''The Raven'': How Folklore, Charles Dickens and Samuel Taylor Coleridge Dwell in Edgar Allan Poe's Dark Poem

In January 1845, one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous works was published: his poem ‘‘The Raven’’. Even when at first it was not published under his real name, when the text was released in The Public Mirror it became an overnight success. The storyline of a talking raven entering a distraught scholar’s room after the death of his lover Lenore grabbed the attention of both general public and scholars.  Poe’s works have been scrutinised through various approaches, yet this blog post will focus on the figure of the raven. As French anthropologist and ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss explains, ‘‘carrion-eating animals are like beasts of prey (they eat animal food), but they are also like food-plant producers (they do not kill what they eat)’’ (Lévi-Strauss 224). The employment of the raven in Poe’s narrative can have different meanings, and the influence of folklore is vital in the American author’s poem. Perceived as a trickster, and connected to death and war in several mythologies, the bird is given diverse interpretations throughout legends. This blog post will develop three fragments to study the figure of the raven: how its classical folklore emerges in Poe’s poem, how devil’s folklore is present in the plot, and how Charles Dickens and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s narratives are significant to set the text. A Jungian explanation of some of his archetypes will be given.

In order to introduce the reader to the verses, the following video with ‘’The Raven’’ read by actor Christopher Lee and with illustrations by Gustave Doré can be seen here:

Classical Folklore in ‘‘The Raven’’:

Russian occultist, philosopher and co-founder of the Theosophical Society Helena Blavatsky penned: 

‘‘DARKNESS is always associated with this first symbol (the origin) and surrounds it, - as shown in the Hindu, the Egyptian, the Chaldeo-Hebrew and even the Scandinavian systems – hence black ravens, black doves, black waters and even black flames … Noah lets out a black raven after the deluge, which is a symbol for the Cosmic pralaya, after which began the real creation or evolution of our earth and humanity. Odin’s black ravens fluttered around the Goddess Saga and ‘‘whispered to her of the past and the future.’’ What is the real meaning of all those black birds?’’ (Blavatsky 443).

The question Blavatsky poses echoes the likely interrogations of Poe’s bird. The American author claims that the raven is ‘‘the bird of ill omen’’, and that the idea of a creature ‘‘capable of speech’’ makes the corvid ‘‘infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone’’ of the verses than a parrot (Poe). Nevertheless, this quote leaves some of the bird’s characteristics in the poem aside, since night and darkness are key features of the text. Actually, Blavatsky’s connection of the raven with Noah can be endorsed in the poem when the narrator listens to the tapping at his chamber and opens the door:

‘‘Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before’’ (Poe 25-26)

''Noah and the Raven'' by John Buck

In the Genesis, a raven is sent out by Noah ‘‘to see if the water had abated’’ (Genesis vii), and the Hebrew text claims that the bird ‘‘continuously went out and returned until the waters had dried up from the earth’’ (Genesis). Nevertheless, as R. W. L. Moberly illustrates, ‘‘the Greek (text) continues ‘‘and the raven went out and did not return until the water had dried up from earth’’’’ (Moberly 346). This difference in the quote ‘‘raises the question of how the raven could survive all this time, and so may already presuppose (or else it may give rise to) the interpretative tradition regularly attested in postbiblical literature, that the raven, an unclean bird in Mosaic law (Lex. xi 15, Deut. xiv 14), fed on floating carcasses’’ (Moberly 346). This last view of the bird leads to the conclusion that the bird is a trickster, he represents vice in contrast with the virtuous dove Noah releases afterwards, since he does not return to inform Noah. Carl Jung considered the trickster as an archetype from the collective unconscious, that is, a prototype ‘‘buried in the mind of all human beings’’ (Carroll 105), a buffoon or clown which both helps but hides selfish intention as well. 

Poe’s raven is also a trickster for the narrator at the beginning of the poem:

‘‘Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling’’ (Poe 49)

The speaker considers the entrance of the corvid a humorous anecdote, yet as the narrative continues, the raven is given the role of informant as in the aforementioned tale of Noah. Sailors employed the bird frequently in long journeys when seeking land; therefore, adding the power of revelation and knowledge to the animal. Whereas the Genesis mentions the waters and the darkness around the Ark, Poe’s scholar is surrounded by an obscure emptiness which represents the unconscious. 

