《乌鸦》赏析

Poe‘s poetic theories are remarkable in their clarity（（诗歌理论简洁明朗）about even if they lack what Joseph Wood Krutch terms ―intellectual detachment‖ and ―catholicity of taste.‖ （尽管缺乏Krutch所说的―知识分子的超脱‖和―大众品味）These are best elucidated（最好的证明）in his ―the Philosophy of Composition‖ （创作原理）and ― The Poetic Principle.‖（诗歌原则）The poem, he says, should be short, readable at one sitting（一口气能读完）( or as long as ―The Raven‖【或与诗歌‖乌鸦―的长度相当】). Its chief aim is beauty, namely, to produce a feeling of beauty in the reader. Beauty aims at ―an elevating e xcitement of the soul,‖ (震撼灵魂) and ―beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. (无论何种形式的美，只要达到最高境界，就能令敏感的灵魂落下泪来) Thus melancholy is the most legitimate of all the poetic tones.‖ （所以悲伤是诗歌最好的基调）And he concludes that ―the death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.‖

Poe stresses rhythm, defines true poetry as “the rhythmical creation of beauty,‖ （真正的诗歌是富有美好旋律的作品）and declare s that―music is the perfection of the soul,or idea,of poetry.‖（音乐是诗歌灵魂和思想的最高境界）Poe was unabashed to offer his own poem ―The Raven‖as an illustration of his point.

―The Raven‖is about 108 lines, perfectly readable at one sitting. A sense of melancholy over the death of a beloved beautiful young woman pervades the whole poem: the portrayal of a young man grieving for his lost Lenore, （早逝的美丽女友Lenore ）his grief being turned to madness under the steady one-word repetition of the talking bird introduced right at the beginning of the poem：

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weakry.

Over many a quint and curious volume of forgotten lore.

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--

Only this, and nothing more."

After he sees the bird, its response -- or its imagined one一―nevermore"–keeps breaking upon the young man‘s psychic wound ruthlessly and ceaselessly as do the waves on the sea shore until his depression reaches its breaking point: And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o' er him streaming throve his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out chat shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted-nevermore!

The young man, a neurotic on the brink of a mental collapse, （精神几近崩溃）outpours his sorrow in his semi-sleep（半梦半醒之间）on the appearance of the bird. Poetic imagination externalizes itself（诗歌的想象力表现在… ）in the phantom of a bird （幻象中的小鸟）and intermingles with it to enhance the effect of tbe tragedy of the