Craven

"The Raven" stands as Poe's deep, bottomless well of ruination, a testament to the bleak nature of existence and the crushing solitude of shadow. In this darkened realm, we find ourselves momentarily possessed by the accursed knowledge that our world is but a dream, confined within the confines of our skulls. Once the cork is pulled from this abyss, like the maelstrom in another of Poe’s tales, we are inevitably drawn into a cosmic shadow—the void of Self. This grim reality mirrors the cosmic black hole that will one day swallow the sun, hurling it into the depths of the infinite abyss, which is our death.

From the pallid bust of Pallas springs the Raven, akin to Pallas Athena herself, who emerged from the chaotic turmoil of Zeus's mind, the thunderbolt-wielding master. The Raven sits there in mocking contemplation of his Father-Host, who has summoned this messenger of doom from the lands of the misnamed dead, destined to haunt the living in their dream-besotted reveries.

"Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—

Perched, and sat, and nothing more."

In this dark, empty, stark chamber, the Raven becomes the symbol of our inevitable descent into dissolution, contemplating the death that awaits us; but, even more than that, contemplating the loss, the loss of what is beautiful, what holds us against its bosom, the irrational belief that life, and love, and youth go on forever; that we do not sicken and die. That, ultimately we live forever and there is no aloneness of eternal shadow. But, alas, this is all unreal and false and we die alone and we face the abyss of self, of dissolution, alone.

"You walk through that door (of death)," a wise woman once told me, "and you go there alone." She was, of course, revealing a basic truth I was still grappling with.

"And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—

This it is and nothing more."

Confronting this cosmic shadow, we ponder the finality of our existence, the haunting inevitability of loss that the Raven embodies.

"Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!

Quoth the Raven 'Nevermore.'"

"The Raven" remains a dark reminder of the truths we cannot escape—an echo of the ultimate revelation that our hopes and dreams are but a fleeting illusion. In grappling with the weight of our knowledge, we are forced to confront our mortality, an abyss that looms ever larger as we approach the inevitable.

"Quoth the Raven 'Nevermore.'"

In this way, Poe’s "The Raven" transcends mere poetry; it explores our darkest fears and the stark reality of existence, leading us deeper into the depths of our existential angst.

And what is the impetus of this deep melancholic despair? What drove our humble narrator to the depths he so plumbed that he inevitably summoned forth a herald from Oblivion—a mercurial, feathered beast with a single maddening refrain: "Nevermore." Nevermore, what? Nevermore, to love, Lenore.

Lenore has gone and departed. She is now cosmicized, a revenant watching from the shadows of the room, tiptoeing through the corners and cracks. The brain of the bust of Pallas looms, with the Raven sitting guard upon her head—a reflection of our narrator, whose unmerciful will toward destruction demands he question the familiarities of his thoughts. This hated Bird of Prey forestalls his reunion with his love. Can he cast himself into the abyss of despair by throwing himself from the highest cliff or by doffing a beaker full of poison? Nay. There is no "Balm in Gilead," and he will not return. Nevermore.

As the poem draws to a close, the weight of despair becomes suffocating, with the narrator trapped in a cycle of sorrow. His mind spirals deeper into madness, as the Raven’s refrain echoes endlessly—a reminder of the permanence of loss, a ghost that lingers, a symbol of unending grief.

"And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,

And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

My soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted—nevermore!"

And his soul, from out that obsidian pool of black, shall be lifted nevermore--it shall drown in its inky depths, its pool of encompassing shadow. And here is where our "ebony bird beguiling" will take wing. And the wind shall bear it onward, into shadow and night.

THE RAVEN. EDGAR ALLAN POE. READING BY VINCENT PRICE

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