Edgar Allan Poe short stories pdf and infographics PDF

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Its the PDF of materials short stories of Edgar Allan Poe like the purloined letter, the raven, the tell-tale heart etc...

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The Raven Study Guide by Course Hero

What's Inside

TENSE "The Raven" is told primarily in the past tense as the speaker recounts his experience with the raven, but the tense occasionally moves into the speaker's present, most notably at

j Book Basics .................................................................................................1

the poem's close.

d In Context .....................................................................................................1

ABOUT THE TITLE

a Author Biography .....................................................................................2

The title "The Raven" refers to the raven that visits and vexes the speaker on a winter's night.

h Characters ..................................................................................................3 k Plot Summary .............................................................................................5 c Plot Analysis ...............................................................................................6

d In Context

g Quotes ...........................................................................................................8 l Symbols ......................................................................................................10 m Themes ........................................................................................................11

Gothic Literature Gothic literature explores the dark side of the human condition: death, loss, loneliness, nightmare, alienation, and the

e Suggested Reading ...............................................................................12

supernatural. Many of Poe's poems and short stories deal with one or several of these themes. His speakers and narrators veer into melancholy or outright insanity, and they are usually

j Book Basics

loners or outcasts living on the fringes of society. Much of his work focuses on death or murder, presented with a creeping, ominous mood of inescapability. Gothic literature generally

AUTHOR

includes the following characteristics:

Edgar Allan Poe Mysterious or supernatural plot elements YEAR PUBLISHED

Ominous and personified architectural settings

1845

Intense emotion and drama Isolated, moody heroes

GENRE Drama, Horror

In "The Raven," a lonely scholar obsesses over his dead lover until he's visited by a strange raven that speaks only one

PERSPECTIVE AND NARRATOR

ominous word: "Nevermore." Poe uses the setting—midnight on

"The Raven" is narrated in the first person by an unnamed,

a bleak December night—and the speaker's weak and weary

unreliable speaker. He is grief-stricken over the loss of his love,

mindset, along with intensely sensual language describing

Lenore, and his mental state deteriorates over the course of

death, ghosts, and angels, to evoke a mood of despair,

the poem.

darkness, and slowly encroaching madness.

The Raven Study Guide

Poetic Elements Poe uses alliteration, or the repetition of initial sounds at the beginnings of words, to create rhythm and influence the mood of the poem. For example, "While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping." The repetition of the n sound creates a mood suited for slumber. The sudden tapping startles the speaker as well as the reader.

Author Biography 2

One Reading, One Effect Poe believed that to be successful a work should be read in one sitting and produce a single effect on the reader. In order to solidify his desired effect, Poe wrote "The Raven" backward, beginning with the third to last stanza. He chose his subject with the idea that the death of a beautiful woman would be most affecting: "death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world—and

The meter, or pattern of beats, of "The Raven" is designed to

equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such

give it a musical rhythm when read aloud. "The Raven"

topic are those of a bereaved lover." He also believed in the

comprises eight stressed-unstressed two syllable feet per line

unity of impression, which was why he specified that a poem

(trochaic octameter). Poe adds to this rhythm by including

should be able to be read in one sitting. To step away and

internal rhyme in each stanza, such as with "weary"/"dreary"

come back later would ruin the effect. Many of Poe's works

and "napping"/"tapping."

were written with this method.

Poe uses assonance, or the repetition of a vowel sound, to establish tone. For example, "over many a quaint and curious

Sound and Meaning

volume of forgotten lore." The repetition of the long o sound creates a tone that is mysterious.

Poe experimented with tone to produce this desired effect on his audience: "Melancholy is ... the most legitimate of all the

In addition, Poe uses onomatopoeia, or words that mimic

poetical tones." He wanted "to produce continuously novel

sounds, to great effect. For example,

effects, by the variation of the application of the refrain—the

"tapping/rapping/napping" produce a staccato sound that

refrain itself remaining, for the most part, unvaried." In "The

mimics the sound of the tapping present in the poem. It was

Raven," Poe stresses the monotony of the refrain "Nevermore,"

meant to be read aloud to evoke an effect, and also to

as he manipulates its various meanings and possible

reinforce the poem's focus on speech. The raven speaks,

intonations to bring forth the desired emotional effect of

providing the refrain of "Nevermore" in many of the stanzas.

melancholy. Poe also states that the long o is the most

The name of the speaker's lost love, Lenore, rhymes with the only word the raven utters, "Nevermore." It ties the woman to the idea of finality, of loss and endings, reinforcing the theme

sonorous of all sounds in the English language. This deep, ringing sound approximates the low moan of sorrow, loss, and perhaps even the supernatural: "over," "ghost," "only," and so on.

of the poem. With the use of alliteration, meter and internal rhyme, assonance, onomatopoeia, and the refrain of "Nevermore," Poe uses the sounds of the poem itself to evoke his unity of effect and create an atmosphere of melancholy.

a Author Biography

Poe's Philosophy of

Childhood and Education

Composition

Edgar Allan Poe's life was short and troubled. When Poe was born on January 19, 1809, his father David and mother

Poe wrote the essay "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846)

Elizabeth already had one son, Henry. After Poe was born they

after the success of "The Raven" to describe the process of

had a daughter named Rosalie. Both parents were actors.

composing fiction.

