the raven poem

the raven poem

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Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

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

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

“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—

This it is and nothing more.”

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—

Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal 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, “Lenore?”

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—

Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—

’Tis the wind and nothing more!”

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—

Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;

For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

With such name as “Nevermore.”

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—

Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—

On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”

Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;

Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,

But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,

She shall press, ah, nevermore!

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Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee

Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—

On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—

Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

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’s that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

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

Shall be lifted—nevermore!

The poetry of Edgar Allan Poe is tiny in size and large in resonance worldwide. Our intention to give continuity to several prearranged works of unquestionable value seemed to us initially unnecessary, since Poe has already been extensively investigated all around the globe. However, the dynamics of critical productions and translated texts is very complex and extremely fast, which justifies the constant updating of the index of references of the translations, especially considering an author so venerated by critics and readers. Thus, the main ingredient to advance in the debate is courage, plus methodological vigilance and rigor, and at the same time a passion for the author's work and for the research. Also, these elements are triggered by the own example of Edgar Allan Poe.

His strategy was to blend a romantic notion of poetic, unbelievably associated with an update of Aristotelian poetic discourse. Poe made a balanced fusion of art contemplating its two flanks: The Apollonian and the Dionysian, Poe used a universalizing, rationalizing and formally harmonic creative procedure, all of them of Apollonian strand in parallel to the theme, atmosphere and tone of the poem, all of Dionysian order, among which the night preponderates like metaphor and great symbol of its poetic texture. In a full demonstration of the translation phenomenon that "The Raven" became, we present in this research a preliminary redemption of the bibliographical sources of this translations fortune that was made based on "The Raven".

It is worth to remember that Poe just transposed the barriers of the relative aesthetic provincialism of the nineteenth-century USA - towards glory and veneration for the Romantics, Realists, Symbolists, Modernists (especially the Surrealists) poets, and the whole pleiad of short story writers and novelists - after Baudelaire and Mallarmé had translated him, what demonstrates the disseminating power of the translator's work, even if there are questions about the quality of the translation - something that not even Baudelaire can be immune to. To conceive these world mapping of translators of "The Raven" we also used the extraordinary work organized by Margarida Vale de Gato and Emron Esplin (2014), as well as the similar researches organized by Lois Vines (2002), which guided us to compose this world mapping panel of the "The Raven" translators.

based on several other researches and _ bibliographical indications, we arrive at the incredible number of 750 translations of “The Raven”, distributed in 52 idioms and in 67 countries, at least, because we couldn't cover other regions, such as Africa (with special emphasis on translations of Lusophone and Francophone African countries), Oceania and Asia - this one was only partially covered by us. It is also necessary to seek other sources in specific countries of all planet regions.

The universality of Poe's poem is reflected in many stufies through bibliographic data and reproductions of versions in the most varied languages. Unsurprisingly, the French stand out (represented first, but not only, by the famous translations of the poets and followers of Poe, Charles Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé), the Spanish (the pioneer version being that of the Mexican Ignacio Mariscal and the most considered , that of Venezuelan Juan Antonio Pérez Bonalde), in addition to many others in Italian, German, Dutch, Russian, Czech and Greek for example. However, it is also found from these pages that the Raven's wings also migrated to distant lands where it was possible to repeat its 'Nevermore' in Eastern European languages (Hungarian, Romanian, Polish and the Balkan region), in addition to the Scandinavian (Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish) and Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese) languages, and in regional speeches such as Dutch Frisian or Pennsylvania German, and even Latin and Esperanto. Not all mapped translations are reproduced, for obvious copyright issues, but many of the texts in the public domain have been included in their entirety, in many cases even in the facsimile modality of the original.

Poe's poem could be taken as a link, but without the need of considering it a critical unquestionable factor. There are many possibilities of studies about, for example, expose ideological opposing magnetisms that converge into translations of "The Raven", locating the signs of such ideological choices on the This explains in partially the Brazilian case of Machado de Assis's and Fernando Pessoa’s translations, that excludes the space for other good translation experiences of Poe's poem, cause the average readers and the critical reading of the research centers have been frozen, interested only in these translations. A similar situation occurs in the cases french and italian, with many poem translations, but the canon is based on the literary translator relevance, usually linked to the cultural epicenter of these idioms. The only exception is the Spanish translations, the translators that usually are remembered as the first ones to translate or by qualities of these translations came from hispanic "peripheral" countries: South American (Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Paraguay, etc.) and North Americans (Mexico).

translations, that still have some similarity to the source text. Other questions arise from this possibility, such as: are there ideologies marked in Poe's text or his option should be understood as "art for art", and was that what guaranteed space for other ideologies to settle there through translation?

Or, just the opposite, does the combination of his ideological and aesthetic position rescue a balance between discourses in shock? These and other approaches can be experienced by the translation, but it grows in geometric progression when one thinks of Poe's exemplary poem. In my opinion the most interesting fact is to have the clarity of this poem's place in idiomatic translations history and in art. Thus, this unusual poetic text has been one of the main symbolic regents of the contemporary processes of arts connections. 

It is ironic that Poe sold the poem publishing rights for just $15 and now it yields millions to the culture businessmen and to artists, who took their place of speech associated to Poe's name and work. Probably this review will need further studies to advance in this stunning table of translations accessible at the end of this text. Just like the canon selects some works and "forgets" a large part of the authors of a period, the translation's canon also relegates the major part of the transpositive experiences to an erased and undervalued corner.