“The Raven”'s Rhymes
Edgar Allan Poe's most popular poem, “The Raven,” tells the story of a man who gets a late-night visit from a mysterious bird that speaks only one word: "Nevermore."
Over the years, everyone from Nobel Prize-winning literary critics to students like you have tried to dig deeper into the world of the poem, from its lingering rhythms to its haunting themes. Learn more about “The Raven”'s' unique rhyme schemes.
“The Raven”'s Rhymes
The Rhyming Raven's Challenge
Let's see what you’ve learned. Below, you see Stanza 17 of “The Raven.” Using what you know about the two internal and one external rhyme schemes in this poem, see if you can identify where they occur in the stanza below.
Line:
97: "Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting —
98: "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
99: Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
100: Leave my loneliness unbroken! — quit the bust above my door!
101: Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
102: Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."