Allusions to Poe's "The Raven"

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Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" has been frequently referenced and parodied in contemporary culture. Immediately popular after the poem's publication in 1845, it quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Some consider it the best poem ever written.[1] As such, modern references to the poem continue to appear in popular culture.

Print

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, ..."
"Guv'nor!"
Will Elder's absurd illustrations of "The Raven", from Mad Magazine #9, March 1954.

Film

  • "The Raven" was recreated as a hallucination of Poe's in the 1915 silent film The Raven. A fictionalized biography, it starred Henry B. Walthall as Poe.
  • The 1935 film The Raven has Bela Lugosi as a Poe-obsessed doctor and costars Boris Karloff. The film has an interpretive dance of "The Raven".
  • In 1942, Fleischer Studios created A Cartoon Travesty of The Raven. A two-reel Technicolor cartoon based upon "The Raven" which turned the story of the poem into a lighthearted comedy.
  • A Bugs Bunny cartoon, No Parking Hare, has Bugs reading a few lines from the poem, starting with the words, "While I nodded nearly napping". The comic he reads them from is stated as "Poe's Kiddie Comics".
  • In 1963, Roger Corman directed The Raven, a comedy with Karloff and Vincent Price, very loosely based on the poem.
  • In the 1967 stop-motion film
    Mad Monster Party
    , Baron von Frankenstein tests his new potion on a raven, and lets it fly until it lands on a tree branch. Watching the resulting explosion, he says with a chuckle, "Quoth the raven... nevermore. Ah, I've done it – created the means to destroy matter!"
  • The stop-motion short film Vincent (1982), by Tim Burton, features a protagonist named Vincent Malloy, whose "favorite author is Edgar Allan Poe." As Vincent lies, seemingly dying, at the end of the film, he quotes the final couplet of "The Raven".
  • In the 1983 film The Dead Zone, schoolteacher Johnny Smith quotes "The Raven" to his class during a lesson.[7]
  • In the 1986 film Short Circuit, the robot Number 5 makes the comment "nevermore" in reference to a pet raven of Stephanie Speck's.
  • In the 1989 film
    Vicky Vale
    when he says, "Take thy beak from out my heart."
  • In the 1994 film The Crow, Eric, the tragic protagonist, references "The Raven" after breaking down the door to Gideon's pawn shop: "'Suddenly, I heard a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.' You heard me rapping, right?"
  • In The Pagemaster (1994), when Richard and his books enter Dr. Jekyll's mansion and the door closes behind them, a raven flies down past them and says "Nevermore".
  • Hannes Rall directed an animated, German-language version of The Raven (Der Rabe) in 1998.
  • In Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), starring Eddie Murphy, when Dolittle holds a meeting with all the animals about how Archie the bear can help save their forest, most of the animals walk away because Archie seems like an idiot who won't be of much help. An irritated raven flies away saying "Nevermore".[8]
  • The film Nightmares from the Mind of Poe (2006) adapts "The Raven" along with three Poe short stories: "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Premature Burial".
  • In the 2005 film The Crow: Wicked Prayer, the third sequel to The Crow, during the final battle between Jimmy and Luc, Jimmy tauntingly shouts "Quoth the raven nevermore, motherfucker!"
  • In The Expendables (2010), numerous references are made to ravens and, obliquely, to "The Raven". Sylvester Stallone's character is in the process of getting a tattoo completed which features a raven, and the seaplane which his team travels in also features an oversize picture of a raven.
  • A film entitled The Raven, which stars John Cusack as a fictionalized Poe, was released in March 2012.

