Lenore

Lenore is the title character of Edgar Allen Poe’s 1843 poem, “Lenore”, which was a paean to the lost love, the young and beautiful Lenore. Her lover, Guy de Vere, bemoans her passing, eulogizing her as the epitome of goodness and beauty and striking out against those he believed had wished her ill in life. His bitterness is offset by the remembrance of her angelic nature and by his belief in an eternity in which they will be reunited.

Lenore is a character in Edgar Allen Poe’s 1845 poem, “The Raven”, which was perhaps his best known piece. The raven gets the title, but Lenore gets the focus. Obviously young, beautiful and too soon take to her heavenly reward, Lenore is remembered with heart-wrenching melancholy by the narrator. He is visited by the raven, to whom he poses his metaphysical questions, and whose every response is “Nevermore”. The tone of the poem is bleakly unyielding in its refusal to bestow the comfort of eternal reunion. Lenore is fated to be either remembered or forgotten - but joined? – nevermore.

Lenore is the title character of Gottfried August Burger’s 1773 ballad, “Lenore”. She has been waiting impatiently for her fiancé to return to her after the Seven Years’ War; she had not heard from him, and she bitterly chastises God for her plight. Lenore’s mother in turn chastises her, knowing this to be blasphemy, and suggests to the young girl that perhaps William has taken up with another woman. At midnight, a young man on horseback, looking like William, comes to the house and asks a very happy Lenore to ride with him to their marriage bed. They ride to a cemetery where William’s corpse lies, and where Lenore is to meet her death as well, for having quarreled with God. She just has time to ask divine forgiveness before succumbing to her fate. Lenore, for all her sorry luck, can be thanked for giving rise to that favorite of literary genres, the Gothic Romance.

The Raven is the title of Edgar Allen Poe’s perhaps most famous poem, first published in 1845. The Raven visits the poet, who is mourning the death of his love, Lenore, and perches upon a bust of Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom. Upon being asked his name, our Raven replies: “Nevermore”. Well, it rhymes with Lenore, so, good choice in a poem. This, in fact, is the Raven’s only word, a word he uses to judicious effect when prompted by the narrator. Asked if he, too, will leave the poet, as have so many friends before, he replies: “Nevermore”. Is he, demands the poet, sent here by avenging angels? “Nevermore”. Asked if he may meet the lovely Lenore once more in heaven, the answer is “Nevermore”. When the poet, driven to distraction, bids the Raven to leave him alone to his sorrows and be gone, again, the ominous answer is “Nevermore”. And so the Raven sits on his classic perch, and the poet lies beneath…”And my soul…Shall be lifted – nevermore!”.