[Footnote 7: This is Poe's poetic designation of America.]
[Footnote 8: "Virginia Clemm, born on the 13th of August, 1822, was still a child when her handsome cousin Edgar revisited Baltimore after his escapade at West Point. A more than cousinly affection, which gradually grew in intensity, resulted from their frequent communion, and ultimately, whilst one, at least, of the two cousins was but a child, they were married."—Ingram's Edgar Allan Poe, Vol. I, p. 136.]
[Footnote 9: These were the angels, to whom "Annabel Lee" was akin in sweet, gentle character. "A lady angelically beautiful in person, and not less beautiful in spirit."—Captain Mayne Reid.]
[Footnote 10: This may be literally true. At all events, it is related that he visited the tomb of "Helen"; and "when the autumnal rains fell, and the winds wailed mournfully over the graves, he lingered longest, and came away most regretfully.">[
[Footnote 11: This admirable poem is an allegory. The "stately palace" is a man who after a time loses his reason. With this fact in mind, the poem becomes quite clear. The "banners yellow, glorious, golden" is the hair; the "luminous windows" are the eyes; the "ruler of the realm" is reason; "the fair palace door" is the mouth; and the "evil things" are the madman's fantasies. The poem is found in The Fall of the House of Usher.
Poe claimed that Longfellow's Beleaguered City was an imitation of The Haunted Palace. The former should be read in connection with the latter. Though some resemblance may be discerned, Longfellow must be acquitted of Poe's charge of plagiarism.]
[Footnote 12: This terrible lyric is also an allegory. The "theater" is the world, and the "play" human life. The "mimes" are men, created in the image of God, and are represented as the "mere puppets" of circumstance. The "Phantom chased for evermore" is happiness; but for all, the end is death and the grave.]
[Footnote 13: This poem was first published in the New York Evening Mirror, January 29, 1845. "In our opinion," wrote the editor, N. P. Willis, "it is the most effective single example of 'fugitive poetry' ever published in this country; and unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift."
The story of The Raven is given in prose by Poe in his Philosophy of Composition, which contains the best analysis of its structure: "A raven, having learned by rote the single word, 'Nevermore,' and having escaped from the custody of its owner, is driven at midnight, through the violence of a storm, to seek admission at a window from which a light still gleams,—the chamber window of a student, occupied half in poring over a volume, half in dreaming of a beloved mistress deceased. The casement being thrown open at the fluttering of the bird's wings, the bird itself perches on the most convenient seat out of the immediate reach of the student, who, amused by the incident and the oddity of the visitor's demeanor, demands of it, in jest and without looking for a reply, its name. The raven addressed answers with its customary word, 'Nevermore'—a word which finds immediate echo in the melancholy heart of the student, who, giving utterance aloud to certain thoughts suggested by the occasion, is again startled by the fowl's repetition of 'Nevermore.' The student now guesses the state of the case, but is impelled, by the human thirst for self-torture, and in part by superstition, to propound such queries to the bird as will bring him, the lover, the most of the luxury of sorrow, through the anticipated answer, 'Nevermore.'">[
[Footnote 14: As Poe explains, the raven is "emblematical of mournful and never-ending remembrance.">[