The Raven Criticism

When reading the criticism written by Harold Bloom on Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, something that Bloom wrote really caught my eye; "From the beginning, the poem addresses a problem of interpretation: the speaker's first response is apprehensive, but he quickly denies the importance of the sound he hears" (Bloom). That is of course referring to this line from the Raven, "
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door........`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -This it is, and nothing more," (Grave). I found this connection intriguing so I read the lines a couple more times and I then realized what Bloom said was true. You can tell the speaker has a tough time interpreting everything throughout the poem. There could be many reasons for this; One: the most likely explanation is the speaker is very tired considering it is in the middle of the night, two: less likely, the speaker may be mentally slow and it is challenging for him to accept everything throughout the course of this poem, and a third, which could be likely; it is difficult to take in a talking bird, let alone a raven who are not considered one of the "talkative" birds and have a serious conversation. Anyways, that is just one of the things that stuck out to me in the criticism.

Here is another thing of which I was intrigued by. Bloom writes, "The raven appears. It is a creature out of old mythologies, the "saintly days of yore," and makes an irreverent entrance, awkwardly humanized with an attitude of nobility. It perches "upon a bust of Pallas" (a name for the goddess Athena), an appropriate object for the scholar's room, representing learning and wisdom. The speaker immediately attempts to interpret the bird's presence, to "read into" the ostensibly natural occurrence, and in doing so supplies the "meaning" of what the bird croaks. Poe explains that he chose the word "nevermore" to evoke a melancholy tone in a single non-human utterance. The word has "little meaning—little relevancy" until the speaker interprets its answer as a meaningful answer" (Bloom). I like how Bloom included Poe's actual reasoning for choosing the word which causes so much confusion to both the speaker in the poem and the readers. Then it is nice that Poe explains how the speaker interprets the raven's statements of the word, "nevermore."

It is strange to read everything of which Bloom has written and think about everything that actually goes into a poem. The Raven has a lot of different interpretations for the meaning; even in our class, a class of what? 13 kids, we had about four or five different ways people took the meaning in. The symbolism is immense and it is just a keen thing to think about.



Bloom, Harold, ed. "'The Raven'." Edgar Allan Poe, Bloom's Major Poets. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 1999. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Accessed November 22, 2010.

Grave, By The. "Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven." Heise Online - IT-News, C't, IX, Technology Review, Telepolis. Web. 22 Nov. 2010. .