SOURCE: Weixlmann, Joe. “Ishmael Reed's Raven.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 4, no. 2 (summer 1984): 205-08.

In the following essay, Weixlmann investigates the influence of the Tlingit myth and Edgar Allan Poe's “The Raven” on Reed's Flight to Canada.

Raven flew away to earth and let drops of water fall from his mouth on the land, and wherever they fell there are now springs and brooks and where the larger ones fell, seas and rivers originated.

—Iwan Weniaminow, Bemerkungen über die Inseln des Unalaschka-Distrikts¹

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor                               Shall be lifted—nevermore! 

—Edgar Allan Poe...