Television

The Simpsons version of "The Raven" (third segment of the first Treehouse of Horror special): Homer cries out "Be that word our sign of parting."
  • The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror" uses the poem in its third segment as Lisa reads the story to Bart and Maggie. In the animated segment, Homer serves as the protagonist, Bart takes the raven's form, Marge appears in a painting as Lenore and Lisa and Maggie are angels. Bart complains that the poem is not scary, and, at one point, the Raven says his catchphrase "Eat my shorts" instead of "Nevermore." Homer provides the spoken dialogue for the narrator, while James Earl Jones voices his thoughts. Much of the story is cut for time for this segment. This version of the story culminates (after the last two lines of stanza 17 are repeated again) with Homer chasing the Bart-Raven around the study before the last stanza (before said last stanza is told, the Bart-Raven drops books of other stories by Poe onto Homer). Poe and "The Raven" are also referenced in the episode "Saturdays of Thunder", when Dr. Nick Riviera appears in an infomercial promoting a cleaning product that will clean dirty gravestones. Troy McClure responds to Riviera with: "Quoth the raven, 'What a shine'."
  • Marty Allen, being constantly maligned by a talking raven (an uncredited Mel Blanc
    ) on a bust of Pallas as Poe is trying to write the original "Raven" poem.
  • Garfield and Friends parodied the poem in the form of a U.S. Acres short titled "Stark Raven Mad", in which Orson narrates, to the tune of the poem, guarding the harvest against Roy's attempts to steal it.
  • The Histeria! episode "Super Writers" featured a sketch in which a Peter Lorre-esque Poe attempts to pitch his poem to Sammy Melman, who wants a brighter poem with a happy narrator and a bunny instead of a raven. This frustrates Poe to no end and eventually drives him to publish the poem independently. Later in the episode, in a sketch featuring Poe as a villain, the raven serves as his sidekick.
  • Tiny Toon Adventures parodies the poem, with Sweetie Pie playing the role of the Raven while Vincent Price performs the narration voice-over.[9]
  • The Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain episode "The Ravin!" parodies the poem, with the Brain narrating and Elmyra using a phrase repetitively.
  • In the TV show The Addams Family, Morticia uses "The Raven" as a bed-time story to her son Pugsley, reciting it as a nursery rhyme. (Episode 1.2 "Morticia and the Psychiatrist", original air date: 25 September 1964)
  • The 1960s sitcom The Munsters featured a cuckoo clock with a wise-cracking raven (who had named himself "Charlie") instead of a cuckoo, which would emerge and say, "Nevermore, Nevermore" – usually as a comic foil for Herman Munster.
  • The animated series Beetlejuice fourth season episode "Poe Pourri" featured Poe as one of the eccentric residents of the Neitherworld who comes to Beetlejuice's Roadhouse searching for his lost Lenore, and with him comes a talking raven who does his verse rapper-style.
  • An episode of
    Cyborg as they use a magical mirror to enter the mind of their friend Raven
    .
  • In the Gilmore Girls episode, "A Tale of Poes and Fire", "The Raven" is recited by two men dressed like Edgar Allan Poe for a Poe convention.
  • In a fourth season episode of Alton Brown's Good Eats ("Fry Hard II: The Chicken"), Brown's prologue shows him rummaging through his cookbooks ("forgotten lore") looking for chicken recipes accompanied by a voice-over of him reciting a parody of the first few stanzas of the poem, during which a plastic chicken, taking the raven's place, perched on the bust of Julia Child and repeatedly says "Fry some more".
  • The
    Poe De Spell
    is a raven who often says "nevermore".
  • The
    Quoth the Weirdo" is featured around poetry. Gonzo
    found much appeal in the spooky atmosphere of "The Raven".
