‘FOR EVERMORE’: AN EXAMINATION OF MUSICAL EKPHRASES OF EDGAR ALLAN POE’S “THE RAVEN”

Abstract

This article analyses the transfer of poetic language into music, focusing on Edgar Allan Poe’s celebrated poem “The Raven” (1845). After a theoretical study on poetic language and theoretical questions regarding transmediation, I look into different pieces of instrumental music directly inspired by Poe’s lines. To this end, I draw on ground-breaking research regarding media transformation by authors such as Lars Elleström, whose work provides the theoretical framework, and, most especially, Siglind Bruhn, who has written about the relation between poetry and music, and who coined the term “musical ekphrasis”. Finally, I argue that these composers transmediate Poe’s “The Raven” by using musical devices similar to those employed by Poe in his poem. Particularly important for this analysis will be compulsive repetition and variation as strategies of the musical ekphrasis, and the re-presentation of the uncanny in music.