poe – R&D Gothic Discoveries

In Edgar Allan Poe repertory, there are a lot of pure masterpieces. One of the most popular ones is called The Raven. In brief, it is the story of an old man who fears not to see his beloved one again. One day, when he hears knocking at his door, he automatically thinks it is his wife, but there is simply nothing at the door. The next time, he hears a noise on his window and expects that there is nothing like the previous time. When he comes to the window, a raven immediately enters his house. At that point, the man only considers it as a thing.

However, a little later in the story, the man now begins to consider it as a stupid bird. This judgment is created by the fact that every time the man asks a question to the raven, it only responds by “nevermore”. This special bird follows him throughout his journey facing his biggest fear of loneliness.

More towards the end of Poe’s story, the man comes to view the raven more as a prophet and a leader instead of as a stupid bird. The man comes to see the bird as a symbol of knowledge, which influences some of his decisions.

Finally, at the end of the man’s journey, he realizes or believes that the raven he had lived with since the beginning, was the embodiment of the devil himself. The man believes that the bad things that happened in his life were entirely due to the presence of the raven, leading to this quite surprising conclusion.

I surely recommend you read Poe’s short story, The Raven, because there are so many subtilities and details, which makes the story even better. Afterward, I invite to share your impressions on the evolution of the symbolism of the bird with us!

Enjoy!

Rosalie 🙂

Does every fan of gothic literature, or only of the gothic genre, know Edgar Allan Poe? If not, you should definitely read some of his works. He mostly writes short stories, each more disturbing than the previous one. So, I figured I would do something very different than what I usually do here. I wrote a poem related to The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, written in 1843. If you do not know what it is, briefly, it is the story of a young man, killing a presumably blind old man for he has a pale blue eye that frustrates him. Of course, this is a very brief summary, but you may certainly want to read the short story before the following poem.

Like a Veiled Vulture Eye

Admit it. Too loud it is.

It beats. Again and again, louder and louder.

How could they know? They did.

They felt my agony, fear filled my fearful heart

Did they hear it too? Did EYE even?

Sure like vultures they smelled it, circled it.

They found it, and death it is.

The EYE was damned anyway.

Why keep lying? EYE was dead.

Horror went away with it, him, EYE. Old man kept it.

Brought it with its last breath in the dark depth of deep death.

Terror never left, how could it? The veil still is.

The I EYE was furious about. Not the old man. EYE swears. Not mad. EYE swear.

In the night, he went cold, paler and paler.

EYE cannot remember. Blue

Was it how it looked like? Was it?

Pale days and dark nights. Oh yes.

Blue it was.

But he did not know.

What interest was there in it if he knew? None EYE’d say.

EYE had secret that he ignored.

Ignorance killed him. EYE did not. Swear.

EYE lived for nothing. Out of all things nothing.

I loved the old man. I did and I do. It was only his EYE.

Truth is, EYE think, it haunted mEYEself.

Hunted. DAY. MIDNIGHT. SUNRISE.

Time never dies.

Like a vulture’s vexed veiled eye.

DelphineC

Tag: poe

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