Thursday, April 25, 2013

In Poe's poem "The Raven," how would you describe the speaker's reaction when the raven first appears?

The speaker was rather surprised and bemused. In the first two lines of the eighth stanza, he says, "Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling...By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore". The sight of the bird, sitting so seriously above his chamber door with an almost human-like demeanor must have been a ludicrous sight, and it made him smile.

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