Language and style

The complexity of “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe can be understood further by analyzing the poem for linguistic and stylistic choices of the author.

Playing with the language

A first instance in which the poem plays with the language is through the character of the raven, which gains human-like characteristics. The bird can talk, which is something extremely strange and unusual: “Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”” (l. 117)

In the same note, the word “Nevermore” becomes a leitmotif (a recurring image or phrase) in the poem and a refrain that gives it musicality.

Wordplay is also created through the external and internal rhymes noticeable in each of the 18 stanzas. Here is but one example:

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore. (ll. 8-13)

The rhythm is also a very important part of wordplay: lines 1 and 3 have 16 syllables, lines 2, 4, and 5 have 15 sylla...