Paradise lost Book 9 simplified explanation

Paradise lost Book 9 simplified explanation

         An epic poem is a lengthy narrative poem involving a time beyond living memory in which occurred extraordinary doings of extraordinary men, dealing with Gods or other superhuman forces

10 characteristics

1.  Begins in media res

2.  Setting is vast covering nations and universe

3.  Invocation to Muse

4.  Begins with statement of theme

5.  Includes use of epithets

6.  Epic catalogue

7.  Long and formal speeches

8.  Divine intervention in human affairs

9.  features heroes that embody the value of civilization

10.               Often features hero’s tragic descent into the underworld.

Hero

Participates in cyclical journey or quest, faces adversaries and returns home transformed by his journey. Hero performs deeds and exemplifies morals.

Epic conventions

1.  Proposition: Stating theme or cause of the epic. “Justify the ways of God to men”

2.  Invocation: poet invokes a muse (one of the nine daughters of Zeus)

3.  In Media res: in the middle of things

4.  Enumeratio: Catalogues and genealogies are given

5.  Epithet: repetition f stock phrases

Short summary of Book 9

         Milton places his epic within the tradition of tragedy; it involves the fall of great mean through some special flaw. Milton reaffirms has ability and speaks with Christian humility mentioning hi old age and asking the holy spirit to finish the poem through him

ADAM AND EVE’S DISOBEDIENCE AND THE FALL OF MAN

·      Milton asks Muse to keep him from being distracted by vain descriptions of long and tedious havoc (as Homer and Virgil) did in their epics. The scene turns to Satan, who has been hiding in the dark side of the Earth for 7 days after being banished by Gabriel. On the 8^th day Satan returns to Eden disguised as a mist following the Tigris river and rising up in the fountain next to the tree of life

SATAN’S PLAN

·      Satan studies all the creatures of Eden and finally settles on snake for its wit and native subtlety. Before continuing with his plan Satan hesitates grieving what might have been. He decides that the Earth was more beautiful than heaven

·      Adam and Eve’s happiness causes him grater anguish

·      Satan reaffirms his purpose to bring evil out of God’s creation

·      Satan laments how far he has fallen from the position of Archangel to the mazy folds and bestial slime f the serpent. He poses like a sleeping snake which is curled up upon itself like a labyrinth

EVE ‘S IDEA OF WORKING SEPARATELY

·      The next morning Adam and Eve wake up and do their usual praise to God. Eve proposes that she and Adam work separately to get more work done. Adam does not approve of the idea, he worries that the two might be more susceptible to Stan if they are separated. And in times of danger a woman’s place is with her husband.

·      Eve responds that she has overheard Raphael’s warning. Adam tries to dissuade her because he is wiser than her. Eve says they will have “double honour” if they defend themselves alone angst Satan. Adam reminds her of her free will. Eve replies that the proud Satan will seek Adam first. She parts Adam asks her to be back by noon. Milton comments that they will never have sweet repast in paradise again.

SATAN CONVINCING EVE

·      Satan is delighted t find her alone. Satan is momentarily stunned by her beauty but he is reminded of his hatred. Satan coils himself and seems to stand upright in a “surging maze” lifting his head  to get Eve’s attention

·      Serpent calls Eve “goddess among Gods” she is amazed that serpent could talk, Satan explains that he found a tree with beautiful apples and at the fruit and he go the ability to talk and expanded intellect , he is able to perceive heavenly and earthly knowledge

·      Eve asks him where the tree grows. Satan offers to show her. Eve sees the tree of  knowledge and says she has been forbidden by God from eating the fruit. Stan asks about the commandment, Eve reaffirms that she and Adam can eat any fruit except that of tree of knowledge

·      Satan says that the Tree of knowledge has revealed to him that god actually wants Even an Adam to disobey him as this will prove her independence and dauntless virtue in braving death. Satan says that he himself has proved that the fruit does not bring death. He persuades Eve telling that God will not punish for such small thing

·      Satan says that God has forbidden the fruit to keep Adam and Eve “low and ignorant instead of assuming their proper places as Gods” if servant can achieve speech, then Eve will surely become a goddess. Satan suggest that there is no sin in desiring virtue and knowledge