Before the young Edgar turned three, his mother had died from tuberculosis and his father had abandoned the family. Similar losses followed him throughout his life. He lost both his brother

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The Raven Study Guide

Henry and his wife Virginia to either tuberculosis or cholera.

Characters 3

Poe also left his mark on short fiction. His stories featuring the fictional detective C. Auguste Dupin helped create the modern

Soon after Poe was orphaned, he was taken in by a wealthy

detective genre and directly influenced later fictional

merchant named John Allan and his wife Frances, who had

detectives such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

known Poe's mother. Poe's siblings went to live with other

Stories such as "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans

families. Poe started attending the University of Virginia in

Pfaall" (1835), which involved a trip to the moon, and "Mellonta

1826, but he had to leave after just a year due to drinking,

Tauta" (1849), which included futuristic transatlantic air travel,

gambling, and excessive debt, brought on in part by his foster

were some of the first science fiction ever written. Finally, Poe

father's refusal to provide him with the resources he felt

is known as the father of modern horror, especially

befitting a man of his station. He joined the army in 1827, and a

psychological horror. He raised Gothic fiction—fiction that

year later he published his first book of poems, Tamerlane and

combines horror, death, and sometimes romance—to high art

Other Poems, followed by Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor

in stories such as "The Black Cat" (1843), "The Fall of the

Poems in 1829. Neither collection brought him much attention

House of Usher" (1839), and "The Pit and the Pendulum"

or money. He entered the United States Military Academy at

(1842). His work has inspired hundreds of adaptations,

West Point in 1830, but the Academy dismissed him when he

imitations, and parodies.

flaunted their rules. (One longstanding rumor has it that he showed up for drills wearing only a belt and a smile.) He never graduated.

Death and Legacy

Early Career and Writings

Poe fought depression and alcoholism his entire adult life. These worsened after his wife Virginia died in 1847. He died just two years later, on October 7, 1849, after being found

After leaving West Point Poe wrote for several years before landing a staff position in 1835 as a literary critic at the

delirious in a gutter. The cause of his death remains a mystery; it has been variously attributed to alcohol poisoning, rabies (a

Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, Virginia. That same

fairly common virus at the time), pneumonia, or suicide, among

year, when he was 27, he married his 13-year-old cousin

other causes.

Virginia. Poe became an influential editor at the literary journal, but real fame came from his own writing. Although his early

"The Raven" was among the works that cemented Poe as a

poetry didn't win him the praise he wanted, his later poems

literary sensation. More than a century later, the poem remains

were highly respected. Works such as "Lenore" (1843), "The

one of Poe's most famous and widely read works, exploring

Raven" (1845), and "Annabel Lee" (1849) unite technical

themes common in his writings, such as death, loss, and the

precision with vivid imagery and explore themes such as

supernatural. It also showcases his imaginative prowess,

unrequited love, death, and despair.

musicality, and deftness with descriptive and emotionally evocative language.

Poe's writing follows principles of composition he explored as a literary critic and theorist. In essays such as "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846), he developed ideas about artistic creation and the short story that are still extremely influential.

h Characters

Chief among these are his emphasis on brevity and portraying characters truthfully; exploring the ways people think, feel, and behave in real life; and ensuring every element in a work, from

Speaker

the first sentence to the last, contributes to "unity of effect." For Graham's Magazine, he reviewed American author

The speaker is a scholar mourning the loss of his beloved

Nathaniel Hawthorne's first volume of stories, Twice-Told

Lenore. He tries to keep his mind off of her by reading, but he

Tales. Hawthorne was not well-known at the time, and Poe's

is beset by melancholy thoughts of her. When a raven enters

praise for Hawthorne's innovative writing style and "unity of

his room, he is at first amused, and then angered by its

effect" helped change that.

responses to his questions of life, death, and the afterlife. He

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The Raven Study Guide

gives in to despair.

Raven The raven says only one word—"Nevermore"—that the speaker interprets in different ways to answer his own questions. The bird serves as a device to explore the speaker's grief.

Lenore Lenore is a young woman. The speaker refers to her as a "rare and radiant maiden."

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Characters 4

The Raven Study Guide

Full Character List

Plot Summary 5

"Nevermore." The speaker is surprised that the raven can speak, even though the word it says doesn't make sense in context. The raven says nothing else, sitting silently on the

Character

Description

statue.

