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'Nevermore': The making of Edgar Allan Poe's Raven.
A man mourning for his lost love is interrupted by the arrival of an annoying talking raven who keeps reminding him that his love is lost forever, to return “nevermore.”
On Jan. 29, 1845 — 180 years ago Wednesday — Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “The Raven” was first published in the New York Evening Mirror.
The Making of Poe's 'The Raven'
Edgar Allan Poe lived a difficult life. Orphaned as a young child, he was raised by a Richmond, Virginia, merchant but was kicked out of the University of Virginia in 1826 having proven an affinity for only gambling and alcohol.
He later earned an appointment to West Point where he excelled as a student and as an athlete but again ran into long bouts of drinking and gambling.
Poe published a couple of collections of his poetry, and earned a reputation as a gifted essayist and editor working for the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. He married his 13-year-old first cousin, Virginia, in 1836 and moved to Philadelphia in 1938, where he enjoyed his prime years as a writer.
Despite his success, however, Poe had little to show for his career. Because of the lax copyright laws at the time, publications could reprint Poe’s work without paying him. He made very little money and often wore his coat buttoned up to his chin to hide his raggedy shirts.
When Virginia was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1842, Poe knew exactly what the outcome would likely be. He had previously lost his mother, brother and foster mother to the disease. A friend wrote that Virginia “lay on the straw bed, wrapped in her husband’s great-coat, with a large tortoise-shell cat on her bosom ... the coat and the cat were the sufferer’s only means of warmth.”
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Virginia Clemm Poe
Poe poured out his emotions into “The Raven,” a poem about a mysterious bird that enters a grieving man’s home, perched on a bust above the door and repeats only one word: “Nevermore.” The man comes to understand the raven is there to stay and that the man will never be free of his grief.
Poe said he started with the poem’s climax — “‘Prophet!’ said I, ‘think of evil! — prophet still if bird or devil!’,” and then built the rest of the poem around that. He chose the word “Nevermore” because, he said “the long ‘o’ as the most sonorous vowel in connection with ‘r’ as the most producible consonant.”
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Edgar Allan Poe
Why a raven? Poe said he had considered a parrot or an owl but went with a raven because he considered it “the bird of ill-omen.” He borrowed the idea of a talking raven from a Charles Dickens novel, “Barnaby Rudge,” and his poem’s unusual meter from an Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem, “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship.”
Poe submitted “The Raven” to one of his employers, Graham’s Magazine, which rejected it. Instead, it was published on Jan. 29, 1845, by the New Yrk Evening Mirror, which paid the author a whole $9 for his work. Shortly afterward, the monthly publication American Review also published “The Raven,” attributing it to “Quarles.” It would also appear in other periodicals.
Wiley and Putnam, the publisher of Poe’s books, rushed out a collection of his poems including “The Raven” that June and then a second, smaller collection — “The Raven and Other Poems” — that November.
The next year, Poe and his wife moved to Fordham, New York. After Virginia died in 1847, Poe’s behavior and health became even more unstable. He eked out a living giving lectures and publishing a handful of other works.
He moved back to Baltimore, became engaged to marry poet Sarah Helen Whitman but that relationship ended because of Poe’s drinking.
On Oct. 3, 1849, Poe was found delirious in a Baltimore tavern and wearing clothes apparently belonging to someone else. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he died four days later. Poe was 40.
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Library of Congress
“The Raven” and Poe’s other works have seen publication time and time again over the years, at times in lavishly illustrated editions. This woodcut by Gustave Doré for an 1884 reprint of “The Raven” illustrates the final verses of the poem:
“And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor/Shall be lifted — nevermore!”
Poe's Published Work
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