The Raven By Edgar Allen Poe Review

The Raven By Edgar Allen Poe from vNovel Interactive delivers two well-done versions of this classic gothic poem. Choices include watching this poem, nicely enhanced with music and voice-over, or reading this poem to oneself. Here the experience is heightened by the use of sound effects nicely placed throughout. Be sure to keep an eye out for hidden faces that appear and disappear among the illustrations. A version in HD is also available.

From the time this famous narrative poem was first written in 1845, many versions have been made available to the fans of Edgar Allen Poe. Here, I found both the experiences of "listening" as well as "reading" this application to be nicely stylized and good choices for anyone who is looking to be exposed to this gothic tale, as the illustrations further the experience and are extremely well done, as is the music and narration. Although the narrator speaks a little fast at times for my taste, the sound of his voice works very well to create an eerie, dark quality as do all the elements of this application.

I also very much enjoy the section of this app where one can read to oneself. Here, there are sound effects like doors creaking, wind blowing or noises from the raven itself. Although these sounds are sometimes a little on-the-nose, I find that they do add a lot to the experience and I appreciated being a little startled when the raven squawked for the first time. The words are delivered at the bottom of the screen and are easy to read - one phrase at a time, but it does to some degree take away from the original paragraph structure intended by Poe.

I think this would be a good application for students as well as Poe fans. The illustrations, music and narration make it a very worthwhile version of this classic poem.