Saturday, June 21, 2014

What is a description of the power of Edgar Allan Poe's landscapes in his poem The Raven?

The student’s question—what is a description of the power of landscapes in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Raven—can, perhaps, best be answered with reference to a broader examination of this particular author’s works of literature. The reason for the reticence to limit the answer to The Raven, a poem that is certainly heavy in atmosphere, is that much of Poe’s more famous works take place inside confined spaces, whether homes, castles, or, in the case of the unnamed narrator of The Raven, a “chamber” or library. Poe’s macabre stories and poems, most often, involve the terror of the mind; in other words, psychological deterioration that results in paranoia and insanity. The outside world is usually uninvolved in terms of settings. Indeed, in one of Poe’s more popular stories, The Masque of the Red Death, the outside world is only alluded to for the purpose of marking the contrast between the sanctity of the interior of Prince Prospero’s abbey and the horrible scenes described as taking place outside the castle’s walls. As Poe’s narrator states with respect to this contrast, “[t]he prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the ‘Red Death’.” The narrator in The Masque of the Red Death devotes considerable time to describing the interior setting of the prince’s abbey. The seven suites that comprise the story’s setting are each decorated in a different color, with the seventh noteworthy for the theme of darkness and blood.

Now, let’s look at the opening passage to The Fall of the House of Usher. The narrator approaches the Usher estate with a sense of foreboding, the exterior setting lending an air of unease:



“During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.”



Once the narrator enters the Usher home, the exterior setting ceases to be relevant. The story, as with The Raven, The Masque of the Red Death, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Black Cat, will take place within the stultifying confines of the narrator’s home, and mind. Focusing once more on The Raven, Poe places his narrator inside what we can imagine is a somewhat small but well-apportioned study or library. The narrator is seated in a chair, reading a book in which he clearly has little interest, subsumed as he is in thoughts of his lost Lenore: “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore . . .” The darkness of night, a common feature in horror stories, as drastically-reduced visibility invariably heightens the tension, adds to the sense of foreboding—a sense that only heightens with the tapping on the chamber door. The cold of winter further adds to this sense of foreboding, while further driving the action indoors where it is warm, but where the confined space and darkness (no electricity back then, illumination provided by kerosene lamps and candles) limits visibility : “Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.” So, as with the above mentioned stories, Poe establishes a setting appropriate for the terrors he intends to inflict upon his readership.


“Landscapes” suggest exterior settings. Poe’s works, the ones typically assigned by teachers and professors, take place inside. When Poe does reference the outside world, it is invariably in bleak terms. Indoors, where the drama takes place, the drama that occurs inside the mind of the narrator (“You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me.” [from The Tell-Tale Heart] Emphasis in original), provides the focus of the tale that follows.

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