Mathematics

But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness.

Poe's writing reflects his literary theories, which he presented in his criticism and also in essays such as “The Poetic Principle”. He disliked didacticism and allegory, though he believed that meaning in literature should be an undercurrent just beneath the surface.

“The Raven” follows an unnamed narrator on a dreary night in December who sits reading “forgotten lore” by a dying fire as a way to forget the death of his beloved Lenore. A “tapping at [his] chamber door” reveals nothing, but excites his soul to “burning”.

On October 3, 1849, Poe was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, “in great distress, and… in need of immediate assistance”, according to Joseph W. Walker who found him. He was taken to the Washington Medical College where he died on Sunday, October 7.