The Raven

By: Edgar Allan Poe

Narrated by: Dominic West

Often considered to be one of the most famous pieces by Edgar Allan Poe, 'The Raven' is a poem recounting the descent into madness of a young man lamenting the loss of his lover.

This spellbinding performance by Dominic West (The Wire, The Affair) lures the listener into the depths of the protagonist’s despair.

Public Domain (P)2020 Audible, Ltd

The greatest poem ever written

Too bad the narrator insists on trying to croak the raven’s lines. Other than that it is a decent performance, but that silly croaking brings it down. All the same The Raven is possibly the greatest poem ever written. Worth listening to in most any performance.

Bomb

I have heard this poem countless times, still, this read gave me chills! Great job, Dom.

Absolutely brilliant

Please, please, please have Mr. West read some more Poe. Best 9 minutes of poetry I think I have ever heard

The raven

This is one of my favorite poems, and I absolutely love the way it was read. It truly conveyed the narrators grief and heartbreak

Great job too the voice narrator

I love this piece from EAP! The narrator knew what he was going and put so much feeling into it. 15/10

5 ⭐

This was an incredible performance of an absolute classic.
I enjoyed every moment of it.

A spiral into grief and despair

Nevermore! I cannot hear that word without imagining a great black raven able to only speak that word. Having just finished listening to one of the Great Courses, “Edgar Allan Poe: Master of Horror,” I had to read this poem again and found that just once was not enough. It is hauntingly attractive and not in the ghostly sense. 

You have to read it as a story and not let the poetry bog you down. If you can try to do that, you’ll find that the poetry pulls you into a better understanding of the story itself. It’s midnight, in late December, and the last embers of the fire are dying out. The writer is in his room brooding and mourning the loss of his love, the beautiful Lenore. Anyone who has lost a loved one can understand that feeling, when sleep does not come and the nights are long and worse in the dreary, cold winter months. But, at the same time, in only a few lines, you get the impression that the writer’s mourning is taking him into darker state than normal. When he hears the tapping, he assumes it is someone at the door, but when he opens it and looks into the hall, there is nothing but darkness, “darkness there, and nothing more.” You already feel the connection built into the rhyme, “nothing more” when he then whispers the name of his lost “Lenore.”

The tapping returns and he opens a window to a raven who flies into his room, alighting on a bust of the classical goddess of wisdom. From there begins an almost one-way conversation. He was almost hoping that the tapping was the ghost of his Lenore, but when he asks the raven his name, the reply is “nevermore,” the first time that word appears, but continuing the word play with “Lenore,” “evermore,” and repeated many times, “nothing more.” And this is a turning point when the poem, already dark with the sorry of his lost love, now becomes even darker with the sense that his despair will be endless, just as his Lenore will never return. He knows that the raven is only repeating the only word that he knows, and understands that it has learned this word from its master, who himself had likely faced some disaster, and the raven now repeating it without understanding the meaning. And yet, he continues to converse, knowing that the only answer that he will receive will always be the same word, “Nevermore,” as if the raven does understand and is mourning with him, agreeing with him, reminding him that there is no hope. He himself states that he is thinking “What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore; Meant in croaking “Nevermore.” He knows that the bird does not understand and therefore what it “says” conveys no meaning, but he still says that he wonders what the bird means.  

And, this is how we see the speaker’s grief. Grief asks for answers but doesn’t really expect them. Even for those who believe that everything happens for a reason that is ultimately good, they don’t expect to know. The poem expresses the intense feelings of grief, but for this man it is also a seemingly endless downward spiral. He speaks as if he wants some comfort, but knowing that the answer from the Raven will always be the same, “Nevermore.” There is no comfort to be had. His own spirit will be lifted from the depths of its sorrows “nevermore.”

Poe wrote this poem as his own beloved wife, Virginia lay dying of tuberculosis and obviously expresses the grief that he already felt, knowing that her death was imminent and unavoidable. But, even if we knew nothing of the poem’s origin, it’s impossible to read it without a sense of understanding and pity for anyone in such despair. Maybe when I read it in high school, I didn’t have time for such language, but maybe it was because I couldn’t yet understand such loss. 

I listened to the poem several times in this Audible original, read by Dominic West. It’s only about 10 minutes long and he reads it as a man who understands grief and despair and even the raven, who sounds like a bird mimicking a human. You may enjoy reading instead of listening, but I highly recommend listening to this.

I've loved Poe since I was a child!

This is short but powerful! Fans of Poe should definitely take a listen! So much power and passion and pain.

His voice

I would listen to more by him. Poe is Poe. It was good as always

nevermore

great performance by Dominic West and fabulous writings of Edgar Allen poe. hope to see more of his works done by Dominic west.