EVE EATING THE FRUIT FROM THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

·      Eve looks at the fruit which seems perfect and delicious. She thinks that the fruit might be very powerful since the God has forbidden it. It seems very wrong that such magical fruit is denied to humans if beasts can have it. In the evil hour, she takes a bite, “Earth felt the wound and ll was lost”

·      Eve praises the tree of knowledge and thiks if she should let Adam eat it. Then resolves to give him. If she dies, he would be wedded to another Eve

ADAM EATS THE FRUIT

·      Adam has been weaving a bouquet of flowers to give Eve. Adam sees the forbidden fruit in her hand and Eve explains that the serpent ate it and learnt to speak. She has eaten it an her eyes have been open. she is “growing up to Godhead” she wants Adam to try “equal joy as equal love”

·      Adam drops the garland, he stands there speechless and pale. He is horrified that Eve has succumbed to temptation. Adam’s sin is placing his love for Eve above his love for God.

·      Adam is curious and is attracted to Eve’s beauty; Eve is distracted by appearance and wanting to prove herself. Milton shows how these flaws lead to fully fledged sins

FALL OF MAN

·      NATURE GROANS AGAIN AND SKY WEEPS. Adam feels invigorated and godlike, he is filled with lust. They runoff to a shady bank to have sex and they sleep. After waking up they realized that instead of gaining knowledge of divine, they have gained knowledge of “good lost and evil got”

·      The two are suddenly aware off their nakedness an cover themselves with fig leaves

·      They stat o weep and emotions f sin com to them , they are filled with anger, hate mistrust suspicion and discord

MILTON’S MESSAGE

·      Knowledge is important but not all knowledge leads to good when it involves being disobedient and breaking order.

ANALYSIS

Milton’s 4^th invocation differs from the earlier ones. He doesnot invoke Urania

Christian epic with tragic core

Adam – “patience and heroic matryrdom”

Felix culpa- happy fault

Satan – “incarnate and brute/ That to the height f deity aspired”

Prilapsarian serpent “circular base of riing folds that towed/ Fold above fold, a surging maze”

Epic poem in blank verse

Ist verson 1667- 10 books-10,000 verse

2^nd version- 1674-12 books

Epics purpose is stated in Book 1

Charcters

1.  Satan

2.  Adam

3.  Eve

4.  Son of God

5.  God, the Father

6.  Raphael

7.  Michael

MOTIFS

·      Marriage

·      Idolatory

IMPORTANT QUOTATIONS

1.  "Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost." ~ John Milton

2.  "Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit/Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste/Brought death into the world, and all our woe,/With loss of Eden, till one greater Man/Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,/Sing heavenly muse" ~ John Milton

3.  "Knowledge forbidden? Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord Envy them that? Can it be a sin to know? Can it be death?" ~ John Milton

4.  "Our state cannot be severed, we are one, One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself." ~ John Milton

5.  "So glistered the dire Snake , and into fraud Led Eve, our credulous mother, to the Tree Of Prohibition, root of all our woe." ~ John Milton

6.  "Here we may reign secure; and in my choice

To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." ~ John Milton

7.  "The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,

Safest and seemliest by her husband stays,

Who guards her, or with her the worst endures." ~ John Milton

8."Should God create another Eve, and I Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee Would never from my heart; no no, I feel The Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh, Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe." ~ John Milton

9."Revenge, at first though sweet, Bitter ere long back on itself recoils." ~ John Milton

10."All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield." ~ John Milton

11. "O fairest of creation, last and best Of all God's works, creature in whom excelled Whatever can to sight or thought be formed, Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet! How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost, Defaced, deflow'red, and now to death devote? Paradise Lost" ~ John Milton

Trance of Waiting by Sri Aurobindo critical analysis

 

Trance of Waiting

Sri Aurobindo

*         Sri Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950) was an Indian, yogi, guru poet and naturalist

*         During his stay in jail, he had mystical and spiritual experineces after which he moved to Pondicherry, leaving politics for spiritual work.

