Quotes // Pieces of writing
- "I have no reason to be Ashamed"
- The Raven -
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —
Only this, and nothing more."
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore —
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore —
Nameless here for evermore.
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."
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"— here I opened wide the door; —
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" —
Merely this, and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice:
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore —
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; —
'Tis the wind and nothing more."
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.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore —
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning— little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door —
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore.”
- "I see no one among the living as beautiful as my little wife"
-
"Each time I felt all the agonies of her death—and at each accession of the disorder I loved her more dearly & clung to her life with more desperate pertinacity. But I am constitutionally sensitive—nervous in a very unusual degree. I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity"
- "We busied our souls in dreams - reading, writing, or conversing until warned by the clock of the advent of true darkness."
-
If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
- "During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher."
- "she had seen that the finger of death was upon her bosom ...she had been made perfect in loveliness only to die"
Motifs
- Death; particularly the death of young women - influenced by the illness and death of his mother, and his wife Virginia. Also man's relationship with death.
- Love ( "we loved with a love that was more than love")
- Madness / Insanity (versus rationality)
- Curiosity
- Some elements of nature - valley of many coloured grass becomes sort of barren after Eleanora dies. Weather giving more ambience to the writing.
Characters
- Lenore (&The student) - The Raven
- C. Auguste Dupin - Murders in the Rue Morgue (and other stories)
- Roderick Usher - Fall of the House of Usher
- Eleanora - Eleanora
- The narrator - The Tell Tale Heart
Locations
- The Rue Morgue
- The House of Usher
- "The Valley of the Many Coloured Grass"
- The Students chamber (of which the Raven comes rapping, rapping at my chamber door)
- Dupin &his pal's house - "a time eaten and grotesque mansion ... in a retired and desolate portion of the Faubourg St. Germain"
Pieces of information
- Had a tortoise shell cat called Caterina - who became distressed when he travelled and died two weeks after his death
- Most images of Poe show him in the year of his death - where he was ill / dying, drinking and generally not ok - portraits before this show him to be a "handsome, ladies man" - Life did not treat him well.
- A friend said of him, "the loss of his wife was a sad blow to him. He did not seem to care, after she was gone, whether he lived an hour, a day, a week or a year; she was his all."
Poe regularly visited Virginia's grave. As his friend Charles Chauncey Burr wrote, "Many times, after the death of his beloved wife, was he found at the dead hour of a winter night, sitting beside her tomb almost frozen in the snow"
- Went as Edgar A. Poe, not fully taking or rejecting his foster fathers name. (but we all know him today as Edgar Allan Poe.
- The Poe Toaster - an unidentified person or persons who each year pay respects to Poe at his grave. ("The shadowy figure, dressed in black with a wide-brimmed hat and white scarf, would pour himself a glass of cognac and raise a toast to Poe's memory, then vanish into the night, leaving three roses in a distinctive arrangement and the unfinished bottle of cognac")
- Possible asexual - speculation (said that Poe did "not need women the way other men need women" and had no sexual desires for them but only love, care and inspiration)
