The Raven in popular culture

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This article discusses the use of Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem in popular culture. For the use of the bird itself in culture, see Cultural depictions of ravens.

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Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" has been frequently referenced and parodied in contemporary culture. Immediately popular after the poem's publication in 1845, it quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Some consider it the best poem ever written.^[1] As such, modern references to the poem continue to appear in popular culture.

1 Print
2 Film
3 Television
4 Music
5 Other
6 References
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Print

Writer James Russell Lowell, a contemporary of Poe's, references to "The Raven" and its author in his poem, "A Fable for Critics": "Here comes Poe with his Raven, like Barnaby Rudge, / Three fifths of him genius, two fifths sheer fudge." This mention alludes to the belief^[2] that Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty may have inspired Poe to write "The Raven".
In Edmund Clerihew Bentley's Trent's Own Case (1913), Trent, standing at an open French door and reciting the fifth stanza to himself, receives an unexpected reply:

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

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals 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, ..."

"Guv'nor!"

Will Elder's absurd illustrations of "The Raven", from Mad Magazine #9, March 1954.

In the magazine Mad issue 9 (March, 1954), "The Raven" is reprinted in full with absurd illustrations by Will Elder. Another parody appeared in a Mad collection, We're Still Using That Greasy MAD Stuff (1959). It was titled as "The Spaniel." Rather than "Nevermore," the author was bombarded with famous commercial taglines. A more recent parody in Mad by Frank Jacobs, titled "The Reagan", appeared in issue 265 (September 1986). Even more recently, the poem was used to parody horror movies, and how successful ones often have sequels made that are of low quality. The recurring line is, "Quoth Wes Craven, let's make more!"
In the Donald Duck 10-pager "Raven Mad" by Carl Barks, published in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #265 in 1962, Huey, Dewey and Louie play with a raven who can only say "Nevermore." As in the poem, the raven often repeats the word throughout the story.
Lampoonist Brockeim parodies the poetic structure in a romantic lament, The Beauty, "Once upon a fortnight dreary, up so late, my eyes were bleary,/ Over many a thought of curious and hopeful dreams (of which there’s more)—"
"The Raven" has been the subject of constrained writing. Georges Perec's novel A Void (1969), written entirely without the letter 'E' in French and subsequently translated into English by Gilbert Adair under the same constraint, contains a full-length "translation" of "The Raven" entitled "Black Bird." It is attributed to "Arthur Gordon Pym."^[3]
Mathematician Mike Keith has also referenced the poem in three examples of constrained writing:
- "Near a Raven" is a reworking of Poe's poem in which the length of words correspond to the first 740 digits of pi (1995)
- Cadaeic Cadenza, a longer work under the same constraint, begins with the full text of "Near a Raven" (1996)
- "Raven-Two", a poetic anagram of the original (1999)
Poet C. L. Edson wrote a parody (ca. 1955) entitled Ravens of Piute Poet Poe, mocking Poe's alliteration and repetition:

"Prophet," said I, "thing of evil, navel, novel, or boll weevil, You shall travel, on the level! Scratch the gravel now and travel! Leave my hovel, I implore."

