In 1846, American author and poet Edgar A. Poe wrote in "The Philosophy of Composition" that the most melancholy of all topics, "according to the universal understanding of mankind" which serves as the foundation for poetry is death. Poe then asks himself, "And when is this...

To be buried while alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality. That it has frequently, very frequently, so fallen will scarcely be denied by those who think. The boundaries that divide life from death are at best shadowy and va...

The Meanings of the Raven Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" employs a raven itself as a symbol of the torture, mainly the self-inflicted torture, of the narrator over his lost love, Lenore. The raven, it can be argued, is possibly a figment of the imagination of the narrator, obviously distraught o...