Speaker

The speaker is a man sitting alone in his room thinking about a lost love.

Stanzas 10–12

Raven

The raven is a bird that flies into the speaker's room.

The speaker mentions with a sense of sorrow that the raven—like everyone else in his life—will leave him in the morning. Once again, the raven croaks, "Nevermore." He is

Lenore

Lenore is the speaker's dead love.

shocked, but then explains away the bird's utterance as a sign of the bird's previous owner's terrible misfortunes. He still finds the bird interesting and amusing, and so takes a seat in front of

k Plot Summary

the bird and the bust. He tries to figure out what the bird

Stanzas 1–3

Stanzas 13–15

On a midnight in December, the speaker reads over old books

As he sits, he thinks of his lost love, Lenore, who will never

for the purpose of easing his sadness over the death of his

again sit in the chair. At the thought of her, the speaker feels

beloved Lenore. He falls into a doze, only to wake when he

something in the air and smells incense in the closed room. He

hears a knock on his door. As he sits debating who could be at

gets angry, asking for a potion of some kind that will make him

his door, his imagination begins to run away with him.

forget Lenore and the memories of her that torture him. The

means by "nevermore."

raven replies, "Nevermore," enraging him further. The speaker calls the bird a prophet, but whether for good or evil remains to

Stanzas 4–6

be seen. He asks the bird if there is "balm in Gilead" that will quell the pain of his remembrance. The Raven answers once

He finally convinces himself that it is just a late-night visitor at

again: "Nevermore."

his door and asks for forgiveness for his hesitation in answering. He'd been napping, he explains to the visitor as he approaches the door, and wasn't sure he'd actually heard the

Stanzas 16–18

knocking, thinking it might have been a dream. However, when he opens the door, there is no one there. He stands in the

Next, the speaker asks the bird if he has any hope of reuniting

doorway, gazing into the darkness and doubting his senses. He

with Lenore in heaven. The raven replies with the same answer

thinks he hears a whispered word—"Lenore"—before going

as always, driving the speaker into further fits of rage.

back inside his room. Soon he hears a tapping at his window.

Furiously he orders the raven to leave him to his loneliness and

He suspects it is the wind and goes to investigate.

despair. The raven again says, "Nevermore." The final stanza, which moves into the present of the speaker's retelling, sees the raven still sitting in the chamber, perched on the bust of

Stanzas 7–9

Pallas Athena. The speaker has succumbed fully to his despair and sees himself engulfed in the raven's shadow forever.

When he opens the window a raven steps inside. It flies into the room and perches on the bust of Pallas Athena that sits above his door. At first the speaker is amused by the raven's manner. He asks the bird's name, to which the raven replies,

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The Raven Study Guide

c Plot Analysis

Plot Analysis 6

Setting and Mood Poe uses atmosphere to build the dread evident in the last line

The Supernatural

of the poem. Every choice he makes is designed to create one singular effect on the reader. To that end, Poe chooses the time of day and year for a specific purpose. It is midnight, the

References to the supernatural are rife within "The Raven."

closing of the day, in December, the last month of the year. The

While Poe never confirms whether the raven is a supernatural

day is ending and the year is ending, reinforcing the imagery of

entity or a product of the speaker's subconscious, an argument

death already present in the poem, as when the speaker notes

can still be made from clues within the text.

how "each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the

He first hears a knock on his chamber door, only to open it and find no one there. Yet before opening it, he is struck with a terror of the unknown. Overcoming his fears, he gazes into the empty corridor and thinks he hears a whispered "Lenore" in response to his own whispered question. He's already grieving for his lost love, already primed to be haunted by her ghost as

floor." Images and words combine to evoke death—the dying of the day, of the year, of the fire, of Lenore. This line also enhances the supernatural element of the poem by introducing the idea of things beyond our knowledge at work with the mention of a ghost, soon to be reinforced by a mysterious knocking and the feeling of a strange presence.

he tries to lose himself in study to stop dwelling on his

The room the speaker sits in also sets the mood of the poem,

memories of her.

and it is complete with all the trappings of Gothic literature.

With the arrival of the raven, more supernatural elements creep into the poem. The raven itself is often used as a supernatural emissary, a way of communicating with the unknown. The speaker questions where the bird might have come from. He equates the bird's source with Pluto, the Roman god of the Underworld, cementing further the idea of ghostly communications about the afterlife. In a later stanza, the speaker thinks he smells incense from "some unseen censer swung by Seraphim," which brings the supposed presence of angels into the poem. Is the speaker hallucinating or is he being visited by a heavenly being? Is he being haunted by actual creatures or by the grief in his own mind? The angels are a heavenly force, negated by the raven's

The speaker sits alone in the dark on a bleak, stormy Dec...