"THE RAVEN."

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 698, 24 December 1909, Page 14

"THE RAVEN."

A writer in an. American periodical.has been suggesting, that the. raven yiu. Poe's poem of that_namo owes its existence there . to. the raven n, r ? • TKe savours ot. the obvious and must, of ten have been made sinpe.the day when Lowell wrote "Here comes Poa with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge." The dates permit the suggested' affiliation.' "Barnaby Kudge. was published in 1841 and "The ltaven'' ln M™?-.;'' Moreover,: Poe. was thoroughly acquainted with Dickens's hovel. - It was an a J •?'?:» , the "Saturday Evening Post" of lhiladelphia, in which he forecast the plot of the book and plucked'out beforehand tho .very.heart^of.,the mystery,, that led Dickens: to say that tho writer must have' dealings' with | th *'; Pnnoe of.-Darkne&s..;--.- Further,, in r the article contnbuted^o; "Graham's '.Magazine"'in .1842 it is clear that the raven had made a deep impression on Poe's imagination, not by what JJickens had made' of it,; but by what ho might have made. Hero are his Words:—r'The raven," he says,.-"intensely , amusing as it is,might ;nave been made, moro than we. now it,'a portion'of the.conception of-the faiitastic Bar- , I'- ■ 'croakings might .have • been prophetically hear(i in the course of the drama. Its character might have performed, in regard to that of tho idiot, much tho same part : as does, .in music,- the accompaniment in respect to tho air. .Now this is very much What the "■von does m the poem. In the lover's ears its Nevermore' is prophetical--"Prophet still if bird or dovil —and its continual recurrence is liko tho- accompaniment to the successive stanzas. . ■ , •