The Tartan

By Jimmy Baracia and Sofia Johnson

Jimmy Baracia: I was convinced I knew the story of “The Raven” because I watched the one episode of “The Simpsons” where they reference “The Raven”… do you know what I’m talking about?

Sofia Johnson: No…

JB: Why don’t you know any of my pop culture references?

SJ: I’ve never seen “The Simpsons.”

JB: Me neither, but I saw that one because my teacher made us watch it in eighth grade.

SJ: Anyway, hello everyone! Happy spooky season!

JB: Welcome back to Book Buddies. It smells so bad in this room.

SJ: Jimmy and I are struggling. We’ve opened two windows and we can still smell it. We have no idea what it is. It’s horrible. Terrible.

JB: And on the note of horrible smells, we read “The Raven” this week. I have no idea where I was going with that. It has no correlation.

SJ: Yes we did, Jimmy! “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe for the first week of October. It was spookier than I thought it would be. I’ve never read it before.

JB: I knew there was a raven.

SJ: Yeah! That’s an astute observation.

JB: I’ve never read it before either.

SJ: Which is weird because I feel like it’s THE Edgar Allan Poe thing.

JB: I would say “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

SJ: I would say “The Tell-Tale Heart” is definitely his most famous —

Both: — work.

JB: “The Raven” is his most famous —

Both: — poem.

JB: I feel like Edgar Allan Poe is such a big part of the English curriculum. I remember we watched “The Raven” from the “The Simpsons” episode. I have no recollection of what happened except for Homer doing something weird…

SJ: Oh, Homer Simpson. I thought you meant Homer like “Iliad” Homer. 

[Sofia and Jimmy apparently think this is really funny, because they laugh for a weirdly long time after this.]

SJ: I’m a big poetic structure nerd, so I was very excited about this because it’s got a cool — are you ready? Are you ready? It’s trochaic octameter! 

[Silence from Jimmy.]

SJ: Are you a poetry structure guy? Did you ever have to learn about it?

JB: I did, but I feel like I’m a poetry hater. I love reading poetry and I love writing poetry but I’m also the biggest snob when it comes to poetry. I like poetic diction and I thought that — wait, we’re jumping from “The Raven.” I’m not shocked.

SJ: It’s the topic of poetry. We’re good.

JB: I like it when it’s pretty. Like, I thought “The Raven” was very beautiful, and it was a lot of fun to read. When I was reading it, I was like “Oh my god, this is like Dr. Seuss but for adults.”

SJ: Was it just because it rhymes, or?

JB: I think it’s just the flow of it.

SJ: That’s the trochaic octameter!

JB: Yes, it’s so good! You read it and you can feel the movement.

SJ: I love a poem with a clear structure, and I think that’s why I liked this one a lot. Trochaic octameter and iambic pentameter are the two main poetic structures, in my opinion. Iambic pentameter is like the Shakespeare go-to. “The Raven” is one of the most famous examples of trochaic octameter, I think. It also has an internal rhyme scheme, like in the opening line, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary”. So yeah, the cool rhyme scheme makes it Dr. Seuss-y, and it makes it fun to read because you can feel it. 

JB: I had so much fun reading it. I don’t think I registered what had happened in the story because I was having too much fun reading it, and then I had to go back and re-read it to actually understand. 

SJ: Yeah, the rhymes make it fun. Also, the last line of each stanza, the shorter one, it wraps the stanzas up yet keeps the poem going. They end on the stressed syllable. It cuts off before the trochee is done — a trochee is stressed, unstressed — so it’s a little jarring, you know? So it makes it spooky! 

JB: It’s a little disorienting! That’s so fascinating! I think structure is interesting to look at, I just don’t look at it that much anymore. It does create an unsettling feeling. And I’m going to jump a little bit to the story. When you really think about the story, it is genuinely depressing. I feel like it’s not even that scary, it’s just sad.