  • The Gothic animated series Ruby Gloom based on the apparel franchise of the same name features three ravens named Edgar, Allan and Poe, with Poe being the most prominent.
  • In one episode of "Bullwinkle's Corner" from
    The Bullwinkle Show
    , the poem parodied is "The Raven". The bird which comes into Bullwinkle's "chamber spooky" is a woodpecker instead of the expected raven. Bullwinkle pursues the imposter bird with a fireplace poker and ends up hitting himself on the head. The narration concludes "Now the room is round me wavin'/ feels like I've been in a cave-in/ When will next I read "The Raven"?/I can tell you...nevermore!"
  • In the 11th episode (called "Nevermore") of television series Warehouse 13, many Poe poems feature, including "The Tell-Tale Heart" and, of course, "The Raven".
  • In the Star Trek episode "Charlie X", a youth with strange powers forces Mr. Spock to recite the first verse of "The Raven", after he had moments previously recited the first verse of William Blake's poem "The Tyger".
  • In The Following the message "Neverwhere" is found in multiple murder scenes and the murders are strongly connected to Poe's work. Additionally, Joe Carroll, the series' primary antagonist and an admirer of Poe, says "Quoth the raven... Nevermore." as his last words, just prior to his execution by lethal injection.
  • On
    Naomi
    recall their days at EAPHS by singing the school fight song: "GO! GO! GO! EDGAR ALLAN POE! We will leave'em weak and weary, we will give'em midnight dreary, will they ever top our score? Quoth the raven, NEVERMORE!".
  • The sixth season of Teen Wolf references it on multiple occasions. The first time shows ravens flying alongside the Wild Hunt in a painting, symbolizing the Wild Hunt's ability to steal souls and take them into the state between life and death. The poem is more obviously referenced in episode 6 ("Ghosted") with a character named Lenore who refuses to let go of her own past, hallucinating much like the narrator in the poem, bemoaning the loss of someone she loved.
  • In the third season episode of The 100, "Fallen", Raven Reyes recites stanza 85–90 in an attempt of sensory overload to block A.L.I.E. from her brain. Also in season 3 is an episode titled "Nevermore", in which Raven succeeds in removing A.L.I.E. from her brain.
  • In Altered Carbon, the AI proprietor of The Raven Hotel is called Poe, whose appearance is similar to Edgar Allan Poe. In the second series, Poe manages The Nevermore Hotel. In the original Altered Carbon novel on which season 1 of the television series is based, the hotel is called The Hendrix and is themed after rock musician Jimi Hendrix, with the AI (also called "The Hendrix") taking the form and personality of Hendrix but also able to shapeshift into other forms. When the television series was made, the producers were forced to swap the Jimi Hendrix themes with Edgar Allan Poe ones because the Jimi Hendrix estate refuses to license Hendrix's image in anything they consider violent.[10]
  • In the final episode of Young Justice: Outsiders entitled "Nevermore", when Jefferson Pierce hacks in to The Light's base of operations with Cyborg's help and finds Lex Luthor, he says "While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping."
  • In Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure in the episode "Destinies Collide", after being attacked by a group of ravens, the character Lance remarks "Nevermore."
  • The final episode of The Fall of the House of Usher is titled "The Raven". Roderick Usher recites a portion of the poem while he recounts the death of his granddaughter Lenore, who is killed by a character who takes the form of a raven. Ravens appear throughout the series, which is loosely based on multiple Poe works.
  • In the fourth season episode of Solar Opposites, "The Super Gooblers," the Pupa haunts a wealthy woman in a manner similar to Poe's Raven. As the woman laments her loneliness stemming from her toxic behavior, the Pupa repeats the word "Cocomelon" until the woman has a breakthrough and resolves to be a better person.

