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The Raven Theme of Love

The speaker in "The Raven" loves a woman named Lenore. That's part of the nice balance of this poem. At times it's almost campy and over-the-top, with all the elaborate rhyming and fancy vocabulary. At its heart though, the poem is about a man who only wants one thing in the world: to be back with the woman he loves. Sadly, that's the one thing he absolutely can't have.This is a pretty depressing look at love; and, while Poe never even uses the word directly, love still pervades this poem. The Raven Theme of Madness

The speaker of "The Raven" sounds like he's had a rough life, and most people would probably be a little shaken up to find themselves talking to a bird. Still, we think it's entirely possible that he's insane, or at least pretty far down thatroad. He talks a lot about wild dreams, imaginary perfume, his burning soul, etc. Of course, the possibility that he's headed around the bend raises some other questions. Is this bird really talking? Is there a bird at all? Is this just a kind of fever-dream? We'll hold off on those questions for now, but keep them in mind.



• Pallas (41, 104): This is a reference to the Greek goddessAthena, often called Pallas Athena, or just simply Pallas. She is primarily associated with wisdom, which makes her head an ironic place for the Raven to sit, since we can never quite tell if the bird is actually wise or is just saying the only word it knows. Since she's a goddess, though, she's also a symbol of the ideal woman, perfectly beautiful wise, virtuous, and strong. For a man who spends allhis time thinking about the perfect maiden he has lost (Lenore), a bust of Pallas seems like a pretty good choice.
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• Balm in Gilead (89): This refers to a biblical quote, from Jeremiah 8:22 "Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there?" In a general sense this famous balm (a kind of healing ointment) has come to represent hope, peace, an end to pain. Obviously, since theorigin is Biblical, there's an aspect of the peace of Christian salvation, although we can't quite tell how much the speaker of the poem believes in that.

Nepenthe

Symbol Analysis
This is an allusion to a mythological drug that you might take to forget your grief. From what we can tell, we think our narrator might really need some of this stuff.

• Lines 82-83: The idea of nepentheoccurs to our speaker in a kind of daydream/hallucination. He imagines that the room is filling with some sort of perfume, and thinks that God himself has decided to help him forget his misery. In the Odyssey, Homer describes nepenthe in exactly this way, as a drink that will take away all sadness

Night's Plutonian Shore

Symbol Analysis
This is the kind of big, spooky, complicated image that Poejust loves. It sounds spiffy and poetic, and it also manages to ball a bunch of mysterious images into one phrase. The phrase has three words, and also three parts:

• The Night. Darkness and night are both major symbols in this poem. They both represent the mysterious, maybe dangerous and scary power of nature. In addition, they just make for a cool atmosphere for a poem – it definitelycouldn't take place on a sunny afternoon.
• Plutonian. This is an allusion to the Roman god of the underworld. The adjective "Plutonian" is meant to make us think of all the scary things that one associates with the underworld: darkness, death, the afterlife etc.
• Shore is a little more mysterious. It may be a metaphor that helps us to see the night as a vast ocean, washing up against theedge of this chamber.
In a way, then, all these words help emphasize the ideas of darkness and night. Not just a dreary night, but also a vast ocean of hellish darkness. Very much Poe's style.
1. Line 47: This is the first time this phrase gets used. It associates the raven with the night, and since the speaker asks for the bird's "lordly name," we almost feel like he could be...