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Monday, November 12, 2012

What's with the Raven?

The "mien of lord or lady" excessively does not fit(p) with "ungainly," though it does fit with "stately." Eliot gives his reason for the use of these irreconcilable terms:

Several actor's line in the poem seem to be inserted either precisely to fill out the line to the required measure, or for the homogeneous of a rhyme (Eliot 32).

A similar sentiment is expressed by W.H. Auden, who states that the problem with "The pig it" is

that the thematic interest and the prosodic interest, both of which ar considerable, do not combine and are even often at odds (Auden 213).

Auden also believes that Poe lets system of measurement considerations dictate his choice of words, often militating against sense, and Auden also says that Poe often just chooses the wrong meter. In "The Raven," Poe is faced with am narrative organise around a series of questions, and this structure is artificial and toilette only be accepted by assuming that the talker is a self-torturer. The effect is only possible if the narrative of the story, as opposed to the questions and answers, flowed naturally. Auden says that the meter Poe has chosen, involving frequent feminine rhymes such as are rare in English, works against the narrative and at times defeats the poet.
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He cites lines 39-40 cited above:

Here it is the meter alone(predicate) and nothing in the speaker of the situation which is responsible for the free alternatives of "stopped or stayed he" and "lord


Knapp, Bettina L. Edgar Allan Poe. impudent York: Frederick Ungar, 1984.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak

Both Eliot and Auden refer to the fact that Poe explained his rationale for the composition of "The Raven" in an essay entitled "The Philosophy of Composition," and Harry Levin also cites this and stats that Poe was especially eager to convince the world of his self-mastery as a poet. Levin has a particular view of "The Raven":

Auden, W.H. "Edgar Allan Poe." In Edward Mendelson, Forewords and Afterwords, 209-220. New York: Random House, 1973.

To a cold critical eye the dance-craze rhythms and technicolor beginning rhyme can seem pointlessly deft, verbal equivalents of rolling a half-dollar across one's knuckles (Silverman 239).

Over many a strange and curious volume of forgotten


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