Trick or Treat?
He looks like a treat to me. I hope youâve had a happy Halloween!
I got the cutest Halloween card from my friend, Susan.
Trick or Treat?
He looks like a treat to me. I hope youâve had a happy Halloween!
I got the cutest Halloween card from my friend, Susan.
The Raven
By Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten loreâ
âWhile I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
ââTis some visitor,â I muttered, âtapping at my chamber doorâ
âââOnly this and nothing more.â
âAh, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
âEagerly I wished the morrow;âvainly I had sought to borrow
âFrom my books surcease of sorrowâsorrow for the lost Lenoreâ
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenoreâ
âââNameless here for evermore.
âAnd the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled meâfilled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
âSo that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
âââTis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber doorâ
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;â
âââThis it is and nothing more.â
âPresently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
âSir,â said I, âor Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
âBut the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
âAnd so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard youââhere I opened wide the door;â
âââDarkness there and nothing more.
âDeep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
âBut the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
âAnd the only word there spoken was the whispered word, âLenore?â
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, âLenore!ââ
âââMerely this and nothing more.
âBack into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
ââSurely,â said I, âsurely that is something at my window lattice;
â Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery exploreâ
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;â
ââââTis the wind and nothing more!â
âOpen here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
âNot the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
âBut, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber doorâ
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber doorâ
âââPerched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
âThough thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,â I said, âart sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shoreâ
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Nightâs Plutonian shore!â
âââQuoth the Raven âNevermore.â
âMuch I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaningâlittle relevancy bore;
âFor we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
âEver yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber doorâ
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
âââWith such name as âNevermore.â
âBut the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
âNothing farther then he utteredânot a feather then he flutteredâ
âTill I scarcely more than muttered âOther friends have flown beforeâ
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.â
âââThen the bird said âNevermore.â
âStartled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
âDoubtless,â said I, âwhat it utters is its only stock and store
âCaught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
âFollowed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden boreâ
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
âââOf âNeverânevermoreâ.â
âBut the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
âThen, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
âFancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yoreâ
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
âââMeant in croaking âNevermore.â
âThis I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosomâs core;
âThis and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
âOn the cushionâs velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated oâer,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating oâer,
âââShe shall press, ah, nevermore!
âThen, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
ââWretch,â I cried, âthy God hath lent theeâby these angels he hath sent thee
âRespiteârespite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!â
âââQuoth the Raven âNevermore.â
ââProphet!â said I, âthing of evil!âprophet still, if bird or devil!â
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
âDesolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchantedâ
âOn this home by Horror hauntedâtell me truly, I imploreâ
Is thereâis there balm in Gilead?âtell meâtell me, I implore!â
âââQuoth the Raven âNevermore.â
ââProphet!â said I, âthing of evil!âprophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above usâby that God we both adoreâ
âTell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
âIt shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenoreâ
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.â
âââQuoth the Raven âNevermore.â
ââBe that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!â I shrieked, upstartingâ
âGet thee back into the tempest and the Nightâs Plutonian shore!
âLeave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
âLeave my loneliness unbroken!âquit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!â
âââQuoth the Raven âNevermore.â
âAnd the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
âAnd his eyes have all the seeming of a demonâs that is dreaming,
âAnd the lamp-light oâer him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
âââShall be liftedânevermore!
Sometimes, there are pieces of literature that are ingrained in your mind with a voice that is not your own. One of those is Linus reciting Chapter 2 from the Gospel of Luke in A Charlie Brown Christmas. Likewise, I can never read âThe Ravenâ without hearing it in Vincent Priceâs voice. Christopher Lee also did a famous reading of the poem, but Itâs Vincent Price that I would suspect every American of my generation, and possibly the one before, is more familiar with the Vincent Price version. One of my teachers had a record of the Price version, and I have always found it wonderfully creepy, as Vincent Priceâs voice always was. His horror movies were dreadful, but Priceâs voice is what really made him famous. Take a listen:
“The Raven” was first attributed to Poe in print in the New York Evening Mirror on January 29, 1845. Its publication made Poe popular in his lifetime, although it did not bring him much financial success. The poem was soon reprinted, parodied, and illustrated. Critical opinion is divided as to the poem’s literary status, but it nevertheless remains one of the most famous poems ever written.
The poem tells of a distraught lover who is paid a mysterious visit by a talking raven. The lover, often identified as a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. Sitting on a bust of Pallas (an epithet of the Greek Goddess Athena which recalls her attributes as the goddess of warfare), the raven seems to further antagonize the protagonist with its constant repetition of the word “Nevermore”. The poem makes use of folk, mythological, religious, and classical references. Poe claimed to have written the poem logically and methodically, with the intention to create a poem that would appeal to both critical and popular tastes, as he explained in his 1846 follow-up essay, “The Philosophy of Composition.”
