In a word, the poem begins after midnight on a cold December evening。 A man, the narrator, sits alone by the fire dozing off as he reads a book, in the hope of forgetting about Lenore, his lost love, when he hears a knocking on the door。 He rises up to answer, apologizing in the process, only to find absolutely nothing there。 With it being after midnight, he is a little crept out, so he tries to tell himself that it is just the wind hitting the window。 When he goes to the window to remedy the problem, a raven swoops in。 However, unlike a normal bird that would probably fly around the room scared, the raven just perches itself on a statue of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, above the door。 Rather unnaturally, the narrator begins to talk to it, asking about its name。 The raven is able to answer and he does respond with, “Nevermore”。  In a fury, the narrator demands that the raven go back into the night and leave him alone again, but the raven says, “Nevermore” and it does not leave the bust of Pallas。 The narrator feels that his soul will “nevermore” leave the raven’s shadow。来:自[优E尔L论W文W网www.chuibin.com +QQ752018766-

2。2 An appreciation of the Theme of The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe wrote an essay on the creation of The Raven, entitled The Philosophy of Composition, in which he describes the work of composing the poem as if it were a mathematical problem, and derides the poets that claim that they compose “by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes” (Poe 1850)。 Poe chooses “Beauty” to be the theme of the poem, since “Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem” (Poe 1850)。 After choosing “Beauty” as the province, Poe considers “sadness” to be the highest manifestation of beauty。 “Beauty of whatever kind in its supreme development invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears。 Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones” (Poe 1850)。 Of all melancholy topics, Poe wants to use the one that is universally understood, and therefore, he chooses “Death” as his topic。 Poe (along with other writers) believed that the death of a beautiful woman was the most poetical use of death, because it closely allies itself with “Beauty”。