The document provides context and analysis of key elements in Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven". It discusses themes of love, nature, the supernatural, and madness in the poem. Specific symbols and their meanings are explained, such as Lenore representing idealized love, the raven representing darkness and death, and references to mythology, religion, and ancient traditions that influenced Poe's writing.

1. Edgar Allan Poe

2. Love: He loves a woman named Lenore. The
only thing he wants is to be back with her.
Natural World:
• He imagines natural forces
around him.
• Dark night.
• The sound of the wind.
• The bird.

3. Supernatural:
• Afterlife.
• Existence of God.
• The narrators is talking to a bird.
Madness: the narrator sounds as if he
has had a rough life. He talks with a
bird.

4. Lenore: she is the main focus of the
speaker's thoughts. She represents beauty,
truth, hope, it's and idealized love.
The Raven: represents darkness, death,
the bearer of ill. It is a magical sign of ill
omen.

5. Nepenthe: Ancient drug used to remove
pain or suffering.
Midnight:
December:
Darkest part of the night.
Witching time.
Winter. Symbol of death.
Nothing lives in winter.

6. God Odin had two
ravens:
• Hugin (thought)
• Munin (memory)

7. 'A bust of Pallas'
Pallas Athena:
Greek Godess of
wisdom.

8. 'Nights Plutonian shore'
Pluto: Roman God of
underworld.
Shore: shore of the
underworld.
Night: symbol of
death.

9. ‘is there balm in Gilead?'
Jeremiah 8:22
Balm: medical resin. Represents
hope, peace, the end of pain.
The narrator needs to be heal
from the lost of Leonor
Kind of salvation

10. 'Aideen'
Reference to the Garden of Eden
Use the word to ask if Lenor
was accepted in paradise.

11. ‘while I pondered weak and weary‘
‘surcease of sorrow - sorrow‘
‘silken sad uncertain‘
‘Doubting, dreaming dreams‘
‘never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting'