The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

One of the greatest poets was Edgar Allan Poe. His loves and his sorrows were deeply rooted in his poetry. His
poems are timeless, for they touch a part of the human soul in each of us that is often hidden from others. He had the
ability to open his heart and soul and share the sufferings he himself had gone through. Poe expressed the deepest love
and deeper sorrows that were very much a part of himself. He was more interested in the supernatural, and It was the
inspiration of his own emotions that compelled him to write such dark poetry that struck a cord in the human soul- yet it
was beautiful in its darkness, for it was like a spark of light that exploded when his words were read. Poe suffered many
losses in his life, and his works often have an emphasis on despair or death. Poe’s lover died, which also affected him.
Poe referred to his emotional response to his wife's sickness as his own illness, and that he found the cure to it. He no
longer seemed to care if he lived or died. For several months he was deeply depressed.

In “The Raven,” written by Edgar Allan Poe, is considered one of the best poems to be written. The whole poem is
about a man and the love he lost, but it is not until the bird is introduced in the writing that we are able to see the
distress and sorrow the man is going through because of said loss. Although, Poe was an established author "The Raven"
gave him huge success in his career. the narrator focuses on the loss and suffering, which is reflective of the time in
which it was written. The character in the poem is lonely and bereft. He has no human comfort, and hopes that he is
able to see Lenore once more. The main focus of the poem was the unexpected visit of a raven to the narrator-s house.
In the poem, the bird, acts as an instigator to the man almost, making fun of his feelings and emotions and is more of an
agony to him. The bird serves as a constant reminder to the narrator of the death of his true love and the sadness that it
brings him. It is left unclear if the bird literally came to his doorstep or the narrator was making it up. The narrator was
also on a very dark place at the time. These and other fantastical factors led me to believe the bird was created by the
narrator himself. First, the narrator is clearly weak. He says he spends his time thinking about Lenore, who was once
someone special to him. I think Lenore was his girlfriend or wife. The author is clearly not over her death, which could
lead him to an unstable mental health. Edgar Allen Poe's life and The Raven are so much alike and have the same type of
detail that went through both of their stories. The Raven has a relationship with Edgar Allen Poe's life because they both
were sad, had many different struggles and had frightening times. 'The Raven's' story started the horror style of horror
movies and books. The piece begins and ends with this young man's focus on the loss of his love, Lenore. It is only when
the raven enters the piece that we begin to see this man's worry and depression

As Poe passes a lonely December night in his room, a raven taps repeatedly on the door and then the window. The
man first thinks the noise is caused by a late night visitor come to disturb him, and he is surprised to find the raven when
he opens the window shutter. After being let in, the raven flies to and lands on a bust of Pallas. Poe is amused by how
serious the raven looks, and he begins talking to the raven; so he speaks to the bird. He asks its (the bird/his grief) name,
however, the bird can only reply by croaking "nevermore, after speaking that one word, the raven did not utter another
word. He sat there on the statue very still and quiet. the narrator is very shocked at actually hearing the raven speak as if
it were a natural thing for him. He doesn’t understand how “nevermore” answers the question. although it's unclear if
the raven actually understands what the man is saying or is just speaking the one word it knows. As Poe continues to
converse with the bird, he slowly loses his grip on reality. He moves his chair directly in front of the raven and asks it
despairing questions, including whether he and Lenore will be reunited in heaven.

Now, instead of being merely amused by the bird, he takes the raven's repeated "nevermore" response as a sign
that all his dark thoughts are true. He eventually grows angry and shrieks at the raven, calling it a devil and a thing of
evil. Here the narrator starts to feel as though the air around him is getting thicker with perfume or a scent. He thinks he
is seeing angels there who are bringing this perfume /scent to him. He calls himself a wretch because he feels this is God
sending him a message to forget Lenore. The poem ends with the raven still sitting on the bust of Pallas and the
narrator, seemingly defeated by his grief and madness, declaring that his soul shall be lifted "nevermore."
 "Annabel Lee" By Edgar Allan Poe

“Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe is a morbid tale about the death of the narrator’s beloved and how
death cannot separate their strong love for each other. the poem sets a fairy tale. The reader can immediately begin to
imagine a time long ago, in a kingdom far away somewhere on the coast of a distant sea. The fairy tale tone of this poem
serves to give the readers an understanding of the speaker’s experiences within the poem and the effect the
occurrences in the poem had on him. and of course, a maiden. This maiden quickly becomes the central figure in the
poem. She is immediately given a name, and her name and her description as a “maiden” quickly give readers a picture
of a young and beautiful girl. lines reveal the youth of both the speaker and the maiden. They have no other thoughts or
concerns besides love and love alone. The reader quickly realizes that both the speaker and Annabel Lee are young and
in love. they were in fact, children. He doesn’t use the word “youth” or even “young” so as to let the reader think that
they were perhaps in their early teenage years. He specifies that both of them were children. Poe intends to insure the
readers that just because they were but children, does not mean that their love was not very real. He certainly felt this
love at the deepest level and is certain that Annabel Lee feels it no less. It was a love that was not of this world, for even
the angels looked down and felt a jealous pang because of the love that the two children shared. It was a love that
angels, the speaker supposes, could not feel and so they coveted the feeling the speaker and Annabel Lee had for each
other. This gives an interesting perspective on angels, as in most literature they are portrayed as holy beings who look
out for and guard human beings. Here, they are portrayed as jealous beings who look at the children and long for that
which they cannot have- human love.

Suddenly, Annabel Lee catches a cold from a “wind that blew out of a cloud”. poe attributes the reason for this
cold to the covetousness of the angels. He explains that their feelings of jealousy were in fact “the reason that…a wind
blew out of a cloud, chilling my beautiful Annabel Lee”. He felt that the two of them loved one another as much as any
two people could love, and he felt that he could call her his own. Annabel Lee has been chilled. The readers do not know
if she has simply caught a cold, or if her body is cold and dead-chilled. “chilled” meant death, or simply chilly and a bit
sick. Now, the readers see a “highborn kinsman” who came and took Annabel away from the speaker. At this point, the
reader either believes that this kinsman was one who had died before her and came to take her soul to heaven, or that
this kinsman was a living relative who came to take Annabel Lee away in her sickness. Either way, the speaker is left
without his beloved. It is left to further wonder whether Annabel has died, or whether she was simply shut up in a
mansion with her rich kinsman. A sepulcher in this context could either mean a large, beautiful tomb or it could mean a
large beautiful home that the speaker views as a tomb because the one he loves has been confined there where he can
no longer see her. Poe reminds the reader that the reason he has lost his young lover is because of the angels. He makes
them seem vindictive, as he reveals that they are still envious of him.

lines confirm the death of Annabel Lee, although they do not reveal whether the first chill had killed her, or
whether the angels, still envious, sent another chill to end her life. poe continues the tone of the fairy tale by reminding
the readers that this has all happened to him while he was “in this kingdom by the sea”. There is an ironic contrast
between the fairy-tale tone with the content of these lines. This is certainly no fairy-tale ending, and thus, the tone
causes the reader to feel this pang of loss and death all the more. He reiterates the strength of their love for one
another and even asserts that their love was stronger than the love of the adults that he knew. It serves to assure the
reader that this love is not a silly childish love that will be easily forgotten at the death of Annabel Lee. It leaves the
readers with the understanding that this strong love will not be forgotten with her death. Poe is still lying down by the
tomb of the one that he loved. This fairy tale took a dark turn when the angels sent a chilly wind to take Annabel Lee,
and now it ends not with happily ever after, but with a broken-hearted man who sleeps by the grave of his lover every
night. While this is a tale of undying love, it is certainly not a typical fairy tale.
 Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Robert Frost was one of the most widely read poets in the 20th century American literature. For many people it is
an enjoyable experience to read Frost’s poems which mostly characterized by nature. For his spending a long life living in
the New England countryside, nature easily became his chief subject. Robert Frost was the leading modern American
poet of nature and rural life. Most of his poems are upon natural element. He was very much interested in natural
things; he found beauty in common place. Although he has a keen understanding of natural world, he uses nature as a
background to illustrate people’s psychological struggle with everyday life. Nature is the most distinguished feature in
Robert Frost’s poems. Frost possesses deep love and sympathy towards nature which is the source for inspiration.
According to Frost, nature is not only the source of pleasure, but also an inspiration for human wisdom. Nature becomes
a central character in his poetry rather than merely a background.

