Personally I was just really annoyed by the author of the analysis I chose. I thought he was trying to make himself sound smart by using big, flowery words, and I thought that he was basically just a huge fan of Poe who tried to write this analysis as a form of hero worship towards Poe rather than as an objective and intellectual essay. He backed up his observations with points, but it still came off as annoying.
One particular quote I found annoying:
"Notwithstanding the extended publication of this remarkable poem, I will quote it almost entire—as the last means of justifying the praise I have bestowed upon it(Cooke)."
First of all, I do not think it is necessary to quote virtually the entire poem in order to justify your like of it. It is perfectly acceptable to take out certain excerpts that you think particularly demonstrate your point and end there. Secondly, I think it is kind of irritating when people automatically jump in and give their stunning reviews of something at the beginning of their analysis. Personally I just do not find this a very professional way of going about the matter. I would have been much more willing to accept the author's opinion if he had simply stated his point in his thesis and then went about proving his point. As it was I was basically annoyed from the first minute I started reading and that probably gave me a biased opinion towards his points in that I was more likely to disagree with his ideas.
I think the author read way too much into the poem. He even mentioned at one point that he thought the word napping was a particularly fantastic and life-altering word chosen in the first stanza. Personally I thought that this was a bit much. If Poe were around he would probably tell that guy it really was not that big of a deal, he just wanted to convey the idea that he was taking a nap. Sometimes I think that analyzers tend to get so wrapped up in what they are doing that they tend to see things that are not even really significant or there in the first place(Cooke).
The author goes on to use such words as "exquisite" and "phraseology", leaving you wondering if he really has any idea what he is talking about at all or if he just likes to sound smart to other people. There was a lot of fluff and talk but he did not really end up saying very much(Cooke).
The author even went on to quote such mysterious people as "Mr. Willis" and "Miss Barrett", two people to which he gave no credibility or reason in which to believe them except that they gave him their opinions on the subject and they were positive(Cooke).
I found myself constantly thinking "prove it" to the claims he made about how wonderful certain aspects of the poem were. To put it simply I was thoroughly annoyed.
Selected Bibliography
Cooke, P. Pendleton. "Edgar A. Poe," Southern Literary Messenger (January 1848). Reprinted in The Recognition of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Eric W. Carlson (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966): pp. 21–23. Quoted as "Review of 'The Raven'" in Harold Bloom, ed. Edgar Allan Poe, Bloom's Major Poets. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 1999. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BMPEAP21&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 22, 2010).
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