Music

  • The psychedelic band The Glass Prism released an album in 1969 entitled Poe Through the Glass Prism, with the lyrics coming entirely from various poems by Poe. "The Raven" was the single from the album.
  • The band Kennelmus released the song "The Raven" on their 1971 album Folkstone Prism with lyrics derived from the poem.
  • The Alan Parsons Project album Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1976) includes a song based on "The Raven" and entitled the same, but with only two verses.
  • A musical variation of "The Raven" was performed by the Grateful Dead during Space on April 19, 1982.
  • The black metal band Carpathian Forest used the first two verses of the poem for "The Eclipse / The Raven" on their EP Through Chasm, Caves and Titan Woods (1995).
  • The gothic metal band Tristania released a track titled "My Lost Lenore" on Widow's Weeds (1998). It is clearly inspired by this poem, but does not incorporate the poem as part of the lyrics. The entire album is in fact reminiscent of "The Raven". "The Ravens" is another song inspired by the poem, although its main theme is terrorism.
  • The German black metal band Agathodaimon quotes "The Raven" in the song "Les Posédes" on their 1999 album Higher Art of Rebellion.
  • A song based on "The Raven" appears on the Grave Digger album The Grave Digger (2001), alongside other songs based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe.
  • Run-Around
    " opens with an allusion to the opening line of "The Raven": "Once upon a midnight dreary".
  • Lou Reed's 2003 album The Raven is based on Poe's work, including his own version of The Raven in a song by the same name.
  • The song "Kremlin Dusk", from Japanese American pop star Hikaru Utada's English-language album Exodus (2004), begins "All along, I was searching for my Lenore/In the words of Mr. Edgar Allan Poe/Now I'm sober and "Nevermore"/Will the Raven come to bother me at home." It also refers to the "dying ember" line in the poem.
  • Washington metal band Nevermore got its name from the repeated refrain in "The Raven". The band also referenced it in the title track from their 2005 album This Godless Endeavor
    .
  • The Dutch neoceltic pagan folk band Omnia put a slightly edited version of the poem to music as the second track on their 2007 album Alive!.
  • The American gothic horror band Nox Arcana released a CD entitled Shadow of the Raven in 2007. Three songs – "Midnight Dreary", "The Raven" and "Nevermore" – as well as the album's title, are direct references to the poem.
  • The German symphonic metal band Xandria included the quote "Thus spoke the raven, 'Nevermore'" in their song "Ravenheart", which is inspired by the poem as well.
  • The
    third-wave ska band Five Iron Frenzy quotes many of Poe's lines in "That's How The Story Ends", from The End Is Near
    , and alludes ironically to the mysterious and somber mood of "The Raven".
  • The song "Campanas en la Noche" ("Bells in the Night") by the Argentine rock band Los Tipitos, the tale of a man wishing for the return of his lover, is loosely based on the poem. This relationship is even more evident in the song's video, which features the bust of Pallas and the titular raven itself.
  • Rapper
    The Laptop EP
    , quoting some lines directly from the poem and modifying others (e.g. "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I kicked it weak and weary").
  • The Canadian artist Nash the Slash included an instrumental track called "Lost Lenore" on his vinyl album The Million Year Picnic.
  • Jean Sibelius based an early conception of his fourth symphony on "The Raven."[11]
  • The Devil Wears Prada used a track of a man reading a part of "The Raven" as a part of an introduction to concerts during a 2008 tour with Underoath. The piece led into the ending breakdown in the song "Goats on a Boat".
  • The Dutch based hardstyle artist DJ Pavo released a track entitled "Raven", which quotes various lines from the poem.
  • Buddy Morrow and His Orchestra recorded an album of songs based on Poe's works. The album, Poe for Moderns, includes a condensed, jazzy version of "The Raven".
  • The hip hop group
    Water for Mars
    . The group paraphrases Poe's famous line in a few cynical lines (e.g. "Nevermore said the raven, goodbye to innocence").
  • Recording artist
    Natalia Kills released a Halloween inspired, abridged reading of the poem with backing from Space Cowboy
    for 2009. She then released a version with the full poem for 2010, with no backing from Space Cowboy or vocal effects, instead, there were sound effects to reflect the poem.
  • Swiss folk metal band Eluveitie released a track titled "Quoth the Raven" on their 2010 release Everything Remains (As It Never Was) portraying the Raven as the harbinger of death.
  • The Darren Criss song "High School Rock Out" made a reference to "The Raven" with the line "And you think he might be waiting but behind him is your raven singing 'Nevermore' I'm laying him down".[12]
  • The Band known as "Circus Contraption" had the lyric "Nevermore the raven said and then he fell upon his head the poor bird lost his balance in flight" in their song "We Are All Mad".
  • In his song "Now Is Now", Reverend Flash uses the line "Vainly, I had sought to borrow" in a verse which ironically addresses purported plagiarism in the song itself.
  • Spoken at the end video for the Thirty Seconds to Mars song "Hurricane" are the lines "Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before".
  • In 2013, English musician Steven Wilson released The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories), featuring songs based on Edgar Allan Poe's works, with the title track "The Raven That Refused to Sing" based directly off the poem.
  • In 2014, the
    Oregon Crusaders Drum and Bugle Corps performed their program entitled "Nevermore", using selected stanzas from the original poem and using musical selections by Zack Hemsey, Kevin Walczyk, Paul Bissell, Vienna Teng and Samuel Barber
    .
  • In 2018, American composer/violinist Edward W. Hardy composed a solo violin piece called "Nevermore" which was inspired by The Raven.[13]
  • The Greek Black Metal band Rotting Christ released a track titled "The Raven" on their 2019 album The Heretics. The song's lyrics feature excerpts from the poem.
  • Russian
    Goth Rock
    band "Raven Said", whose name and oeuvre are inspired by this and other works of Edgar Allan Poe.
  • Country singer
    Stonewall Jackson (musician) released ""Never More" Quote [sic] The Raven", a song about a lost love, in 1969.[14]
  • In 2021, the artists sasakure.UK and lasah collaborated under the name sasalasa, released the single "nevermore" in which the title and lyrics are influenced by the poem.