‘Mending Wall’ by Robert Frost explores the nature of human relationships. The speaker suggests there are two
types of people, those who want walls and those who don’t. frost says that there is something mysterious in nature that
does not want walls. That something always destroys the walls, making a gap in the wall through which two people can
easily pass. The narrator says that sometimes the wall is damaged by some careless hunters, who pull down the stones
of the walls in search of rabbits to please their barking dogs. He says that though no one has ever heard the noise or
seen anyone making the gaps, they do exist when it is time to mend the walls during the spring season. They are
realities, and so the narrator asks his neighbor to go beyond the hill and find out after all who creates these gaps. One
day, when both of them (narrator and neighbor) determine to walk along the wall, they are surprised to see stones
scattered on the ground. They see that some stones are shaped like bread loaves, while a few of them are round in
shape. Due to their mysterious shape, the narrator and neighbor find it quite difficult to put them in their previous
position. Seeing the unusual shape of these stones, the narrator thinks of using some kind of magic trick to place the
stones back on the wall. it is like an outdoor game for them, wherein the wall works as a net and both (the narrator and
his neighbor) are opponents.

Frost makes every possible effort to make his neighbor understand that we don’t need a wall. He asks why to
have a wall, when he has only pine trees and I have only apple. How can his apple trees trespass the wall border and eat
his neighbor’s pine cones. Moreover, there is no chance of offending as they don’t also have any cows at their homes.
While the narrator tries to make his neighbor understand that they don’t need a wall, as there is something that does
not love a wall, his neighbor is a stone-headed savage, who continues to believe in his father’s age-old cliché that, “Good
fences make good neighbors.” through the poem, the narrator wants to put his notion into his neighbor’s mind, the kind
of imagination he makes to convince his neighbor about the existence of wall (s) sometimes also makes me think twice
about the poet. But immediately when the narrator changes his opinion and feels that it is not the work of elves rather
some kind of power in nature, I feel relieved as the narrator is finally talking sense. He says it is the work of nature that
works against any type of walls and barriers. However, the narrator gets immensely irritated to see his neighbor firmly
holding a stone and giving a look of an ancient stone-age man, who is getting armed to fight. The narrator feels that his
neighbor is too ignorant to convince. He always wants to be stuck and follow his father’s words that good fences make
good neighbors.

Mending Wall’ is one of my most favorite poems by Frost. Where the poem suggests a wiser perspective on the
boundary wall, it also tells how good fences make good neighbors and how we can keep our relationship with our
neighbors peaceful and stable by establishing walls. This poem also makes us realize the importance of walls and
boundaries between two countries. In our lives, where a wall acts as a hurdle for people like seemingly unsociable, it
also helps respect the privacy of your neighbor. After all, we live in a civilized society. It is always better to maintain a
distance, and good fences keep that distance maintained.
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (nature)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is one of the most famous American poets whose poems are widely read in all English
speaking countries. Longfellow started writing poetry at an early age. Some of his poems were already published when
he was but a lad of thirteen or fourteen years Some of his more well-known works. Longfellow’s poetry touches a great
variety of subjects. Many of his shorter poems have a pronounced didactic note. But he is a careful artist and his
narrative power is simply wonderful.

Nature by Longfellow In the poem, the poet draws the picture of a mother leading her unwilling child to bed. The
day is over. Now it is time for the little child to go to bed. The child is not very willing to go to bed just now. So its mother
gently takes it by the hand and leads it to bed. The child does not want to leave its playthings. At the same time, it feels
tired, having played throughout the day. Thus the child is half willing and half reluctant to go to bed. While being led by
its mother to bed, the child is still looking at its playthings which can be seen through the open door. The mother
promises to give her child other more splendid toys. Thus she tries to persuade the child to go to bed. The child feels
partially comforted by this promise. At the same time, it feels uncertain if it would find the promised playthings more
attractive than those it has to leave now. the poet describes how nature conducts us through our life’s journey and leads
us to our final haven of rest.) Nature is to man what a mother is to her child. As we advance in years, nature gradually
takes away all our earthly possessions and, at the same time, blunts all our senses. The final goal of our life is the long
rest in the world beyond the grave. But so greatly attached we are to our earthly life that we are never too willing to
proceed towards that goal. But nature leads us so gently to this final goal of life that we follow her almost in a trance.
We learn from wise men that the world beyond is far more splendid than the world we live in. But, in our ignorance we
fail to realize this difference. Thus we gradually proceed towards the final goal of our life, not out of our own accord but
because nature leads us gently, affectionately and inevitably towards it.

