Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems

by Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

The narrator is looking back on time, alluding that he is currently no longer on this environment, head space, or predicament. The narrator tells us he is in a vulnerable state both mentally and physically The narrator mentions a specific time, often considered to be a time of supernatural phenomenon

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

The narrator is telling us they are partaking in extra curricular reading, specifically of lore, long forgotten suggests it may not be common knowledge, that perhaps sets up the idea that we lack the knowledge to accurately judge the truth of the matter at hand. The fact that he is reading and feeling weak and weary suggests his reading is not of the jovial variety The fact that he is reading at night confirms his troubled state or perhaps is the cause of it. Also the fact that he is reading lore at midnight confirms the assertion that the midnight hour is meant to represent the supernatural

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

The author here is telling us that he was asleep, which could suggest that his account hereafter is unreliable. It could be a dream, or misremembered or exaggerated by his vulnerable state.

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

The author specifies that the tapping is not urgent, but gentle, a rapp, what one does with loose knuckles, casual and familiar. The author mentions the rapping is occurring in his bed chamber, who does he know that would have access to him home and feel comfortable disturbing his sleep.

’T is some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

The author employs a literary device that utilizes repetition to assert emphasis in a passage. The author wants us to know the rapping is on his bed chamber door.

Only this and nothing more.”

The author is both minimizing the situation, and creating alarm for the fact that all he hears is the knocking. A friend would surely call out to him.