*         Sri Aurobindo developed a spiritual practice, he called Internal Yoga

*         The central theme of his vision was the evolution of human life into divine life

*          at the center of Aurobindo’s metaphysical system is the supermind, which means an intermediary power between the  unmanifested Brahman and the manifested mind

*         Sri Aurobindo was a prolific writer writing some of the most detailed  and comprehensive discourse on spiritual evolution. He said that his inspiration to write came from his inner pilot, from  a higher score

Works

*         Synthesis of Yoga : Practical guidance of internal yoga

*         Savitri : A legend and a symbol, an epic poem

POEM

 

Lone on my summits of calm I have brooded with voices around me,

Murmurs of silence that steep mind in a luminous sleep,

Whispers from things beyond thought in the Secrecy flame-white for ever,

Unscanned heights that reply seek from the inconscient deep.

Distant below me the ocean of life with its passionate surges

Pales like a pool that is stirred by the wings of a shadowy bird.

Thought has flown back from its wheelings and stoopings, the nerve-beat of living

Stills; my spirit at peace bathes in a mighty release.

Wisdom supernal looks down on me, Knowledge mind cannot measure;

Light that no vision can render garments the silence with splendour.

Filled with a rapturous Presence the crowded spaces of being

Tremble with the Fire that knows, thrill with the might of repose.

Earth is now girdled with trance and Heaven is put round her for vesture.

Wings that are brilliant with fate sleep at Eternity’s gate.

Time waits, vacant, the lightning that kindles, the Word that transfigures:

Space is a stillness of God building his earthly abode.

All waits hushed for the fiat to come and the tread of the Eternal;

Passion of a bliss yet to be sweeps from Infinity’s sea.

 

EXPLANATION

*         Trance of Waiting is a mystic poem

*         The poet has shown himself to be in a state of waiting to have a communication with the divine spirit.

*         To have a communication with God (Divine soul) he has kept himself away from the din and bustle of human society and goes to the contact of nature and in  the silence of nature.

*         He broods over the objects of nature and feels like the object of nature also waits for the command from God.

 

The Coromandel Fishers by Sarojini Naidu analysis and line by line explanation

 

The Coromandel Fishers

by Sarojini Naidu

 

SAROJINI NAIDU

*      Indian political activist and poet

*      A proponent of civil rights, woman’s emancipation and anti imperialistic ideas

*      Important figure in India’s struggle for independence

*      Sobriquet “ Nightingale of India” by Mahatma Gandhi

*      First Indian president of Indian National Congress

Works

*      The Golden Threshold (1905)

*      The Bird of Time (1912)

*      The Broken Wing

*      Muhammad Jinnah : An Ambassador of Unity

*      The Sceptered Flute (1928)

*      The Feather of the Dawn (1961)

*      The Indian Weavers

POEM

Rise, brothers, rise; the wakening skies pray to the morning light,
The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn like a child that has cried all night.
Come, let us gather our nets from the shore and set our catamarans free,
To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for we are the kings of the sea!

No longer delay, let us hasten away in the track of the sea gull's call,
The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother, the waves are our comrades all.
What though we toss at the fall of the sun where the hand of the sea-god drives?
He who holds the storm by the hair, will hide in his breast our lives.

Sweet is the shade of the coconut glade, and the scent of the mango grove,
And sweet are the sands at the full o' the moon with the sound of the voices we love;
But sweeter, O brothers, the kiss of the spray and the dance of the wild foam's glee;
Row, brothers, row to the edge of the verge, where the low sky mates with the sea.

EXPLANATION

*      The poet describes the lives of fishermen

*      The leader of the fishermen is giving a call to his comrades to start their work early in the morning

*      Coromandel fishes refers to the fishermen on the coromandel coast of South indie

*      The early morning sky is compared to someone  waking up from sleep . The leader awakens other fishermen that the sun has risen

*      The wind is not blowing, it is like a tired child who had cried all night, sleeping peacefully in it s mother’s arms

*      It is right time to start their journey

*       they should gather their nets and set the boats free

*      They are the sons of the sea therefore they have right to capture the leaping wealth of the ocean, which means fishes

*      The fishermen call themselves as the king of the sea

*       the narrator hurries his colleagues because they should follow the sea gull’s call.