''Odin'' by Sir E. Burne-Jones

Vikings also gave the responsibility for information of an unknown land to the ravens when sailing, and Norse mythology emphasises the bird as a relevant figure. The god Odin, ‘‘the raven-god’’, was said to own two ravens which enlightened him about the facts which occurred both in the man’s world and also in the underworld: Hugin (Thought), and Mugin (Mind). In this case, the raven is not perceived as a trickster, but as a key figure to the acquirement of wisdom. The loss of the birds worried the God, as it can be read in the Eddic poem Grímnismál:

‘‘Hugin and Munin

Fly each day

Over the spacious earth.

I fear for Hugin

That he come not back,

Yet more anxious I am for Munin’’ (Guerber)

This fear of lack of knowledge is seen in Poe’s poem, when, in despair, the narrator cries out:

‘‘‘‘Prophet!’’ said I, ‘‘thing of evil!- prophet still, bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us- by that God we both adore-

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore’’ (Poe 97-100)

This relates to the Greco-Roman Apollo, the god of prophecy. According to Ovid in the Metamorphoses (8AD), Apollo sends a white raven to spy on his lover, Coronius, and when the bird informs him of her unfaithfulness, the god changes the white feathers of the bird, and, consequently, that is why the corvid is black. The raven also murders Coronius following Apollo’s commands, although the deity regrets this action shortly. In Poe’s poem, the speaker may have killed the deceased Lenore, and that is why the raven claims ‘‘Nevermore’’ throughout the stanzas. Not only the American poet employs the bird as a prophet itself, he also relates it to a possible deed committed against Lenore. 

Nevertheless, Poe’s ‘‘The Raven’’ is also related to darker folklore, since there are continuous mentions to the Devil and evil forces, as it has been cited previously. The following section will study closely how the bird is connected the malevolent threats upon the narrator.

Devil Folklore in ‘‘The Raven’’

In ‘‘The Philosophy of Composition’’ Poe explains how ‘‘he (the narrator) speaks of him (the raven) as a “grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore”’’, and how the ‘‘revolution of thought, or fancy, on the lover’s part, is intended to induce a similar one on the part of the reader—to bring the mind into a proper frame for the dénouement’’ (Poe). The speaker is doomed because ‘‘it is the folkloric connotation of the raven as the Devil’s bird and as one of the forms he takes upon occasion for convenience which makes clear exactly why the young man will never again see his lost Lenore’’ (Granger). The main features which relate Poe’s scholar to evil forces are the bird’s landing on the bust of Pallas, the speaker’s mention of the Greco-Roman world of the underworld Pluto, and the raven as the embodiment of the devil. 

When the speaker opens the window of his chamber, the raven sits on a bust of Pallas. Poe clarifies how he uses the sculpture ‘‘as much in keeping with the scholarship of the lover’’ (Poe- Composition). Pallas, the ‘‘goddess of wisdom, scholarship and enlightenment, seems an emblem left over for the eighteenth century, when reason had an owl and not a raven as its tutelary bird’’ (Merivale 960). Consequently, the fact that the scholar reads ‘‘a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore’’(Poe 2) can be understood as lore of black magic, as if the student were trying to summon his deceased lover, but instead he calls upon the devil himself. Therefore, the search for knowledge represented by the Greek goddess, who is also given the byname of Athena, leads to the appearance of forces which will curse the narrator.

Illustration by John Rea Neill for ''THE RAVEN'' and Other Poems Edgar Allan Poe

Furthermore, Poe indicated English poet John ‘‘Milton as his source’’ (Haviland 841), with ‘‘additional annotations by his editors, and a considerable number of references to the bind bard in his essays and critical pieces’’(Haviland 841). This is significant when in the second book of Paradise Lost (1667), Milton ‘‘alludes to the parallels between the birth of Athena and the birth of Sin’’(Mulryan 16):

‘‘In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast
Threw forth, till on the left side opening wide,
Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright,
Then shining heavenly fair, a goddess armed,
Out of thy head I sprung. Amazement seized
All th' host of Heaven; back they recoiled afraid
At first, and called me Sin, and for a sign
Portentous held me; but, familiar grown,
I pleased, and with attractive graces won’’

Athena/Pallas is not the only deity from classical mythology the American author employs. As the poem continues, the narrator claims:

    ‘‘Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!” (Poe 46-47)

    The mention of Pluto, the Greek god of the underworld whose earlier name was Hades, is also related to Hell. In medieval mythographies, which conflated the Greek and Roman deities in an attempt to emphasise Christian values, Pluto was equalled to a double of Satan, Lucifer or the Devil. In the Little Book on Images of the Gods, Pluto is represented as

    ‘‘an intimidating personage sitting on a throne of sulphur, holding the scepter of his realm in his right hand, and with his left strangling a soul. Under his feet three-headed Cerberus held a position, and beside him he had three Harpies. From his golden throne of sulphur flowed four rivers, which were called, as is known, Lethe, Cocytus, Phlegethon and Acheron, tributaries of the Stygian swamp’’ (Chapter 6).