SJ: I think it’s eerie. 

JB: Then I feel like when you add in the poetic structure, and the diction and all of that great stuff, it makes it very eerie and very spooky. I think that winter is so much creepier and eerier than fall.

SJ: Really? Because everything’s dead?

JB: Because everything’s dead, and it’s dark most of the time. There’s something so isolating about it, especially if it’s snowing. It creates this permeating loneliness.

SJ: That’s so Robert Frost. That’s so “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” of you.

JB: I don’t think I’ve read that.

SJ: NO!

JB: But yeah, it’s very fitting. I think winter sets the tone better than fall, and there’s a contrast between the very bleak landscape of winter and the darkness of the raven.

SJ: You’re right. It’s very lonely. It’s very isolating.

JB: When you look out the window at night and you see all the snow fall, I feel like it distorts your vision and your perception. Also, I feel like the Raven is such an awful character. He’s so mean!

SJ: Wait, also, “Lenore” is an Edgar Allan Poe poem. It was published two years before, I think, and it’s about someone named Lenore who died. So it’s about his grief. 

JB: My favorite thing in the world is when writers combine their stories and there’s overlap. I love it! Stephen King does it. I think taking characters from one piece — Holly Gibney is a recurring character of his, I believe, so I know she appears in different stories. I think it really combines the world. Even though it’s all fiction, it makes it feel more real because the stories are not all isolated.

SJ: Yeah, it’s like a universe. There’s a world around them. Also, there was a part that reminded me a lot of “The Tell-Tale Heart” — “so that now, to still the beating of my heart.” He talks about the tapping, and it felt a little bit like “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

[Jimmy and Sofia go on a few tangents here. Jimmy draws a raven on the whiteboard at some point.]

SJ: I looked up Pallas — the statue that the raven sits on — and he’s the Titan god of warfare. Thoughts?

JB: I think that’s really fascinating because it’s symbolic of the fact that he’s at war in his mind. It also brings up the question of “Does this raven know?” Does this raven actually symbolize anything? Or is he just imagining the raven talking?

SJ: Or is he imagining the raven? Is the raven even there?

[Sofia and Jimmy start talking about “The Secret History,” common mispronunciations of the word “acacia,” and the movie “Amadeus.”]

SJ: Why do you think it’s a raven?

JB: Ravens are really dark and eerie. But I’m also wondering, do we consider them dark and eerie because of Edgar Allan Poe? Because the only birds that I think of that I associate with eeriness are ravens and crows. And I would think crows are more creepy, but I think ravens are classier. Ravens and crows are often confused with each other. Also, I think it highlights the question of if it’s real or if he’s imagining it. It’s similar to when you see a black cat, like it’s the superstition of it all. Like crows symbolize death, right? So is he now making these associations because it looks like a crow, even though it’s a raven? I feel like there’s a lot of questions that we don’t know the answers to, and I think it works very well in the case of the story.

SJ: I agree. I’m glad we don’t know if it’s real or not. And also, now I’m thinking of what you brought up. Do we associate ravens with eeriness because of this poem, or did they have that association before?

JB: Yeah, it’s like the superstitions that we don’t really know the origins of. I think the story has a lot to do with superstitions.

SJ: He has a story called “The Black Cat,” too.

JB: I think animals in general can be made so creepy. There’s something so powerful about taking something that is inherently innocent and twisting it and manipulating it to make it dark and eerie. I think there’s something that’s highlighted by the fact that we can’t communicate with animals, so when they enter a place we’re like, “What do they know?” Like what does this raven actually know?

SJ: Assuming the raven is real!

JB: Isn’t that the point of the story? Wondering if it’s real or not?

SJ: I think we’re supposed to think it’s real, and the point is supposed to be that it’s a symbol of grief. Because it stays, and it’s on the statue of the god of warfare, and it’s sort of attacking him.

[Surprise! Jimmy and Sofia never finish this thought.]