The Raven

“When We Two Parted“ by George Gordon Byron (1816)

A paragon of Romanticism, the English poet George Byron (often referred to colloquially as “Lord Byron”) had a substantial impact on Poe’s literary development. Much of Poe’s early poetry has clear markers of Byron’s influence, and Byron was unique among English and American Romantic poets in being rarely criticized by Poe. “When We Two Parted” highlights many of the themes Poe would feature in his own work: grief, the conflation of lost love and death, and the heavy burden of memory.

“Lady Geraldine’s Courtship“ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1844)

Published in 1844, “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” is widely acknowledged to be the metrical model for “The Raven.” One line of the poem even seems to have directly inspired a line in Poe’s work (compare Barrett Browning’s “With a rushing stir, uncertain, in the air, the purple curtain” to Poe’s “And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain”). In a nod to this debt, Poe dedicated his 1845 collection The Raven, and Other Poems to Barrett Browning.

“The Snow-Storm“ by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1835)

Both prominent American Romantics of their age, Edgar Allan Poe and Ralph Waldo Emerson had vastly different outlooks on the human mind.