A raven named Quoth, who first appears in "Soul Music" and recurs in "Hogfather" as the steed of the Death of Rats, is a minor character associated with Death in Terry Pratchett's fictional Discworld universe, although on a matter of principle he doesn't "do the N word." He is currently in the employ of a Wizard; his job mainly entails sitting on a talking skull and croaking a lot.^[vague]
In Joan Aiken's novel Arabel's Raven (1972), as well as further books from the Arabel and Mortimer series, a young girl named Arabel has a pet raven named Mortimer who often says the word "Nevermore!" Aiken won an Edgar Award in 1972.
The Calvin & Hobbes collection "The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury" (released September 1988) contains an original illustrated poem, "A Nauseous Nocturne," which is clearly patterned after "The Raven."
In Stephen King's novel Insomnia (1994), Ralph compares an omen to the raven of the poem. The novel Black House (2001), written by King and Peter Straub, also features a talking crow reminiscent of the raven in Poe's poem.^[4] Part III of the novel is entitled "Night's Plutonian Shore."
In Robin Jarvis's Tales from the Wyrd Museum trilogy (1995-1998), Woden has two raven servants named Thought and Memory. Memory is known as Quoth throughout the stories, and occasionally says "Nevermore".
In the seventh book of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Vile Village (2001), a tree in the center of the village covered with crows is called the "Nevermore Tree."
Neil Gaiman references "The Raven" in two of his works:
- In the novel American Gods (2001), the protagonist, Shadow, asks one of Odin's ravens, "Hey, Hugin or Munin, or whoever you are. Say 'Nevermore.'" The raven responds, "Fuck you."^[5]
- The comic book series The Sandman features a raven named Matthew, who has been transformed into a raven as an alternative to death. At one point in the series, he flaps his wings and screams, "Nevermore!", only to explain that he was "being Peter Lorre in that one Roger Corman movie".
Level Ground Press and artist Bill Fountain published an illustrated re-imagining of "The Raven" in 2005. The book incorporates raven myths and legends from around the world into the visual interpretation of the story.
Bigfoot is used instead of a Raven as a parody in the 2005 novel, From Fear to Flattery by Tony Hughes.
Holly Black quotes the poem in her 2005 novel Valiant : A Modern Tale of Faerie, alluding to it as the source for the name of the drug called 'Nevermore'. However, this is later contradicted, when one of the characters asserts that the name comes from the limitations of its use: "Never more than once a day, never more than a pinch at a time, and never more than two days in a row."
One issue of the American Sonic the Hedgehog comic by Archie Comics featured a sorcerer by the name of Mathias Poe, an anthropomorphic Raven undoubtedly based on the Poem.
Fantasy novel The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde features a villanous character named Jack Schitt who is ultimately trapped inside a copy of "The Raven".
In the book Eldest, the white raven Blagden says "And on the door was graven evermore, what now became the family lore, Let us never do but to adore," making references to The Raven with the first part of the rhyme.
In the graphic novel Batman: Year One by Frank Miller, the moment when Bruce decides which method he will use to fight crime is widely regarded^{[citation needed]} as a reference to the poem because of the kind of chamber he is in and the bust on which the bat lands.

[edit] Film

"The Raven" was recreated as a hallucination of Poe's in the 1915 silent film The Raven. A fictionalized biography, it starred Henry B. Walthall as Poe.
In 1942, Fleischer Studios created a two-reel Technicolor cartoon based upon "The Raven" which turned the story of the poem into a lighthearted comedy.
Roger Corman's 1963 film The Raven is derived from this poem.
The stop-motion short film Vincent (1982), by Tim Burton, features a protagonist named Vincent Malloy, whose "favorite author is Edgar Allan Poe." As Vincent lies, seemingly dying, at the end of the film, he quotes the final couplet of "The Raven".
In 1989's Batman, Jack Nicholson (as The Joker) quotes "The Raven" to Kim Basinger's Vicky Vale when he says, "Take thy beak from out my heart."
Hannes Rall directed an animated, German-language version of The Raven (Der Rabe) in 1998.
A Spanish short film, with English dialogues, directed by Tinieblas González appeared in 1999.^[vague]
The poem was translated to film by Trilobite Pictures and director Peter Bradley in 2003. The short film was released on DVD in 2005 by Lurker Films.
In the 1994 film The Crow, Eric, the tragic main character, references "The Raven" before blowing up Gideon's pawn shop: "Suddenly, I heard a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. You heard me rapping, right?"
In the 1994 film, The Pagemaster, when Richard Tyler is visiting the land of horror and enters Dr. Jeykell/Mr. Hyde's mansion, a raven swoops down next to them and screeches the word, 'nevermore'.
The film Nightmares from the Mind of Poe (2006) adapts "The Raven" along with three Poe short stories: "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Premature Burial".

[edit] Television

The Simpsons version of "The Raven" (3rd segment of the first Treehouse of Horror special): Homer cries out "Be that word our sign of parting."

