The Raven as the Demon as Despair

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The Raven as the Demon as Despair

Soon after the death of a loved one come many visitors to the bereaved. Some arrive early, bearing gifts of food and speaking words of consolation and comfort. Others appear late in the day, unable to say anything, but still comforting in their very presence. But when the comforters have gone away and we sit through the lonely watches of the night, pondering our loss, the last visitor arrives. He comes invited, though not to bring consolation; his words are empty of that. No, his purpose is to smother any desire we may still have for life, to snuff out the smallest spark of hope that may yet gleam within our soul. He is the black-winged demon of despair, sent to bring us swiftly to the realm of everlasting pain and to bring the pain of Hell to us while we yet live.

Yes, he is summoned, and no less real for that. A very tangible manifestation of this demon and his influence is described by Edgar Allan Poe in his uncannily beautiful poem, "The Raven." Making masterful use of his gift for consonance and cadence, Poe has, within seventeen stanzas, depicted as powerful a description of a descent into the pit as to be found outside Dante's Inferno.

The poem begins by describing, in the first person, a man distraught with grief. In the midnight hours, caught up in a dark and desolate meditation from which he vainly seeks distraction among his books, he suddenly hears a rapping at the door. His mood, already morbid, is excited into terror. Flinging open the door, he finds only the bitter emptiness he had been trying so hard to shut out moments before. Into this darkness he whispers the name of his beloved Lenore. The terror and wonder that he feels, the daring dreams he entertains, are all expresse...

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...en paths are there, and gaping chasms. There likewise is God, there are the angels, there life and the kingdom, there light and the Apostles, the heavenly cities and the treas ures of grace; all things are there. [St. Macarios] (9)

Notes

Bibliography:

Notes

1. Alexandrova, N., "Elder Nectary of Optina," The Orthodox Word, No. 129, 1986.

2. Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (New York, n.d.), p. 944.

3. The Ladder of Divine Ascent, tr. Archimandrite Lazarus (Moore) (London, 1959).

4. Complete Tales, p. 945.

5. C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York, 1961).

6. H. Allen, Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe (New York, 1934), p. 488.

7. Complete Tales, p. 946.

8. Israfel, pp. 488-89.

9. Fifty Spiritual Homilies of St. Macarios the Egyptian, tr. A.J. Mason (London, 1921).

* Orthodox Tradition, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1988), pp. 28-33.

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