Page 75 - 100 Best Loved Poems - Teaching Unit

3. Why do you think Poe chose to use a raven in this poem as opposed to, for example, a
parrot or sparrow?

Answers may vary. Example: A raven may be seen as an ill omen since it has darker
connotations the other birds do.

4. What, according to the second stanza, is the speaker trying to accomplish by reading
“forgotten lore”?

The speaker is trying to find some relief from his mourning to distract himself and attain
“surcease of sorrow.”

5. When he peers into the darkness and sees nothing, who does the speaker initially imagine
may be trying to contact him?

The speaker initially imagines that Lenore may be trying to contact him.

6. What does the narrator mean when, in the eleventh stanza, he says of the raven,
“Doubtless...what it utters is its only stock and store,/Caught from some unhappy master”?

The speaker is trying to convince himself that the raven most likely learned only one
word–”nevermore”– from its master and is not replying intelligently to the narrator’s
queries, but rather automatically. However, the word “nevermore,” as it is used in other
stanzas, also signifies the end of Lenore’s life and the fact that the narrator will never see
her again. The bird’s automatic response mocks his feelings.

7. Who is the narrator addressing when he cries “Wretch” in the fourteenth stanza?

The narrator is addressing himself.

8. Describe the narrator’s state at the end of the poem.

Answers may vary. Example: The narrator has been driven somewhat mad by grief,
torturing himself by shaking off his earlier idea that the raven’s “nevermore”s were mere
parrotings of a word the bird had been taught in favor of the idea that the raven really does
know that the speaker will never be reunited with Lenore.

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