The Simpsons original Treehouse of Horror parodies the poem in its third segment as Lisa reads the story to Bart and Maggie. In the animated segment, Homer serves as the protagonist, Bart takes the raven's form, Marge appears in a painting as Lenore and Lisa and Maggie are angels. Homer provides the spoken dialogue for the narrator; his thoughts are voiced by James Earl Jones. Some of the poem is cut for time (stanzas 9 through 13, 15 and 16). After the poem, Bart says he didn't think the poem was scary and Lisa suggests that people may have been more easily scared in 1845.
Garfield and Friends parodied the poem in the form of a U.S. Acres short titled "Stark Raven Mad", in which Orson narrates, to the tune of the poem, guarding the harvest against Roy's attempts to steal it. Lenore is featured as Orson's old girlfriend, who moved away after a scuffle with Orson's brothers. This flashback prompts Orson to save Roy from his brothers when they show up to steal the vegetables themselves.
The Histeria! episode "Super Writers" featured a sketch in which a Peter Lorre-esque Poe attempts to pitch his poem to Sammy Melman, who wants a brighter poem with a happy narrator and a bunny instead of a raven. This frustrates Poe to no end and eventually drives him to publish the poem independently. Later in the episode, in a sketch featuring Poe as a villain, the raven serves as his sidekick.
Tiny Toon Adventures parodies the poem, with Sweetie Pie playing the role of the raven while Vincent Price does the voice-over for the narrator.^{[citation needed]}
The Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain episode "The Ravin!" parodies the poem, with the Brain narrating and Elmyra using a phrase repetitively.
In the TV show The Addams Family, Morticia uses "The Raven" as a bed-time story to her son Pugsley, reciting it as a nursery rhyme. (Episode 1.2 "Morticia and the Psychiatrist", original air date: 25 September 1964)
The 1960s sitcom The Munsters featured a cuckoo clock with a raven instead of a cuckoo, which would emerge and say, "Nevermore, Nevermore" - usually as a comic foil for Herman Munster.
The cartoon series Beetlejuice featured Poe as one of the eccentric residents of the netherworld. Poe mourns his "lost Lenore" (presumably the same from "The Raven") until it is revealed that she has just been staying with her mother.
In 1979, Roto-Rooter Plumbing and Drain Cleaning Service created an animated television commercial entitled "The Raving," in which the protagonist faced a blocked drain rather than a lost love. The commercial's raven recommended the drain service.
An episode of Teen Titans entitled "Nevermore" follows two of the main characters, Beast Boy and Cyborg, as they use a magical mirror to enter the mind of their friend Raven.
In the Cartoon Network show My Gym Partner's a Monkey, in the episode "Gorilla of my Dreams," Principal Pixiefrog has a girlfriend named Lenore, and a raven flies into the window.
During five's late night NFL coverage, colour analyst Mike Carlson wrote and performed a complex parody of the poem to a game report involving the Baltimore Ravens.^[vague]
In the kids' show, Cyberchase, the episode, 'Frogsnorts', Sharry's dodo speaks in rhyme, and when trying to tell Hacker that he did not get invited to Frogsnorts, Dodo says, "Don't be sad, don't be sore, quoth the Dodo, nevermore!"
In the Gilmore Girls episode, "A Tale of Poes and Fire," "The Raven" is recited by two men dressed like Edgar Allan Poe for a Poe convention.
In episode 3 of season 4 of Alton Brown's Good Eats ("Fry Hard II: The Chicken") on Food Network, Brown's prologue to the episode shows him rummaging through his cookbooks ("forgotten lore") looking for chicken recipes accompanied by a voice-over of him reciting a parody of the first few stanzas of the poem, during which a plastic chicken, taking the raven's place, repeatedly says "Fry some more".
The DuckTales character Poe De Spell is a raven who often says "nevermore".
The Gothic cartoon series Ruby Gloom based on the apparel franchise of the same name features three ravens named Edgar, Allan and Poe, being Poe the most prominent one.

[edit] Music

Seattle, Washington metal band Nevermore got its name from the repeated refrain in "The Raven". The band also referenced it in the title track from their 2005 album This Godless Endeavor.
Jean Sibelius allegedly based an early conception of his fourth symphony on "The Raven."
The Alan Parsons Project album Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1976) includes a song based on "The Raven" and entitled the same, but with only two verses.
A musical variation of "The Raven" was performed by the Grateful Dead during Space on April 19, 1982.
The black metal band Carpathian Forest used the first two verses of the poem for "The Eclipse / The Raven" on their EP Through Chasm, Caves and Titan Woods (1995).
The psychedelic band The Glass Prism released an album in 1969 entitled "Poe Through the Glass Prism," with the lyrics coming entirely from various poems by Poe. "The Raven" was the single from the album.
The Canadian artist Nash the Slash included an instrumental track called "Lost Lenore" on his vinyl album The Million Year Picnic.
The gothic metal band Tristania released a track titled "My Lost Lenore" on Widow's Weeds (1998). It is clearly inspired by this poem, but does not incorporate the poem as part of the lyrics. The entire album is in fact reminiscent of The Raven.
A song based on "The Raven" appears on the Grave Digger album The Grave Digger (2003), alongside other songs based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe.

