...self-inflicted torture builds in intensity until the speaker breaks down emotionally and demands that the raven "Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" (Poetry and Tales 86). The last stanza, however, reveals that the speaker cannot free himself from...

...Lenore — Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting — 17 "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore ! Leave no black plume as a...