The Raven Rhyme Scheme

Edgar Allan Poe is arguably most remembered for his poem “The Raven.” In its entirety, “The Raven” creates the scene of a depressed author finally receiving a glimmer of hope, only for it to be dashed away just as suddenly as it appeared. Stanza seventeen of “The Raven” focuses on the reaction of the author immediately after his hope has been destroyed by the dark bird.
“‘Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!’ I shrieked, upstarting” is the first line of the seventeenth stanza. That line shows just how annoyed and frustrated the narrator is getting with the repetitive raven. When he calls the raven “bird or fiend” he shows us that he is not sure whether the avian is a normal creature or a demon in disguise sent to torment him. …show more content…
While the poem never specifies if the raven is merely parroting that word or actually answering the narrator it appears to be the latter due to the ravens lack of movement in the next stanza. That conclusion helps to solidify the belief that the raven really is some demon meant to torment the narrator after the death of his love.
Throughout the poem many literary devices are used. Once such device is the rhyme scheme of ABCBBB for each stanza that helps them to smoothly blend into each other. Another device Poe uses in the poem are allusions. The allusion to Hades in stanza seventeen helps add to the dark mood of the poem as well as the raven’s apparently demonic nature. A third device is the use of consonance of the stressed “n” found in the words token, spoken, and unbroken. That use of consonance helps to show how emotional the narrator is while yelling at the raven.
In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”, the seventeenth stanza depicts the narrator attempting to drive out a foul fowl by means of yelling at it when it does not give the desired response. Multiple literary devices are used in the stanza to both show how frustrated the speaker is and to add to the overall mood of the