The Raven: Encyclopedia II - The Raven - Derived Works

The Raven - Derived Works

The poem has been frequently parodied, a noteworthy example being the reworking of the poem in a Halloween edition of The Simpsons, read by James Earl Jones. (In fact, the Simpsons version is more or less true to the text of the poem except that the Raven, played by Bart Simpson, says "Eat my shorts!" in addition to his original utterance, and some of the Student's questions are skipped. Indeed, Poe is actually credited as a writer on the episode.)

• In Mad Magazine issue 9 (March, 1954), The Raven is reprinted in full with absurd illustrations by Will Elder.

• Another parody (Quote #120296) is found on Bash.org, where the wording has been altered to use some computer terminology, and to be about Internet pornography.

• There is still another parody by Dan Black floating around the internet, which ends with the line Quoth the Server, 404, referring to the infamous URL not found error message. See for example [2].

• The early '90s cartoon series Tiny Toon Adventures also did a parody of the poem, with Sweetie Pie filling in the role of the Raven.

• In 1942, Fleischer Studios created a two-reel Technicolor cartoon based upon The Raven which turned the story of the poem into a lighthearted comedy.

• The 1960's sitcom The Munsters had a raven that would emerge from a cuckoo clock and say "Nevermore, Nevermore" - usually as a comic foil for Herman Munster.

• Jean Sibelius alledgedly based an early conception of his fourth symphony on The Raven.

• A song based on "The Raven", but with only two verses, appears on The Alan Parsons Project album Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1976, remixed 1987).

• A song based on "The Raven" appears on the Grave Digger album The Grave Digger (2003). (there are more songs based on Edgar Allan Poe's works on this album)

• Lord Buckley recorded a "hipsemantic" version of "The Raven" in 1956 ("It was a real drugged midnight... dreary.").

• Roger Corman's movie The Raven from 1963, described as a horror-comedy, is also derived from this poem.

• In 1998, Hannes Rall directed an animated movie of The Raven in German language (Der Rabe).

• An Spanish short film, with English dialogues, and directed by Tinieblas González appeared in 1999.

• Lou Reed's 2003 album The Raven is based on Poe's work, including his own version of The Raven in a song by the same name.

• In 2003, the poem is translated to film by Trilobite Pictures and director Peter Bradley. The short film stars Louis Morabito, Michael G. Sayers, and Jenny Guy and is released to DVD in 2005 by Lurker Films.

"The Raven" has also been the subject of constrained writing. Georges Perec's novel A Void, written entirely without the letter 'E' in French and subsequently translated into English by Gilbert Adair under the same constraint, contains a full-length "translation" of The Raven entitled A Crow. Mike Keith wrote Near a Raven, a reworking of the poem that has words whose lengths correspond to successive digits of pi (the poem's author is given as "Poe, E.", making the initial words 3, 1, 4, 1, 5... letters long), and later included in a longer work under the same constraint, which was titled Cadaeic Cadenza.

• The Gothic Metal band Tristania released a track titled "My Lost Lenore" on Widow's Weeds. It is clearly inspired by this poem, but does not incorporate the poem as part of the lyrics. The entire album is in fact reminiscent of The Raven.

• In the Cartoon Teen Titans there was an episode called "Nevermore" which was based on two of the main characters, Beast Boy and Cyborg, using a magical mirror to enter the mind of their friend Raven.

• In 2004 rapper MC Lars released the track Mr. Raven on his EP The Laptop, quoting many lines from the poem, particularly the line "Who's that rapping on my chamber door."

• When Andrew Wiles and Richard Taylor have presented the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem at Boston University in August 1995, a poetry challenge was made to celebrate this event. One of the poems is derived from "The Raven", you can read it at http://ravenx.editthispage.com/theraven/fermats.

• In Japanese pop star Utada Hikaru's english album, Exodus (2004), a song titled Kremlin Dusk starts with the stanza:

• The stanza also emulates the rhyme sceme held by The Raven.

• A team based on "The Raven" when NFL's Baltimore Ravens started playing in 1996.

• In a children's TV film a barber claims he had made the hair of many musicians, including maestro Herbert von Karajan. The latter has left an autograph with the word "Nevermore."

• The 2005 Novel 'From Fear to Flattery' by Tony Hughes parodies the poem by using Bigfoot instead of a raven as its main character.

• In the Warner Brothers' cartoon series, Tiny Toons, their parody of the poem was mostly word for word. The character Sweety portrayed the Raven, while Plucky played a clumsy and paranoid main character.

• The cartoon series Beetlejuice featured Poe as one of the excentric characters of the Netherworld. "Lydia" attempted to comfort Poe, who cried for his "lost Lenore" until the end of the episode.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Derived Works", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki