Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" has been frequently referenced and parodied in contemporary culture. Immediately popular after the poem's publication in 1845, it quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Some consider it the best poem ever written.Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper Perennial, 1991. p. 237 As such, modern references to the poem continue to appear in popular culture.

Print Writer James Russell Lowell, a contemporary of Poe's, references "The Raven" and its author in his poem, A Fable for Critics: "Here comes Poe with his Raven, like Barnaby Rudge, / Three fifths of him genius, two fifths sheer fudge." This mention alludes to the belief that Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty inspired Poe to write "The Raven". In Edmund Clerihew Bentley's Trent's Own Case (1913), Trent, standing at an open French door and reciting the fifth stanza to himself, receives an unexpected reply: "Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, ..."

"Guv'nor!"

In Mad magazine's ninth issue (March 1954), "The Raven" is reprinted in full with absurd illustrations by Will Elder. Another parody appeared in a Mad collection, We're Still Using That Greasy MAD Stuff (1959). It was titled as "The Spaniel." Rather than "Nevermore," the author was bombarded with famous commercial taglines. A more recent parody in Mad by Frank Jacobs, titled "The Reagan", appeared in issue 265 (September 1986). Even more recently, the poem was used to parody horror movies, and how successful ones often have sequels made that are of low quality. The recurring line is, "Quoth Wes Craven, let's make more!"Original issue unknown, source: "Greasy Mad Stuff"; compilation of various pieces from Mad, published by Signet, 1962. pp 132-133. In the Donald Duck 10-pager "Raven Mad" by Carl Barks, published in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #265 in 1962, Huey, Dewey and Louie play with a raven who can only say "Nevermore." As in the poem, the raven often repeats the word throughout the story. Sections of "The Raven" are quoted in Hubert Selby Jr's 1964 novel Last Exit to Brooklyn. In the story entitled "The Queen is Dead" the lead character, Georgette, reads the poem aloud to her acquaintances. "The Raven" has been the subject of constrained writing. Georges Perec's novel A Void (1969), 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 "Black Bird." It is attributed to "Arthur Gordon Pym."Perec, Georges. A Void. Translated by Gilbert Adair. London: The Harvill Press, 1995. p.108. Mathematician Mike Keith has referenced the poem in three examples of constrained writing: "Near a Raven" is a reworking of Poe's poem in which the length of words correspond to the first 740 digits of pi (1995) Cadaeic Cadenza, a longer work under the same constraint, begins with the full text of "Near a Raven" (1996) "Raven-Two", a poetic anagram of the original (1999) In Joan Aiken's novel Arabel's Raven (1972), as well as further books from the Arabel and Mortimer series, a young girl named Arabel has a pet raven named Mortimer who often says the word "Nevermore!" Aiken won an Edgar Award in 1972. The Calvin and Hobbes collection "The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury" (released September 1988) contains an original illustrated poem, "A Nauseous Nocturne," which is clearly patterned after "The Raven." In Stephen King's novel Insomnia (1994), Ralph compares an omen to the raven of the poem. The novel Black House (2001), written by King and Peter Straub, also features a talking crow reminiscent of the raven in Poe's poem. Part III of the novel is entitled "Night's Plutonian Shore." In Robin Jarvis's Tales from the Wyrd Museum trilogy (1995–1998), Woden has two raven servants named Thought and Memory. Memory is known as Quoth throughout the stories, and occasionally says "Nevermore". Drew Hayes's illustrated poem The Crow, is an adaptation of "The Raven", telling the story of the separation of the main character of the comic book Poison Elves, Lusiphur, and his wife, the sorceress Hyena'. B&W version in Mythography #1, an anthology book also featuring work from other independent comics creators, Bardic Press, 1996. Color version in Poison Elves Color Special, Sirius Entertainment, December 1998 "The Raven", the fourth story in the anthropomorphic comic book Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, volume 1, issue 3 (2010), is an adaptation of Poe's poem with art by Jason Shawn Alexander. In the seventh book of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Vile Village (2001), a tree in the center of the village covered with crows is called the "Nevermore Tree." Neil Gaiman references "The Raven" in two of his works: In the novel American Gods (2001), the protagonist, Shadow, asks one of Odin's ravens, "Hey, Hugin or Munin, or whoever you are. Say 'Nevermore.'" The raven responds, "Fuck you."Gaiman, Neil. American Gods. Headline Review, 2005. p. 173 The comic book series The Sandman features Matthew Cable, who has been transformed into a raven as an alternative to death. At one point in the series, he flaps his wings and screams, "Nevermore!", only to explain that he was "being Peter Lorre in that one Roger Corman movie". Level Ground Press and artist Bill Fountain published an illustrated re-imagining of "The Raven" in 2005. The book incorporates raven myths and legends from around the world into the visual interpretation of the story. Holly Black quotes the poem in her 2005 novel Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie, alluding to it as the source for the name of the drug called 'Nevermore'. However, this is later contradicted, when one of the characters asserts that the name comes from the limitations of its use: "Never more than once a day, never more than a pinch at a time, and never more than two days in a row." The fantasy novel The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde features a villainous character named Jack Schitt who is ultimately trapped inside a copy of "The Raven". The first of the books based on the TV series Supernatural is called Nevermore. Poe is also very important for the rest of the book, as the murders that the main characters, Sam and Dean Winchester are investigating are reenactments of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Tell-Tale Heart", respectively, and it turns out to be part of a ritual to bring Poe back to life. Terry Pratchett's Discworld series contains a talking raven named Quoth, named by a wizard who "thought he was funny." Quoth's first injunction to new acquaintances is that he "won't say the N-word." James Patterson's and Chris Tebbet's Middle School: Get Me Out of Here! has a Raven on the cover atop a building screaming "Nevermore!" In Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games novel, Sunrise on the Reaping, the poem is mentioned multiple times concerning the character of Lenore Dove Baird. This includes numerous excerpts of the poem being remembered by the lead character, Haymitch Abernathy, as he thinks about his girlfriend Lenore Dove, and comes to realize his own life is a mirror of the poem.Collins, Suzanne. "Sunshine on the Reaping". Scholastic, 2025. p. 380

