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THE RAVEN First published in the (New York) Evening Mirror in January, 1845, "The Raven" was an overnight sensation and remains the most popular and best known poem that Poe ever wrote. In fact, during the final years of his life, Poe was referred to as "the raven" and his readers often wove short passages of the piece or a simple "nevermore" into their daily talk. The poem is essentially a dramatic monologue; it tells a story that has no real climax but that nonetheless progresses through stages marked by changes in the narrator's mood as he successively interprets the raven's presence and the meaning of its "nevermore" replies. Consisting of eighteen six-line stanzas, "The Raven" is told retrospectively by a first-person narrator. The setting throughout is the narrator's chambers at midnight on a bleak December, as the speaker or student lapses between reading an old boo