally, the man concedes realizing further discussion with the Raven is pointless, realizes “his soul from the shadow/Shall be lifted-nevermore.”

6.  Raven =a bird associated with ill-omen. This helps create the mood in the poem…bad news has arrived.  Bust of Pallas =Goddess of Wisdom. Why would the raven perch upon this bust?  Midnight and December =symbolize the end of something, and the anticipation of something new, a change.  Chamber =where the narrator speaks is used to signify loneliness of the man, and the sorrow he feels for the loss of Lenore.  Tempest =storm outside signify the isolation of this man. The tempest is a sharp contrast between the calmness in the chamber