Like Poe’s other works, “The Raven” conveys the dreamlike and often macabre forces that pervaded the author’s sensibility. While his wife suffered from a protracted illness, Poe composed this poem, which became an instant sensation when it appeared in the Evening Mirror in 1845. In the poem, the speaker, who is mourning the death of his love, Lenore, is mysteriously visited by a talking raven and asks the bird a series of questions. What is the raven’s one-word response to each query?
Source: The Free Dictionary