“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe is a dark reflection on lost love, death, and the loss of hope. This poem dramatizes the emotions of the poet, who has lost his beloved and tries in vain to distract himself from sadness by studying books. However, the books are of little help and a single visitor, a crow, disturbs his solitude. Throughout the poem Poe uses symbolism, imagery, and tone to reinforce his theme of sadness and loss. Additionally, with the use of assonance, alliteration, rhyme, and repetition, the poem reaches a melodic level that almost feels like singing when read aloud! I am fascinated by the new perspective that Poe brought to my attention on death. While the theme of death is usually associated with sympathy or horror, Poe managed to portray a feeling caught between the two. “Peering into the depths of that darkness, I stood there long wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams that no mortal had ever dared to dream before;” (Poe, 789). Poe communicated this poem through the use of abstract language and connotation. The abstract phrase repeated throughout the poem is the word “Nevermore” combined with “The Plutonian shore of night…” (Poe, 791). This phrase is repeated a few times in the poem, and the narrator uses it when addressing the bird. The word "plutonic" is used as an adjective referring to Pluto (Roman god of the underworld, or in other words, hell). Hell can be directly associated with death and, even more so, with eternal suffering. Hell, according to the Roman Catholic Church, is the place where souls burn eternally once they die. Therefore the quote above is an allusion that Poe used to convey the everlasting pain left after the death of a loved one. “Drink, oh drink this gentle nepenthe, and forget the lost Lenore” (Poe, 790). Here the allusion is expressed in the word 'nepenthe', a Greek word meaning “medicine for pain”. The narrator asks for the “drug".