Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is 165 years old this week. That’s not bad for a bird with a life expectancy of 40 years (that’s in captivity, if you’re interested – 15 years is the longest a tagged raven has ever lived in the wild). We’ll say Happy Birthday to the morbid black bird by dedicating today’s Q10 to it.
1. The first time “The Raven” was published was in the New York Evening Mirror on January 29, 1845. They were quite impressed with it, to say the least – in his intro to Poe’s piece, founder Nathaniel Parker Willis said it was “unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent, sustaining of imaginative lift… It will stick to the memory of everybody who reads it.” Unfortunately for old E.A.P., Willis gave up editing the following year and the man who took his place was definitely not a Poe fan. Poe actually sued the Evening Mirror for defamation just a year after his hit poem was published and received $225.06 plus his court costs.
2. The amount that he won from the Evening Mirror is about 2500% more than what he earned for “The Raven” in the first place – upon its original publication, Poe received just $9.
3. Not everyone was as kind as Nathaniel Parker Willis. In fact, some of Poe’s contemporaries kind of hated it. William Butler Yeats thought it was “insincere and vulgar” and Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I see nothing in it.” Aldous Huxley thought it was too poetic, saying that it “falls into vulgarity” by being overly so.
4. Poe took his inspiration from a couple of sources: the talking raven idea was likely borrowed from Charles Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ‘Eighty and the rhythm and meter definitely comes from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship.”
5. In 1858, John Tenniel illustrated “The Raven” – that’s one of his pieces above. Tenniel is the same guy who did the original drawings for Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Tenniel had a knack for the quietly creepy, I’d say.
6. This poem isn’t the first time Poe mentioned a lady named Lenore. She first showed up in “Lenore” (go figure) which was published two years before “The Raven.” Actually, “Lenore” was a revision of an earlier Poe poem called “A Paean”; the name was added and the title was changed for the 1843 version.
7. The Baltimore Ravens are, of course, named after the famous poem by the famous Baltimorean. The team used to have three mascots named Edgar, Allan, and Poe. Edgar and Allan have since been retired to be replaced with real ravens, but Poe is still fluttering around the stadium to cheer on his team.
8. “The Raven” was an immediate hit, which meant immediate parodies. Pretty soon, not-so-spooky versions called “The Whipporwill,” “The Polecat” and “The Gazelle” began making their way through pop culture. “The Polecat” found its way to Abraham Lincoln, in fact, and he found it so funny that he decided to check out the original, which he hadn’t read until that point, and memorized it.
9. Famous impressionist Édouard Manet illustrated the “The Raven” nearly 20 years after Tenniel. You can see his signature upside down at the top in the closing illustration.
10. The success of “The Raven” didn’t make Poe financially set. “I am as poor now as ever I was in my life, except in hope, which is by no means bankable,” he wrote. Even when his The Raven and Other Tales was published and was a big hit in Europe, he apparently made only $120 from it. And when The Raven and Other Poems was published in the U.S., his take was even less.
Do you agree with Huxley, Yeats and Emerson? Or do you appreciate the macabre ravings of a mad going mad? Me… I’m a fan. But you probably could have guessed that.
If I’ve put you in the mood to read it, you can find the poem in its entirety here.
Comments (19)
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Of course, Manet’s signature is upside down only because the drawing is upside down.
Sorry if I missed the joke.
Pat
posted by Pat on 1-26-2010 at 5:54 pm
May favorite readings of The Raven are:
1. Basil Rathbone. The Best reading ever! Period.
2. The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror I. A classic if ever there was one.
BTW, Gustav Dore illustrated every scene of the poem. Dore, of course, also illustrated the Bible, Paradise Lost and The Divine Comedy. That’s very high company indeed.
posted by JMS on 1-26-2010 at 6:15 pm
Actually, the Ravens have two new mascots–named “Rise” and “Conquer.”
posted by plantlady on 1-26-2010 at 6:26 pm
I don’t have much of a defense for Raven, it never really struck me. Poe, however, is my favorite writer – when I read his words, my heart pauses, and I forget to breathe. My favorites are Annabel Lee, and The Man that was Used Up.
posted by m on 1-26-2010 at 7:40 pm
Simpsons,no doubt!Poe should have added\Why you little…!!!\ as Homer did. And his reading of “Take thy beak from out my heart and take thy form from off my door!” gets me every time
posted by chrisr on 1-26-2010 at 8:38 pm
Poe also has a short story titled Eleonora.