An 1890 political cartoon from Puck Magazine depicts The Raven as Secretary of State James G. Blaine watching President Benjamin Harrison.
Lou Reed's 2003 album The Raven is based on Poe's work, including his own version of The Raven in a song by the same name.
Rapper MC Lars released the track "Mr. Raven" on The Laptop EP, quoting some lines directly from the poem and modifying others (e.g. "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I kicked it [sic] weak and weary").
The song Kremlin Dusk, from Japanese pop star Utada Hikaru's English-language album Exodus (2004), begins "All along, I was searching for my Lenore/In the words of Mr. Edgar Allan Poe/Now I'm sober and "Nevermore"/Will the Raven come to bother me at home." It also refers to the "dying ember" line in the poem.
The German black metal band Agathodaimon paraphrased a verse from "The Raven" in the song "Les Posédes" on their 1999 album Higher Art of Rebellion.
The German symphonic metal band Xandria included the quote "Thus spoke the raven, 'Nevermore'" in their song Ravenheart.
The Christian third-wave ska band Five Iron Frenzy quotes many of Poe's lines in "That's How The Story Ends", from The End Is Near, and alludes ironically to the mysterious and somber mood of "The Raven".
The song "Campanas en la Noche" ("Bells in the Night") by the Argentine rock band Los Tipitos, the tale of a man wishing for the return of his lover, is loosely based on the poem. This relationship is even more evident in the song's video, which features the bust of Pallas and the titular raven itself.
The Dutch neoceltic pagan folk band Omnia put a slightly edited version of the poem to music as the second track on their 2007 album Alive!.
The song "Run-Around" by Blues Traveler begins, "Once upon a midnight deary...", a reference to the opening of The Raven.
The American gothic horror band Nox Arcana released a CD entitled Shadow of the Raven in 2007. Three songs—"Midnight Dreary", "The Raven" and "Nevermore"—as well as the album's title, are direct references to the poem.

[edit] Other

Lord Buckley recorded a "hipsemantic" version of "The Raven" in 1956 ("It was a real drugged midnight... dreary.").
Computer scientist Guy L. Steele, Jr. wrote a parody entitled "The HACTRN" about a hacker haunted by a phantom process.^[6]
The Raven Society, founded in 1904, is the University of Virginia's most prestigious honor society, combining requirements of high-level scholarship, service, leadership, and "promise of further advancement in the intellectual field." New members must supply a parody of the poem for initiation, which takes place in the room where Poe lived when studying at the University, now under the curatorship of the Society. The Society also maintains several other Poe sites, including the grave marker of his mother Eliza Poe in Richmond, Virginia.^[7]
Professional wrestler Raven (Scott Levy) takes his stage name from the title of the poem, and often quotes from the poem in interviews, ending with "...Quote the Raven...Nevermore..."
The background for Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 miniatures wargame gives the last word spoken by Corax, Primarch of the Raven Guard Space Marine Legion, as 'Nevermore'. Corax is the Latin species name of the common raven.
The comic strip Shoe ran a strip in which a large, strange, black bird was sitting at Roz's bar, uttering random words starting with "never-" or ending in "-more" (e.g., "Livermore!"; "Nevertheless!"), when one of the regular characters announced that the raven was bombed.
Poe lived in Baltimore for a considerable time, and is buried there. Baltimore residents elected to honor Poe by naming their NFL team, the Baltimore Ravens, after the poem.^[8] Furthermore, the three mascots for the team are three ravens, appropriately named "Edgar", "Allan" and "Poe." In 2000, when the Ravens were on their way to winning their only Super Bowl primarily on the strength of a record-setting defense, Chris Berman of ESPN's NFL PrimeTime would often punctuate highlights of the team's results that day by saying, "Quoth the Ravens, Never score!"
One of the error codes 404 on Neopets is "Quoth the server, 404".
The opening splash screen of the video game Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem quotes: "Deep into that darkness peering, Long I stood there, Wondering... Fearing... Doubting..."
The online computer game Kingdom of Loathing includes a raven familiar which can be equipped with a "tiny bust of Pallas".