In its introduction in The Evening Mirror, it was written that The Raven 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.”
Poe probably wrote it the summer before, and it seemed to go through a few different versions before he was finally satisfied with it.
On JanuThe Raven was published in the New York Evening Mirror. Once again, Poe’s life was to mirror his art. That was story Poe knew well, and almost a year to the day later would know even better. It’s not the terror of the bird that does the narrator in, but the loss of his love. The author goes from curiosity at this interloper, to irritation, to fear and finally madness. A Raven flitters in and taunts him with his one word answer to his quest … nevermore. It’s the story of a man in solitude, in the dark of night, the bleak of winter, searching books of magic and the occult for an answer to find his Lenore. It’s not a long poem, but it crams a lot of words into into its length. Albeit The Raven supped on darker worms than most pop songs. The Raven was an earworm for its day, sticking in the head like a pop song would now. His star was on the rise, as a writer, an editor and a critic, but it was fame without fortune. Poe’s life changed with a second move to New York City in 1844. James Park, I found a parking place there, surprisingly enough, and set off towards the little house just across the Grand Concourse, the most important site in Poe’s New York City, She told me to park down the street, next to St. Plus I figured she knew the neighborhood. I’ve lived in the New York metro area long enough to know that it’s not good to argue with a screaming native. A lady comes rushing up, telling me I can’t park there, I’ll surely be ticketed. There are no signs restricting parking, lines drawn for parking spaces on the street. I pull into a parking space on a deserted street just off Poe Park in the Bronx. So with the promise of rustic Italian dining along the way, I wandered the streets of Manhattan to find the poet’s footprints. The places Poe touched in Manhattan and the Bronx can still be found, though in most cases the surroundings are unrecognizable from his day.
It’s a tantalizing legend, that the building that now houses Il Buco in New York City was the macabre inspiration in Poe’s life for the setting of The Cask of Amontillado.
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