Edgar Allen Poe and The Dark/Gothic Romantics

• Like the other Romantic writers, Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville valued intuition and the imagination over logic and reason.

Edgar Allen Poe and The Dark Romantics

• However, they held a less optimistic view of the world and acknowledged the existence of sin, pain, and evil in human life.

Poe and The Dark/Gothic Romantics

• Their work explored the conflict between good and evil, the psychological effects of guilt and sin, and even madness.

Art by the Dark/Gothic Romantics

Art by the Dark/Gothic Romantics

The Nightmare – John Henry Fuseli

Edgar Allen PoeEdgar Allen Poe• Master of the

psychological thriller/mystery

• Wanted readers to leave the rational world and discover the unsettling, dark truths of the human mind

• Orphaned at age three, he said, “the want of parental affection has been the heaviest of my trials.”

“The Raven”

• Poe sold the poem “The Raven” for $9 in 1845.

• Despite it’s overwhelming success, he died nearly broke.

• He compared writing the poem to solving a mathematical problem, and claimed to have written the final stanzas first.

SYMBOLISM• A person, place, thing, or event in a piece of

writing that has meaning in itself, but that also represents something larger—often something abstract, like a human emotion or universal experience—beyond the story.

SYMBOLISM• For example, the “traveler” in “The Tide

Rises, the Tide Falls” could symbolize the temporary nature of human life.

SYMBOLISM• In Herman

Melville’s Moby Dick, the whale represents something bigger than…just a whale—namely, human obsession with an unattainable goal.

SLANT RHYME

• A rhyme that is not exact, such as:

• follow/fellow or mastery/mystery or rain/again or sting/being

Pp 436-440

1) What is the poem’s rhyme scheme?

2) A. Copy the part of the line in stanza three that contains personification

B. What inhuman thing is given what human characteristic?

3) What choices does Poe make that help us infer that Lenore is a woman the speaker was romantically involved with?

The Raven

4) a. What is the mood at the beginning of the poem? (Give an adjective NOT in the poem) Not sure what mood is? Look at your Tone Word handout.

b. List at least five word choices from the first three stanzas that create the mood you wrote for a.

The Raven

5) List the words that create alliteration in line 26

6) a. What example of figurative language can be found in line 31?

b. Explain how the example meets the definition.

The Raven7) Why does the speaker initially think that “Nevermore” is the bird’s name?

8) 11th stanza (lines 61-66). Decode this stanza into everyday language. It’s tricky!

9) 13th stanza (lines 73-78). Copy an example of assonance.

The Raven10) a. What is the speaker’s tone in stanza 15 (lines 85-90)? (Get out your tone word handout!)

b. What diction choices create that tone?

c. How does Poe’s syntax (his use of multiple dashes) in this stanza help convey the speaker’s tone?

11) What is the internal slant rhyme in lines 85 and 91?

The Raven• 12) After reading the final stanza, what do

you think the Raven symbolizes? Don’t just give a one word answer. Defend and explain your choice. Consider what the raven does and says in the story of the poem.

• Once students have answered #12, go Once students have answered #12, go onto the next slide.onto the next slide.

Poe on the “The Raven”I asked myself - 'Of all melancholy topics, what... is the most melancholy?' Death - was the obvious reply. 'And when,' I said, 'is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?'... 'When it most closely allies itself to Beauty: the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world -- and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.'" ~ Edgar Allan Poe, "The Philosophy of Composition," 1846