Before studying the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe ,I provided some biographical information about Poe's marriage to his 13 year old cousin who died of TB since this event was the source of the poem,"Annabel Lee." As Poe was 27 years her senior ,as always, this fact prompts a lot of questions , discussion, and some disgust especially the poem's line "I was a child and she was a child" since clearly Poe was hardly a child! We then focused on the well known iconic poem"The Raven." As Nina indicated she encountered some comprehension difficulty , I provided an analytical framework. First, I explained the biblical and mythological allusions . Further, I elaborated on the elements of much of Poe's writing, specifically the duality of the human psyche i.e. the rational and irrational often depicted as as type of horror or darkness. We then discussed the raven as a symbol of death ,evil ,or darkness and aligned that symbol with at the irrational aspect of Man's psyche. By contrast, the bust of Pallas or Athena,the goddess of wisdom , upon which the raven alights represents the rational side of the psyche. With this framework ,we will ,next session, be able to explore the duality of the psyche in the context of the raven and the bust of Pallas and appreciate the meaning of the poem as well as the rhythmic and mellifluous diction.