"The Raven" is a beautifully written, yet dark narrative poem by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published on January 29, 1845, it marks Poe’s opening the door into recognition. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a grieving lover, outlining the man's slow fall into madness. "The Raven" was first accredited to Poe in print in the New York Evening Mirror. Its publication made Poe widely popular in his lifetime, yet brought him no financial attainment. Soon reprinted, mocked, and illustrated—opinion is divided as to the poem's standing, but it nonetheless it remains one of the most famous poems ever written. The poem itself contains mystery, laid out by his style. His style, alludes mystery by the use of ambiguity. Not only is the theme itself extremely ambiguous, but this ambiguity is brought on by his use of diction—the words he chooses are ambiguous, and this hinders the straightforwardness of the theme, creating it to also be ambiguous. Some of the ambiguous vocabulary he uses are the words soul, angels, chamber, nevermore, and raven.
The soul is defined as the spiritual part of a human being, regarded as immortal. The soul has multiple meanings, differing by cultures and perceptions. The soul can be denoted as the God within—the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans. It can be symbolized as survival or eternity, as the soul is believed to survive death and be subject to happiness or misery in a life to come. Furthermore, the soul can be described as the divine source of all identity and individuality, or deeply felt emotion. Poe mentions the soul in many forms, “Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,”, “Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,”, “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” and,