Video games

  • In the interactive fiction game by Infocom, A Mind Forever Voyaging, Part II begins with a line from the poem: "Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, / Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before..."
  • The video game Eternal Darkness for the GameCube opens with a quote from "The Raven": "Deep into that darkness peering/Long I stood there wondering, fearing, doubting..." A large theme of the game is the characters' slowly collapsing sanity. It sets up the games "sanity meter" mechanic where things in the game itself make less and less sense as your sanity depletes: walls start to bleed, screams are heard. Sometimes the game will make the player think the game itself has reset and will show you the quote again appearing to show that the player lost all his or her progress only for the screen to flash and put you right back where he or she was were as if nothing happened.
  • In another PC game, Nancy Drew:
    Warnings at Waverly Academy, as Corine mentions that she is a Poe fan, as well as Leela having the missing Poe book, "The Black Cat and Other Stories", which includes "The Raven" and other works, as well as the pendulum challenge, a reference of "The Pit and The Pendulum
    , which is also in Leela's book.
  • In the video game
    mod Defense of the Ancients, a hero is named Nevermore, after the word the raven sequentially spoke. Nevermore the Shadow Fiend is a demon who collects and traps the souls of his enemies and his ultimate ability Requiem of Souls, releases the souls collected into an area to damage his enemies in a line. In the stand-alone sequel Dota 2, his description is reminiscent of the poem; his background story says Nevermore has the soul of a poet, as well as warriors, criminals, slaves, and priests.[15]
  • In the game League of Legends, the champion Swain has a spell called Nevermove which immobilizes his enemies.
  • In the 2016 video game Overwatch, the hero/playable character Reaper has two skins available that directly reference "The Raven". The skins feature bird-head shaped masks and are titled Plague Doctor and Nevermore, the latter referencing the poem's refrain, "Quoth the raven, Nevermore.", and the former being a recolor of Nevermore.
  • In the Collector's Edition of the episodic video game The Last Door, itself heavily influenced by Poe and Lovecraft, there is an easter egg in the 4th episode of season one – "Ancient Shadows", where a raven can be triggered to utter the phrase, "Nevermore".
  • In the video game Fallout 4, Nick Valentine will quote "Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing..." towards the end of the quest 'Reunions' as you exit Fort Hagen.
  • In the video game Fortnite Battle Royale, players are able to purchase the cosmetic item titled "Raven" with the description listing it as part of the "Nevermore Set", referencing the Raven's quote.
  • The video game Baldur's Gate 3 features two different spells that can summon a magical raven to aid the player’s characters. In both cases, the raven is named "Quothe". (This is likely also a reference to the Discworld character Quoth the Raven.)
  • In the video game Terraria, the Raven is an enemy found in Graveyards, which are spawned in places with at least 5 gravestones. Its entry in the game's bestiary simply says "Nevermore" eight times.
  • In the video game Honkai: Star Rail, "Quoth the Raven" and "Nevermore" are two soundtracks that are played in some of the missions. The readable object "Death of the Crow" contains an adapted version of "The Raven".

Other

An 1890 political cartoon from Puck Magazine depicts The Raven as Secretary of State James G. Blaine watching President Benjamin Harrison.

See also

References

  1. ^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper Perennial, 1991. p. 237
  2. ^ "RE: Cremains / Ravens". Pro Exlibris archives. Archived from the original on September 2, 2000. Retrieved 2007-04-01.
  3. ^ Original issue unknown, source: "Greasy Mad Stuff"; compilation of various pieces from Mad, published by Signet, 1962. pp 132-133.
  4. ISBN 1-86046-098-4
  5. ^ "Black House". Entertainment Weekly. 2001-09-21. Retrieved 2022-06-27.
  6. ISBN 0-7553-2281-9
  7. ^ "Memorable Quotes". IMDb.
  8. ^ "Dr. Dolittle 2 Memorable Quotes". IMDb.
  9. ^ "Tiny Toon Adventures - Season 1 Episode 60 "How Sweetie It Is".
  10. ^ Holloway, Daniel (2018-06-07). "Why 'Altered Carbon' Boss Replaced Hendrix With Poe for Netflix Adaptation". Variety. Retrieved 2024-05-31.
  11. ^ Ross, Alex (2 July 2007). "Apparition in the Woods". The New Yorker.
  12. ^ "HIGH SCHOOL ROCK OUT". Darren Criss The Lyrics Archive. Archived from the original on 2011-07-15.
  13. ^ News, BWW. "Composer Of THE WOODSMAN Edward W. Hardy Performs Works Inspired By Edgar Allan Poe & L. Frank Baum". BroadwayWorld. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  14. ^ https://www.discogs.com/release/5214724-Stonewall-Jackson-How-Many-Lies-Can-I-Tell-Never-More-Quote-The-Raven
  15. ^ "Hero - Shadow Fiend". www.dota2.com. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  16. ^ "Computer songs and poems: The HACTRN". www.poppyfields.net.
  17. ^ "Raven Society".
  18. ^ "Baltimore Ravens History". Pro Football Hall of Fame. Retrieved 2006-08-25.
  19. ^ "TMQ's all-haiku NFL preview". ESPN.com. Retrieved 2022-06-27.
  20. ^ "Midnight Dreary - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation".
  21. ^ "Abort, Retry, Ignore - Poe Puree". www.stokely.com.
  22. ^ "poe". www.silverberch.com.
  23. ^ ""The Raven's Nest - The Query"". Angelfire.
  24. ^ "A Quaint And Curious Volume - Penny Arcade". www.penny-arcade.com.
  25. ^ "The Raven". xkcd.
  26. ^ "QUOTH THE SERVER "404"". messybeast.com.
  27. ^ Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, Vol 97 #5, May 1977
  28. ^ Sellers, Pete (November 6, 2007). "Dementium: The Ward - Review". Deeko. Archived from the original on November 9, 2007. Retrieved April 27, 2017.

External links

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