Consequently, Poe’s use of the raven in connection with Pluto represents the narrator’s dark side, what Carl Jung names the ‘‘shadow’’:

‘‘That hidden, repressed, for the most part inferior and guilt-laden personality whose ultimate ramifications reach back into the realm of our animal ancestors…If it has been believed hitherto that the human shadow was the source of evil, it can now be ascertained on closer investigation that the unconscious man, that is his shadow does not consist only of morally reprehensible tendencies, but also displays a number of good qualities, such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses etc’’ (Diamond 96)

Furthermore, the myth of Pluto/Hades and its involvement in the abduction of Persephone makes it possible that Poe’s scholar may have been responsible for an evil deed against Lenore which ended unfavourably, and now the Devil is demanding the narrator’s soul. 

The raven answers ‘‘Nevermore’’ to all the questions posed by the speaker, until the latter falls into madness for his loss of hope and self-torture. Nevertheless, the bird may be requiring the narrator’s soul after he strikes a deal with the Devil. If this consideration is taken into account, Poe’s plot echoes that of Faust and his exchange of his soul for limitless knowledge. 

''Doctor Faust'' by Rembrandt van Rijn

On the subject of demonology and devil-lore, the ‘‘Black Raven’’ is present in the Raven Book, and ‘’explained as the form in which the angel Raphael taught Tobias to summon spirits’’(Conway 335). Therefore, necromancy is present in Poe’s verses with this association. Moreover, ‘‘in this book (Raven Book), poorly printed, and apparently on a private press, Mephistopheles is mentioned as one of the chief Princes of Hell’’ (Conway 336). Faustian tradition underlines the treacherous relationship among Faustus, Mephistopheles and Satan, yet it is German playwright Klinger who makes use of imagery similar to the one found in Poe’s poem: ‘‘Night covered the earth with its raven wing. Faust stood before the awful spectacle of the body of his son suspended upon the gallows. Madness parched his brain, and he exclaimed in the wild tones of dispair’’ (Conway 344). 

Nonetheless, Poe’s employment of the bird also has non-folkloric sources of inspiration. The last section of the blog post will explain how Charles Dickens and Samuel Taylor Coleridge are represented in the American poet’s verses.

Charles Dickens and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Influence

In 1841 Charles Dickens published his historical novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of Riots of Eighty. It had appeared serialised in the author’s Master Humphrey's Clock, a periodical edited and written by Dickens, between 1840 and 1841. The plot is set in the Gordon Riots of 1870, and it combines history with the intrigues of two families. Nevertheless, what is notable in the novel is that its main character, the eponymous Barnaby Rudge, has a pet raven called Grip with an extraordinary talking ability. Dickens himself had three pet ravens in his lifetime, and Grip was the first one. He had it taxidermied once the animal died and now it can be seen at the Philadelphia Free Library.  

Image of Grip at the Philadelphia Free Library

Poe reviewed different works by Dickens and, on this occasion, he praised Barnaby Rudge ‘‘(and especially Grip) in a review for Graham’s Magazine’’ (Redmond 88). The fact that Poe published his famous poem four years after Dickens’s novel raised suspicions of plagiarism among critics, as James Russel Lowell penned: ‘‘There comes Poe, with his raven like Barnaby Rudge / Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge’’ (Dauber 645). 

The truth is that Poe focused his attention on the raven from the beginning of his comments in his reviews, as he penned: ‘‘Intensely amusing though it is, might have been made more than we now see it, a portion of the conception of the fantastic Barnaby. Its croaking might have been heard prophetically in the course of the drama” (Poe 128). The fact that he mentions the bird as a prophetic figure foretells the intentions of his poem.

Furthermore, there are similarities between Barnaby Rudge and Grip and Poe’s scholar with the raven. Both men attempt to communicate with the talking birds rationally. When Barnaby is imprisoned for his role in the Gordon Riots, he is accompanied by Grip, and they lament together:

“You hope! Ay, but your hoping will not undo these chains. I hope, but they don’t mind that. Grip hopes, but who cares for Grip?”

The raven gave a short, dull, melancholy croak. It said “Nobody” as plainly as a croak could speak’’ (Dickens 363)

Not only does Poe purloin the use of one unique word by the raven (in his case the famous ‘‘Nevermore’’), the American writer also follows Dickens’s idea of the bird as a devil. Dickens’s bird claims: “I’m a devil! I’m a devil! I’m a devil!”(Dickens 80). 