In the essay, Poe traces the logical progression of his creation of “The Raven” as an attempt to compose “a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste.” He claims that he considered every aspect of the poem. For example, he purposely set the poem on a, pardon the clichĂ©, dark and stormy night, causing the raven to seek shelter. He purposefully chose a pallid bust to contrast with the dark plume of the bird. The bust was of Pallas in order to evoke the notion of scholar, to match with the presumed student narrator poring over his “volume[s] of forgotten lore.” No aspect of the poem was an accident, he claims, but is based on total control by the author.
Even the term “Nevermore,” he says, is based on logic following the “unity of effect.” The essay states Poe’s conviction that a work of fiction should be written only after the author has decided how it is to end and which emotional response, or “effect,” he wishes to create. Once this effect has been determined, the writer should decide all other matters pertaining to the composition of the work, including tone, theme, setting, characters, conflict, and plot. In this case, Poe logically decides on “the death… of a beautiful woman” because it is “unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.” Some commentators have taken this to imply that pure poetry can only be attained by the eradication of female beauty. Biographers and critics have often suggested that Poe’s obsession with this theme stems from the repeated loss of women throughout his life, including his mother Eliza Poe, his foster mother Frances Allan and, later, his wife Virginia.
The raven itself, Poe says, is meant to become symbolic by the end of the poem. By the end, Poe wanted his reader to see the Raven as symbolic, but it is not to appear so until the very last stanza when the reader is to see the Raven as symbolic of Mournful and Never-ending. This may imply an autobiographical significance to the poem, alluding to the many people in Poe’s life who had died.
Poe is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism and Gothic fiction in the United States and is best known for his poetry, such as âThe Ravenâ and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. While not all of his writings were Gothic, all of his writing is anchored in Romanticism. The fictionalized portrayals of Poe often show him as a “mad genius” or “tormented artist” while blending depictions of the characters in his stories suggesting that Poe and his characters share identities. I always associate Poe with the macabre aspects of Halloween, which is why I am featuring Poe and his most famous poem today of all days.
Happy Halloween!
Fingers crossed, itâs going to be a relatively easy week. Iâm ahead on my class preparations for this week, and other than a few meetings that shouldnât be too bad, I donât have anything unusual or stressful on my schedule. Does that mean it will be a relatively easy week? I sure hope so, but sometimes, itâs when my schedule looks the simplest that it turns out to be anything but. So, weâll see. I hope everyone has a wonderful week.
For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be establishedâthat is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.
âRomans 1:11-12
The other day, I came across the following clip in which Dolly talks about her spirituality on Person to Person with Norah OâDonnell:
Dolly may look flashy, and she once said that âIt takes a lot of money to look this trashy,â but she has always lived a beautiful life. She may be one of the richest woman in America, but she also donates to many charities. Her Imagination Library is a book gifting program that mails free books to children from birth until they begin school. Sheâs not calling for books to be banned or that libraries be defunded because they contain books that ignorant people find offensive. No, she is sending out books to children for free. Sheâs never claimed to be the âbest Christianâ or told others how they should behave. She has famously refrained from entering the political fray. âI donât do politics,â Dolly once said. âI have too many fans on both sides of the fence. Of course, I have my opinion, but I learned years ago to keep my mouth shut about things.â Staying out of politics is more than just being a shrewd businesswoman, but she is following Christâs teachings of not judging others. Some people believe she should be more vocal about politics, especially the way LGBTQ+ people are treated in the South, but she has always shown support in other ways.
In the clip above, Dolly talks about spirituality and living by example. I donât think you have to be the most vocal person in opposing evil and hateful politics, because some people can do more by living in a way that is an example to others. I think that what Dolly does so well. Sheâs never pretended to be something sheâs not. She was raised dirt poor and through hard work and incredible talent, she has prospered and has made sure she takes care of others along the way.
For true Christians, God lives within our hearts. We donât have to go to church, sit in the front pew, sing or say AMEN the loudest, or nod along with every word the preacher says. However, what we do need to do is to live our lives in a way that honors God. By following the teachings of Christ we can do that. Dolly lives the life that James advocated in his Epistle. I want to leave you with a passage from the Epistle of James in which he talks about the best way to practice our faith:
What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, âDepart in peace, be warmed and filled,â but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
But someone will say, âYou have faith, and I have works.â Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believeâand tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
âJames 2:14-20, 26
Iâm back to my regular schedule and working from home today. Itâs been a strange week. Monday and Tuesday were fairly normal days, but Wednesday and Thursday were not my usual. Wednesday, as you know, I stayed home, and Iâm glad I did with the reaction I had to the Covid vaccine. I was still not feeling great yesterday, but I needed to go to work and teach my class. After class, I came back home and rested the rest of the day. Iâm so glad Iâm finally feeling better. Iâll probably spend today working on next weekâs lectures, but for the most part, I really enjoy doing that. I probably also need to do some grading.
I hope everyone has a great weekend. Since itâs the last weekend before Halloween, does anyone have any Halloween plans or events theyâll be going to this weekend? đ I donât have any plans and donât expect that to change.