Film "The Raven" was recreated as a hallucination of Poe's in the silent film The Raven (1915). A fictionalized biography, it starred Henry B. Walthall as Poe. The film The Raven (1935) has Bela Lugosi as a Poe-obsessed doctor and co-stars Boris Karloff. The film has an interpretive dance of "The Raven". In 1942, Fleischer Studios created A Cartoon Travesty of The Raven. A two-reel Technicolor cartoon based upon "The Raven" which turned the story of the poem into a lighthearted comedy. A Bugs Bunny cartoon, No Parking Hare, has Bugs reading a few lines from the poem, starting with the words, "While I nodded nearly napping". The comic he reads them from is stated as "Poe's Kiddie Comics". In 1963, Roger Corman directed The Raven, a comedy with Karloff and Vincent Price, very loosely based on the poem. In the stop-motion film Mad Monster Party? (1967), Baron von Frankenstein tests his new potion on a raven, and lets it fly until it lands on a tree branch. Watching the resulting explosion, he says with a chuckle, "Quoth the raven... nevermore. Ah, I've done it – created the means to destroy matter!" The stop-motion short film Vincent (1982), by Tim Burton, features a protagonist named Vincent Malloy, whose "favorite author is Edgar Allan Poe." As Vincent lies, seemingly dying, at the end of the film, he quotes the final couplet of "The Raven". In the thriller film The Dead Zone (1983), schoolteacher Johnny Smith quotes "The Raven" to his class during a lesson. In the comedy film Short Circuit (1986), the robot Number 5 makes the comment "nevermore" in reference to a pet raven of Stephanie Speck's. In Batman (1989), the Joker quotes "The Raven" to Vicky Vale when he says, "Take thy beak from out my heart." In the film The Crow (1994), Eric references "The Raven" after breaking down the door to Gideon's pawn shop: "'Suddenly, I heard a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.' You heard me rapping, right?" In The Pagemaster (1994), when Richard Tyler and his books enter Dr. Jekyll's mansion and the door closes behind them, a raven flies down past them and says "Nevermore". Hannes Rall directed an animated, German-language version of The Raven (Der Rabe) in 1998. In Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), starring Eddie Murphy, when Dolittle holds a meeting with all the animals about how Archie the bear can help save their forest, most of the animals walk away because Archie seems like an idiot who won't be of much help. An irritated raven flies away saying "Nevermore". The film Nightmares from the Mind of Poe (2006) adapts "The Raven" along with three Poe short stories: "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Premature Burial". In the film The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005), the third sequel to The Crow, during the final battle between Jimmy and Luc, Jimmy tauntingly shouts "Quoth the raven nevermore, motherfucker!" In The Expendables (2010), numerous references are made to ravens and, obliquely, to "The Raven". Sylvester Stallone's character is in the process of getting a tattoo completed which features a raven, and the seaplane which his team travels in also features an oversize picture of a raven. A film entitled The Raven, which stars John Cusack as a fictionalized Poe, was released in March 2012.

Television

The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror" uses the poem in its third segment as Lisa reads the story to Bart and Maggie. In the animated segment, Homer serves as the protagonist, Bart takes the raven's form, Marge appears in a painting as Lenore and Lisa and Maggie are angels. Bart complains that the poem is not scary, and, at one point, the Raven says his catchphrase "Eat my shorts" instead of "Nevermore." Homer provides the spoken dialogue for the narrator, while James Earl Jones voices his thoughts. Much of the story is cut for time for this segment. This version of the story culminates with Homer chasing the Bart-Raven around the study. Poe and "The Raven" are referenced in the episode "Saturdays of Thunder", when Nick Riviera appears in an infomercial promoting a cleaning product that will clean dirty gravestones. Troy McClure responds to Riviera with: "Quoth the raven, 'What a shine'."