Nevertheless, other great author inspired Poe’s poetic bird: Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. ‘‘Poe felt without a doubt that he had discovered the voice of a kindred spirit in Coleridge’s early poetry, a voice that would continue to reverberate in Poe’s prose, where elements of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancyent Marinere resurface with the persistence of those subconscious depths of guilt and speechless dread that fascinated both writes equally’’(Schlutz 195). Coleridge’s voice is echoed in Poe’s prose, but in his poetry too. Despite the fact that the American writer disliked Coleridge’s insistence in analysing imagination and the different categories the Romantic poet labelled it with in his Biographia Literaria (1817), Poe’s devotion to the poet is clear:

‘‘Of Coleridge I cannot speak but with reverence. His towering intellect! his gigantic power. . . In reading his poetry I tremble -- like one who stands upon a volcano, conscious, from the very darkness bursting from the crater, of the fire and the light that are weltering below" ("Letter to B. --", Schlutz 197).

Therefore, it is uncomplicated to create connection between the two authors, and the first possible association is the albatross killed by the sailor in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1797-98). In this case as with Poe’s raven, the bird creates the protagonist’s fate. As the mariner is guilty of the crime of shooting the bird and its consequent back luck, Death (a skeleton) and the ‘‘Nightmare Life-in Death’’ (a deathlike woman), play dice for the souls of the crew. Afterwards, Death takes the sailors’ lives, and Death-in-Life curses the mariner. Similarly, Poe’s raven curses the narrator though the latter does not harm him; the damage has previously been done. 

‘‘I shot the Albatross’’ - from ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' - by Gustave Dore

Furthermore, stylistic similarities emerge between Poe’s ‘‘The Raven’’ and Coleridge’s ‘‘Christabel’’ (1816), as ‘’the mention of “each separate dying ember [which] wrought its ghost upon the floor,” is reminiscent of Coleridge’s “Christabel” in which other embers reflect the presence of evil in much the same way’’ (Granger).

There is one significant connection, however, which is not commonly considered: Coleridge’s ‘‘The Raven or, A Christmas Tale, Told by a School-boy to his Little Brothers and Sisters’’ (1798). This poem, set in December, as well as Poe’s ‘‘bleak December’’ (Poe 7) employs the corvid. The variation is that the raven is the main sufferer in Coleridge’s verses, since a woodman brings down the oak tree where the bird and his family dwell, and uses the wood to build a ship. After all the raven’s family dies (his young ones when the woodman cuts the tree down, and his partner dies of sorrow), the bird revenges with the aid of Death sinking the ship with its passengers.

Therefore, Coleridge once more relates a bird to the sea and Death, yet this time there is no survivor:

‘‘Right glad was the Raven, and off he went fleet,
And Death riding home on a cloud he did meet,
And he thank'd him again and again for this treat:
They had taken his all, and Revenge it was sweet!’’ (45-48)

Although ‘‘some proposed interpretations read it (Coleridge’s ‘‘The Raven’’)in political terms, the felling of the oak being seen as the destruction brought about by French Revolution, and the raven identified with the melancholy Burke prophesying the Revolution’s effect’’ (Beer 108), Poe’s raven may also seek to avenge the narrator and, thus, psychologically tortures him. 

In conclusion, Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous poem can have different sources, some folkloric/mythological, other are merely literary influences. This blog post has analysed some of them, with the focus on the classical folklore appreciated in the verses, the demonic folklore as the poetic narrative presents dark characteristics related to evil forces, and, finally, on Charles Dickens and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and how they did influence the American’s writing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Beer, John, Romanticism, Revolution and Language: The Fate of the World from Samuel Johnson to George Eliot (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)-via Google Books

Blavatsky, Helena, The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky — Vol. 1, Theosophical University Press Online Edition (First published in 1888) https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd1-2-12.htm (Accessed 15th September 2018)

Carroll, Michael P., ‘‘The Trickster as Selfish-Buffoon and Culture Hero’’, Ethos, Vol. 12, No. 2, (Summer, 1984), pp. 105-131. Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association http://pages.mtu.edu/~rlstrick/rsvtxt/faulkner/carroll (Accessed 25th September)

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, ‘‘The Raven or, A Christmas Tale, Told by a School-boy to his Little Brothers and Sisters’’ (First published in 1798) https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-raven-christmas-tale-told-by-a-school-boy-to-his-little-brothers-and-sisters/ (Accessed 2^nd October 2018)

