Question

When the raven first taps at the chamber door in “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe, it is midnight. What is the speaker’s first reaction to the tapping

Answer 1

Answer: He thinks it is a visitor.

In the first stanza of the poem "The Raven," the speaker hears a tapping at his chamber door around midnight. Wondering who could be at that hour, he assumes it is a visitor. The stanza says:

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.”

Answer 2

He thought the raven tapping was his love Lenore