Edgar Allen Poe and The Dark/Gothic Romantics

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Art by the Dark/Gothic Romantics
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Art by the Dark/Gothic Romantics
The Nightmare John Henry Fuseli
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Edgar 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.

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The Raven

• Poe sold the poem The Raven for 9 in 1845.
• Despite its 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.

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SYMBOLISM

• A person, place, thing, or event in a piece of
  writing that has meaning in itself, but that also
  represents something largeroften something
  abstract, like a human emotion or universal
  experiencebeyond the story.

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SYMBOLISM

• For example, the traveler in The Tide Rises,
  the Tide Falls could symbolize the temporary
  nature of human life.

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SYMBOLISM

• In Herman Melvilles Moby Dick, the whale
  represents something bigger thanjust a
  whalenamely, human obsession with an
  unattainable goal.

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SLANT RHYME

• A rhyme that is not exact, such as
• follow/fellow or mastery/mystery or rain/again or
  sting/being

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Pp 436-440

• 1) What is the poems 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?

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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.

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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.

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The Raven

• 7) Why does the speaker initially think that
  Nevermore is the birds name?
• 8) 11th stanza (lines 61-66). Decode this stanza
  into everyday language. Its tricky!
• 9) 13th stanza (lines 73-78). Copy an example of
  assonance.

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The Raven

• 10) a. What is the speakers tone in stanza 15
  (lines 85-90)? (Get out your tone word handout!)
• b. What diction choices create that tone?
• c. How does Poes syntax (his use of multiple
  dashes) in this stanza help convey the speakers
  tone?
• 11) What is the internal slant rhyme in lines 85
  and 91?

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The Raven

• 12) After reading the final stanza, what do you
  think the Raven symbolizes? Dont just give a one
  word answer. Defend and explain your choice.
  Consider what the raven does and says in the
  story of the poem.

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

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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