The Raven

poe The Raven When it appeared in 1845, the dark poem of lost love, The Raven, brought Edgar Allen Poe national fame. “With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not - they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.” (from The Raven and Other Poems, preface, 1845) In a lecture in Boston the author said that the two most effective letters in the English language were o and r - this inspired the expression “nevermore” in The Raven, and because a parrot is unworthy of the dignity of poetry, a raven could well repeat the word at the end of each stanza.