Conway, Moncure Daniel, Demonology and Devil-Lore (Henry Holt and Company: New York, 1879) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40686/40686-h/40686-h.htm#v2fig22 (Accessed 15^th September 2018)

Dauber, Kenneth, ‘‘The Problem of Poe’’, The Georgia Review ,Vol. 32, No. 3 (Fall 1978), pp. 645-657 https://www.jstor.org/stable/41397649?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents (Accessed 1^st October 2018)

De deorum imaginibus libellous, Chapter 6,"De Plutone’’

Diamond, Stephen A., Anger, Madness and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil and Creativity (New York: SUNY Press, 1996)-via Google Books

Dickens, Charles, Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty (First published in 1841) in Master Humphrey's clock Volume 3 (Ulan Press, 2012)- via Google Books

Granger, Byrd Howell, ‘‘Devil Lore in ‘‘The Raven’’’’, “MARGINALIA,” Poe Studies, December 1972, Vol. V, No. 2, 5:50-57 https://www.eapoe.org/pstudies/ps1970/p1972209.htm (Accessed 15th September)

Guerber, H.A., Myths of the Norsemen from the Eddas and Sagas (George G. Harrap & Company: London, 1909) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28497/28497-h/28497-h.htm#ch2 (Accessed 24^th September)

Haviland, Thomas P., ‘‘How Well Did Poe Know Milton?’’, PMLA Vol. 69, No. 4 (Sep., 1954), pp. 841-860 https://www.jstor.org/stable/459934?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents (Accessed 3^rd October 2018)

Lévi-Strauss, Claude, Structural Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, Inc, 1963) https://monoskop.org/images/e/e8/Levi-Strauss_Claude_Structural_Anthropology_1963.pdf (Accessed 15th September)

Merivale, Patricia, ‘‘The Raven and the Bust of Pallas: Classical Artifacts and the Gothic Tale’’, PMLA Vol. 89, No. 5 (Oct., 1974), pp. 960-966  https://www.jstor.org/stable/461369?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents (Accessed 20^th September 2018)

Moberly, R.W.L., ‘‘Why Did Noah Send Out a Raven?’’ Vetus Testamentum Vol. 50, Fasc. 3 (Jul., 2000), pp. 345-356 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1585294?read-now=1&loggedin=true&seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents (Accessed 20^th September)

Mulryan, John, ‘‘Satan’s Headache: The Perils and Pains of Giving Birth to a Bad Idea’’, Milton Quarterly Vol. 39, No. 1 (March 2005), pp. 16-22 https://www.jstor.org/stable/24465171?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents (Accessed 2^nd October 2018)

Poe, Edgar Allan, Review in Graham's American Monthly Magazine of Literature, Art and Fashion, Volumes 20-21- via Google Books

---, ‘‘The Philosophy of Composition’’ (First published in 1846) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55749/55749-h/55749-h.htm (Accessed 1st October 2018)

---, ‘‘The Raven’’(First published in 1845) http://www.gasl.org/refbib/Poe_Dore__The_Raven.pdf (Accessed 1st October 2018)

---, ‘‘The Raven Read by Christopher Lee’’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyxsPHWSxlY (Accessed 1^st October 2018)

Redmond, Matthew, ‘‘If Bird or Devil: Meta-Plagiarism in ‘‘The Raven’’’’, The Edgar Allan Poe Review, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring 2018), pp. 88-103 https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/edgallpoerev.19.1.0088?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents (Accessed 3^rd October 2018)

Schlutz, Alexander, ‘‘Purloined Voices: Edgar Allan Poe Reading Samuel Taylor Coleridge’’, Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Summer, 2008), pp. 195-224 https://www.jstor.org/stable/25602142?read-now=1&loggedin=true&seq=4#metadata_info_tab_contents (Accessed 26^th September) 

IMAGES:

Poe and a Raven: http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/poe/exhibition/theraven/index.html

Noah & The Raven by John Buck http://www.gallery-pangolin.com/works/noah-the-raven/829

Odin by Sir E. Burne-Jones http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28497/28497-h/28497-h.htm#ch2

Illustration by John Rea Neill for THE RAVEN and Other Poems Edgar Allan Poe Drawings By John Rea Neill The Reilly & Britton Co. Chicago 1910

Doctor Faust by Rembrandt van Rijn http://www.rembrandtpainting.net/rmbrdnt_selected_etchings/faust.htm

Grip the Raven https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grip-raven

‘‘I shot the Albatross’’ - from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - by Gustave Dore https://www.pinterest.es/pin/340373684308582007/?lp=true