Answer:
Many words could be used to describe the mood in Edgar Allan Poe's brilliant poem "The Raven." In a single word, it can be considered "Gothic," More specifically, however, the mood is mysterious, melancholy, and even morbid.
In the poem, the speaker moves from melancholy to outright despair. His initial sorrow looks to have been caused by Lenore's death; however, by the end of the poem, his unhappiness is caused by the realization that his grief is eternal. In the poem, the Raven's words "Nevermore" is significant.
Explanation:
In "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator's emotional state changes drastically throughout the poem. When the narrator initially hears the tapping at his door, he is very calm, stating “'Tis some visitor [...] tapping at my chamber door/ Only this and nothing more"
Mystery pervades the poem from the beginning to the end. At first there is a mysterious rapping that the speaker believes is someone tapping on his door, but when he opens the door, he sees only the dark night. The rapping continues, and he realizes it is now at the window. Opening the window, he is at first pleased at the surprise visitor that flies in, and he tries to guess how it may have come to him. When he asks it what its name is, and it responds, "Nevermore," however, he becomes even more intrigued and tries to imagine its background and how it came to be able to speak such a doleful word. When it speaks again, he begins "linking fancy unto fancy" and "guessing" about the bird. The reader shares the speaker's curiosity. He then begins ruminating about his lost Lenore, and the reader wonders about that relationship. Finally, in the last stanza, rather than being solved, the mystery continues as the reader wonders whether the speaker's soul ever will "be lifted" from out of the shadow of the raven.
The melancholy mood is set up by the loneliness of the speaker and the darkness of the night. When the speaker posits that the raven will leave him like "other friends have flown before," and as his hopes have flown before,...
