How "The Raven" Became America's Most Famous Poem

Join Boston College Professor Emeritus Paul Lewis in a discussion of his new book on Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem. In 1845, over 5,300 poems were published in American magazines. Most immediately began their deserved descent into oblivion. Poe's "Raven" stands as the most conspicuous exception to this. But why? What factors influenced the attention devoted to "The Raven" from the day when it was first published? Why was it widely reprinted, praised, criticized, and mocked during the next weeks and months? Why did it inspire parodies that replaced Poe's "saintly bird of yore" with a veritable menagerie of other animals—including an owl, gazelle, turkey, pig, dog, cats, rats, and (eek!) bedbugs? And how did Poe's reputation—as a literary brawler and harsh book reviewer and as a man who struggled with money and alcohol—play into the reception of "The Raven"? Signed copies of Paul Lewis' Quothing "The Raven" The First Responses to America's Most Famous Poem will be available at this book-launch event. Paul Lewis is a Professor Emeritus at Boston College, a past president of the Poe Studies Association, and the curator of exhibitions on literary Boston. As the Board of Directors chair of the Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston, Inc., Lewis worked with others to celebrate Poe in the city of his birth by having a square at the intersection of Boylston Street and Charles Street South dedicated to Poe in 2010 and then installing a statue of Poe in it in 2014.

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How "The Raven" Became America's Most Famous Poem

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