Testing Right Frontier Constraint on Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

Abstract

This paper focuses on Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven as a case study to examine the narrator's conscious experiences and the challenges of interpreting coherence relations within this domain. It examines the concept of Right Frontier Constraint (RFC) from the Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT) and discusses its relevance in the context of The Raven. It further addresses the challenge of clarifying poetical effects through the lens of coherence relations and acknowledges the diversity of reader responses. This paper draws from the work of various researchers who have explored discourse segmentation and coordination, and applies global and micro analysis to further examine the themes of The Raven, and Poes use of poetical effect through the poems ambiguity and symbolism. The aim of this paper is to elucidate the intricate web of coherence relations within literary works such as The Raven while also offering potential avenues for future research to probe into the interpretation of coherence relations in conscious experiences.