Other favorites are Annabel Lee, To Helen, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Black Cat.
“Quoth the Raven, ‘Eat My Shorts.’”
posted by Nerak on 1-26-2010 at 8:57 pm
Ah, my very favorite poem! I memorized it in junior high for extra credit in my English class. 20 years later, I can still recite it. I agree that the Basil Rathbone recitation is definitive, though. I love the poem dearly. I eventually got to meet some real ravens, out west where they still live in large numbers. They are interesting birds. Very intelligent, though not as social as crows. And, interestingly enough, can be trained to mimic human speech….
posted by Calli Arcale on 1-26-2010 at 11:31 pm
I always loved “The Raven.” I even wrote a “Teen Titans”-based parody of it, called “The Raven (and the Starfire).”
posted by amaneaux on 1-27-2010 at 7:49 am
As a Baltimore resident, I have a soft spot for Poe and “The Raven”. I am not sure how people in Poe’s time didn’t like it (I guess ‘vulgar’ was a harsh criticism at the time). “The Road Not Taken” is my favorite poem, but “The Raven” is very very beautiful.
posted by Ian from Baltimore on 1-27-2010 at 8:03 am
When I was a junior in high school, one of our assignments was to write a parody of “The Raven”. Somewhere I still have a copy of my Star Trek inspired version, in which a Horta appears on the bridge of the Enterprise. Quoth the Horta, “Nevermore”!
posted by BlueAloe on 1-27-2010 at 8:45 am
Am I missing a joke, like Pat said?
If so, can someone PLEASE tell us why the Manet illustration is upside down?
If not, PLEASE fix it.
posted by B on 1-27-2010 at 10:39 am
Yay for the Poe posting! I’ve been waiting for one since last week, when the Poe Toaster didn’t show up.
posted by CPete on 1-27-2010 at 11:02 am
What demands that the meter be taken from Browning? Trochaic tetrameter isn’t exactly unique: Shakespeare uses it!
posted by Liza Jane on 1-27-2010 at 11:46 am
I was curious about the upside down picture too. According to a discussion on wikipedia (I know, I know…..) This is the original way it was published. There doesn’t appear to be any research as to why or if it was a mistake, but it is how it was originally done.
This is the link to the discussion on flipping the picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/%22The_Raven%22,_%C3%89douard_Manet‘s_illustrations
posted by Kate on 1-27-2010 at 11:47 am
My user name which I use for a lot of internet handles is from the poem “Eulalie” by Poe, which I love very much.
posted by Eulalie on 1-27-2010 at 12:11 pm
I don’t really like Poe a whole lot. I think it’s too wordy and macarbe.
posted by Sara in AL on 1-27-2010 at 3:31 pm
Hmmm…
The name Lenore
was used 2 years before
the Raven said “nevermore.”
posted by Bubba on 1-28-2010 at 10:36 am
Great post. Another bit of trivia: Poe published The Raven anonymously under the name “Quarles.” He may have been hedging his bets. If it was a disaster, his name wouldn’t be on it.
And just one quibble: Poe was not really a “Baltimorean.” He had family there and lived there briefly (only a couple years). He is only buried there because he died while just passing through. Poe is really only a posthumous Baltimorean. The city adopted him after his death (actually only after he became famous).
posted by Philly Poe Guy on 1-29-2010 at 4:12 pm
Has anybody ever seen the Vincent Price movie version of the Raven? You know, the one where it starts off Raven-y enough until it departs into a campy magic movie featuring wizards and warlocks and such? If I’m not mistaken it also features a young Jack Nickelson as the lover of Vincent Price’s daughter in the film.
posted by Patrick on 1-30-2010 at 5:48 pm