*      The seagull knows where the fishes are

*      The sea, the cloud, the waves are also close to the fishermen like mother brothers and friends.

*      The sea God is thee protector of the sea and he will protect them

*      The fishermen love the land. The shade of coconut grove, the smell of mango grove and sounds of the  nature but the foam , the waves and the sea is more appealing to them

*      The sun is setting and it is time to go back to the land, so brothers row the boat to thee edge of thee sea

*      It metaphorically reflects the poet’s desire for free India and thus she encourages the people of the nation to hasten their struggle.

Figures of Speech

*      Simile : like a child that has cried all night

*      Personification : Sea Gull’s call

Low sky mates with the sky

*      Sarojini Naidu uses poetry as a veritable portrait gallery of Indian folk characters luring the lives and carrying on their different vocations against a rural background which is faithful representation of the Indian rural landscape.

*      With its vividly realized flora and fauna, the picture of India and the life of her masses thus evoked in  a beautiful romantic way

*      The coromandel fishers not only represent the fishermen’s identity with the sea and with the community but also the folk sense of order and discipline.

*      It evokes a folk vocation which is yet untouched by modern technology and sophistication.

 

 

 

 

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe critical analysis

 

The Raven
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

Edgar  Allen Poe

•       An American writer, poet, editor and literary critic.

•       Known for his poetry, short stories, tales of mystery and macabre

•       Central figure of Romanticism

•       Inventor of detective fiction genre and is further credited with contribution to science fiction

•       Poe succeeded in creating influential literary theories and in demonstrating mastery of the forms. He favored highly musical poems and short prose narratives

•       Poe’s source of happiness was writing poetry and he also raised short story in 1841. his dark imaginative gothic mysteries and tales heavily influenced the modern thriller.

•       The theme of loss which pervades much of Poe's work can be linked to events of personal tragedy in his life

Works

Tales

v The black cat

v The Cask of Amontillado

v The Fall of the house of Usher

v The Gold bug

v The Masque of Red Death

v The oval portrait

v The Pit and the Pendulum

v The Purloined letter

v The Tell tale heart

Other Works

•       Annabel Lee

•       The Conqueror Worm

•       A Dream within a dream

•       To Helen

•       Tamelane

Ø Politician (Only play)

Ø The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (only novel)

Ø The Balloon Hoax – journalistic hoax

Ø The Philosophy of Composition (1846)- Essays

Ø Eureka : A Prose poem (1848)

Ø The poetic principle (1848)

Ø The Light House (1849) – Poe’s last incomplete work

ü Poe was a forerunner of Art for Art’s sake

ü Poe’s poetry and short stories greatly influenced French symbolist who in turn altered direction of modern literature

ü Poe’s short stories appeared in Saturday Courier, Saturday Visitor

ü “ Heresy of Dictation”- his self declared intention to create artistic ideas in a milieu that he thought overtly concerned with the utilitarian value of literature

1.   A work must create a unity of effect on the reader to be considered successful

2.   The production of this single effect should not be left to the hazards of accident, but should to the minutest detail of style and subject be the result of rational deliberation on the poet

POEM

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 mortal 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 marvelled 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 blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

            With such name as “Nevermore.”

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

    Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—

    Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—

On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”

            Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store

    Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

    Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

            Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;

    Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

    Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

            Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;

    This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

    On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,

But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,

            She shall press, ah, nevermore!

 

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

    “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee

    Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”

            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

    Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—

    On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—

Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”

            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if 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—

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”

            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

    Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

    Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

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

            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

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 lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

            Shall be lifted—nevermore!

Facts

•       Lines : 108

•       Stanza: 18

•       Month and season : December , winter

•       Lenore is mentioned in : 2^nd, 4^th   and 15^th line

•       Nevermore is repeated 11 times

•       Poe wrote “The Raven” in 1844. it was first published on Jan 29, 1845 in the New York Evening Mirror

•        It became his most prominent poetic work and was reprinted and published many times after the date of first publication

•       Partly due to “The Raven” Poe became highly

   popular author within contemporary American literary circle.

