Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is unquestionably one of the most famous American poems of all time. That “Ghastly grim and ancient raven” (47) has pervaded the American imagination so thoroughly that it is almost impossible to find an artistic rendering of or reference to Poe without his most renowned creation; in fact, 2014 saw the unveiling of a new Poe statue in Boston featuring an enormously oversized raven, wings outstretched, accompanying Poe in his mad dash from the city of his birth. Easily memorized by both children and actors, the poem and its singsong trochaic meter has been celebrated, criticized, and parodied by everyone from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who famously called Poe “the jingle man” (Garmon), to
Saturday Night Live, which featured a 1991 reading of “The…
2797 words
Citation: McQuillan, Jennifer . "The Raven". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 January 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7527, accessed 25 November 2024.]