Nature by H.W. Longfellow is a fine sonnet in which a mother and her child have been beautifully compared with
nature and man. Though it is time to go to bed, the child is unwilling to leave his playthings. So the mother promises to
give it more splendid playthings and thus persuades it to go to bed. The poet sees a similar relationship between Mother
Nature and man who is her child. Man’s life on earth has been conceived as a long journey whose final destination is the
world beyond the grave. We men are unwilling to move towards this destination as we are too fond of our earthly
possession, just as a child is unwilling to leave its dear playthings and go to bed. Our journey through life under the
affectionate guidance of nature has been described metaphorically in the last six lines of the poem. Thus playthings refer
to all our earthly possessions for which we feel such a fond attachment. And as we grow in years, we inevitably come
nearer and nearer to our final destination even though we wish to stay here on earth forever. The word “unknown’ in
the last line of the poem refers to the world beyond the grave while the expression ‘what we know’ refers to the familiar
world of our earthly experience. We are not certain which of these two worlds is the better one. But nature gently leads
us from the one to the other, and we follow nature even as a child follow its mother to bed.

The whole poem is cast in the mould of a long-drawn comparison. A comparison, as we all know,
must have two component parts which are compared to each other. In this poem, one component
part of the long-drawn simile is presented in the octave or the first eight lines, and the other
component part is presented in the sestet or the final six lines. The octave describes how a mother
leads her child to its bed. And, the sestet describes how, through the whole course of our life, nature
gently leads us to our final goal which is the life beyond.
 Facing West From California's Shores by Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman’s poem “Facing West from California’s Shores,” explores the capacity of the world to answer
man’s many questions and describes himself as, “a child, very old” to convey both the innocent wonder that he feels
and the wisdom of lessons previously learned. Child-like curiosity. is “inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,”
and, in the end, does not find a definitive answer because his question has infinitely many solutions. He has looked all
over the globe, searching the unknown, and is still able to ask, “Why is it yet unfound?” The answer is not finite,
therefore it can never technically be found. The questions that nature prompts are never ending. Emerson says, in his
essay “Nature,” “[The world] shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect,” showing that the speaker may find
answers, but there will always be more questions, and accompanying answers. His query is “yet unfound” because the
wisdom of nature is infinite.

The first line reads, “Facing west, from California’s shores,” which provides the setting of ‘Facing West From
California’s Shores,’ obviously near the shoreline of California. The second line continues the thought that started in the
first. It reads, “Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound…” At this point, the poem’s speaker has not been
revealed. The reader does not know who is facing west, seeking what has yet to be found, but the audience can infer
from the third line that the speaker is not Whitman himself; instead, it is the landmass that is America. The third line
reads, “I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar…” This line is an
example of Whitman at his finest, jamming his lines with personification, juxtaposition, and imagery.

The landmass that is the United States is talking about what she is doing on her most western shore. Secondly,
Whitman presents the reader with a contradiction: how can a child be very old? In this section, he juxtaposes the new
world—the United States—with the old landmass that has been around for millions of years. America, the land of
immigrants, is looking out towards the countries lying on the other side of the ocean, calling them the “house of
maternity” and the “land of migrations.”

The speaker of ‘Facing West From California’s Shores’ then starts to name the lands beyond the ocean, “starting
westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere…” In this line, the speaker is obviously talking about India.
Hindustan refers geographically to the northern part of India, and the valleys of Kashmere are also located in this
general region. The speaker then draws out from this area to Asia at large. Whitman writes, “From Asia—from the
north—from the God, the sage, and the hero.” He continues his journey, this time referring to other, more exotic lands.
He writes, “From the south—from the flowery peninsulas, and the spice islands…” The Spice Islands are in Indonesia,
and thanks to Whitman’s diction, particularly in his use of the word “flowery,” the islands provide a very different
picture than the one previously painted in the Indian valleys. In the next line, the speaker returns back to his shore,
saying, “Long having wander’d since—round the earth having wander’d, Now I face home again—very pleased and
joyous…” This line can really be interpreted in two very different ways. First, the speaker may be feeling pleased and
joyous from looking out across the sea at the different lands; however, it can also be read that the speaker is happy to
have finally returned back home.

Whitman ends ‘Facing West From California’s Shores’ with two questions for the reader: “(But where is what I
started for, so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?)” These last two lines add a feeling of restlessness and discontent to
the poem. The pleasure and joy from the previous line seem to have disappeared and been replaced with confusion. The
speaker sought out long ago to find what he was seeking—the reader can speculate that this could be anything, really,
but the disappointing fact is that the speaker has not yet found what he has been searching for. Perhaps these two lines
represent the disappointment in knowing that America can expand no further, at least in the west.