Edgar Allen Poe Reflection

When I was in junior high, we always read poems or some sort of literature from a different time period.  We always did something on Edgar Allen.  He was a very weird guy.  He seemed like he was depressed in his writing, because he wrote about depressing things like death.  The poem that I most remember from this time period was "The Raven".  I had to read it again to get caught up on what went on, but in reading this poem, it definitely shades to the dark romanticism.

The Dark Romanticism was a branch off of the Romanticism with means that it needs to be descriptive and have elements of nature but with the dark side they added mystery and tragedy to the story (Whiteman).  I was kind of wondering how you could have different kind of romanticisms, but than I thought of it like this... There are a lot of different types of cheeses.  Sharp, cheddar, pepper jack, havarti, and the list goes on, but they all are cheeses, they just happen to be different types of them.  The poem starts out right away in a sense of darkness. "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,.." (Poe)  First of all, you get the darkness right away from it.  Midnight dreary, why would anyone want to talk about that?  Than it says weak and weary.  It is just a very depressing start right away.  If you look closer at it though, it definitely is romanticism, not only dark romanticism, but romanticism.   It is descriptive in the status of the person walking and how it is depressing outside.  That can be overlooked by the darkness that the poem starts out with.  " And the lamp light o'ver him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;/ And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor/ Shall be lifted -- nevermore!" ( Poe)  Poe, himself, feels that he is that Raven.  He thinks that he is that dark and tragic thing on the inside.  I can not help to think the same way.  In my opinion, you have to be messed up in order to write this tragically.  I think he was.  Poe reflects a lot on the inner conflict and psychological state of his main character and what they feel inside and how that pain, usually affects them (Whiteman).  I can see how it affects Poe.

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!'
Merely this and nothing more" (Poe)
To give the reader a sense of what I meant by depressing, I chose this stanza from the poem.  All it talks about is darkness.  It is mentioned a couple of times, but I got him looking and walking down a dark alley, and screaming a name.  It is messed up.

Whiteman, Terra. "Dark Romanticism in Literary Fiction: A Historical Look on the Concept of the Infamous ‘Love Curse’." 6 Nov. 2011. Web.

Poe, Edgar A. "Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven." Heise Online | IT-News, C't, IX, Technology Review, Telepolis. Heisi Online. Web. 18 Jan. 2012. <http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literature/Lore/TheRaven.html>.