Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to manipulate time create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
Reread “The Raven,” focusing on when events in the poem take place. Notice that
the poem begins in the present, with the speaker recalling an event that happened
in the past. Most of the verses that follow continue the speaker’s recollection of
that past event. The last verse, however, returns to the present. What effect is
created by the poet’s decision to begin and end the poem in the present?