Edgar Allen Poe was one of America's most talented, and disturbed, writers. His most notable works, The House of Usher,
Tell- Tale Heart, and The Raven, brought him moderate success throughout his life and major recognition after his death. Poe's
forever yearn yearning for the opposite sex fueled the fire that made some of the most romantic works of his period. In his
poem Annabel Lee he writes, "For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the
stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee."(Annabel Lee, 35-38) He wrote many many more
poems of the same romantic stature but the same love that fueled him to write from his heart also caused him to write from his
soul. Poe's dark side shown through in works like The Black Cat where he writes, "One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a
noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree....hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had
given me no reason of offence..." (Black Cat, His romantic encounters acted as a double edged sword which led to depression
and failed suicide attempts. Maybe none of his works were more disturbing then The Raven, not because of grotesque imagery
but because of the haunting way the reader starts to feel the inner turmoil of the Narrator. The poem The Raven is about a love
lost man trying to ease his pain by reading books in his living are of his large dreary home. He is interrupted from his napping
by, what he says is a "tapping on my chamber door." He gets up hoping that it is his lost Lenore outside only to find that it is
nothing. The narrator sits back down and then hears a tapping at his window. He gets up and opens it and flies in a raven. The
raven comes in and stands on his statue. The man asks the raven his name, but the raven only answers with "Nevermore". The
man then goes on asking the raven all sorts of things ...