Poe‘s "The Raven". An Interpretive Reading

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Heidelberg (Anglistisches Seminar), course: Hauptseminar Literaturwissenschaft. American Poetry: Romanticism, language: English, abstract: "The Raven", first published in 1845, is undoubtedly one of the most popular and financially successful works of Edgar Allen Poe‘s literary heritage. In 1846, one year after the poem had received tremendous ovations from the public, Poe published his essay "The Philosophy of Composition". In this essay he claims that every artistic piece of writing should be written in such a way that the work proceeds "step by step, to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem." In this context, the poem "The Raven" serves as the prime example of this theory of a deliberately planned artistry. Along with this essay, I will provide an analysis of the poem and take two more of his essays into consideration: "The Poetic Principle", published posthumously in 1850, and finally his prose piece, half sketch - half essay, "The Imp of the Perverse", first published in 1845.