•       “The Raven” appeared in numerous anthologies (poets and poetry in American 1847, ed by Rufus Wilmot Griswold) and Cambridge companion to Edgar Allen Poe

•       Poe’s contemporary William Gilmore Sinims, named it “the poem about remembering”

•       Poe’s essay “ The Philosophy of Composition” analyses his own poem “ The Raven” and discusses the circumstances of the writing and justifies his selection of the topic.

•       The Philosophy of Composition was published in the April issue of Graham’s magazine, 1846.

•       Poe attempts to present analysis of his own poem “the Raven” and to describe the circumstances of the composition.

•       The author claims that he considered each aspect of the poem and he was completely conscious of conception of what to write.

•       The unnamed narrator is wearily reading an old book on e bleak December night when he hears a tapping at the door of his room

•       He tells himself that it is merely a visitor

•       He is waiting for tomorrow to arrive because he cannot escape the sorrow over the death of Lenore, a woman he loved

•       The rustling curtains frightens him, but he decides it must be some late visitor and going to thee door, he asks for forgiveness from the visitor because he had been napping

•       However when he opens the door, he hears nothing but the Lenore, an echo of his own words

•       Returning to his room he hears a tapping and reasons that it was probably the wind outside his window

•       When he opens the window a raven enters and promptly perches “above the bust of pallas ” above his door

•       Its grave appearance amuses the narrator, who asks it for its name, the Raven responds nevermore

•       The poet does not understand the  reply but the raven says nothing else until the narrator predicts aloud that it will leave him tomorrow like the rest of his friends. the bird says nevermore.

•       Startled the narrator says the bird might have learnt this word from some unfortunate owner whose bad luck caused him to repeat the word frequently

•       Smiling, the narrator sits in front of the bird to ponder about the meaning of the word.

•       The raven continues to  stare at him, as the narrator sits in the chair that Lenore will never again occupy

•       The narrator then feels that the angels have approached and angrily calls the raven an evil prophet.

•       He asks if there is respite in Gilead and If he will ever again see Lenore in heaven, but the raven only says nevermore

•       In the fury, the narrator demands that the raven go back into the night and leave him agin the raven says nevermore.

•       The narrator feels that his soul will never leave the raven’s shadow.

•       The poem is inspired by the talking raven in the novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of riots of Eighty by Charles Dickens

•        Poe borrows the complex rhythm and meter of Elizabeth Barrette’s poem “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” and makes use of internal rhyme as well as alliteration throughout

•       Narrative poem

•       Theme: undying devotion

•       The narrator experiences a perverse conflict between desire to forget and desire to remember. 

•       He seems deriving pleasure  by focusing on loss

•       Christopher F S Maligec suggest the poem is a type of elegiac paraclausithyron, an ancient Greek and Roman poetic form consisting of lament of an excluded locked out lover at the sealed door of his beloved.

Figures of Speech

•       Alliteration : “doubling dreaming dreams no mortal ever dreamed”

•       Assonance : when the vowel sound in a series of  word  is repeated.

“ the rare radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore”

•       Rhyme : Its only stock and store…till his songs one burden bore

•       Onomatopoeia: tapping, rapping, rustling fuller crocking

•       Personification : “ the sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain”

Allusions

•       Bust of pallas: reason

•       Athena : Goddess of wisdom

•       Night’s Plutonian shore: afterlife, Pluto, the Roman God of underworld

•       Raven : central symbol, a non reasoning creature capable of speech

1.   In Norse mythology, Odin possessed two ravens named  Huginn and Munim representing thought and memory

2.   Hebrew Folklore – Noah sends a white raven to check conditions while on the arc, the raven doesn’t return immediately therefore it is turned black AND being forced to feed on carrion

3.   In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Appollo punishes the raven by turning it black for delivering a message of lover’s unfaithfulness

•       Nepenthe : drug mentioned in Homer’s Odeyssey which erases memory

•       Balm of Gilead : reference to Book of Jeremiah, a resin used for medical purpose (Eljah was from Gilead to have been fed by Ravens during the period of drought)

•       The raven is ne of the early examples of gothic literature

•       Raven sands for mournful never-ending remembrance

•       Poe selected the word Nevermore because “ the long o as the most sonorous vowel in construction with r as most producible consonant.”

•       Rhyme scheme : ABCBBB