The Simpsons Present Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” and Teachers Now Use It to Teach Kids the Joys of Literature

The Simp­sons have mocked or ref­er­enced lit­er­a­ture over its 27 (!!) sea­sons, usu­al­ly through a book Lisa was read­ing, or with guest appear­ances (e.g., Michael Chabon & Jonathan Franzen, Maya Angelou and Amy Tan). And it has ref­er­enced Edgar Allan Poe in both title (“The Tell-Tale Head” from the first sea­son) and in pass­ing (in “Lisa’s Rival” from 1994, the title char­ac­ter builds a dio­ra­ma based on the same Poe tale.)

But on the first ever “Tree­house of Hor­ror” from 1990–the Simp­sons’ recur­ring Hal­loween episode–they adapt­ed Poe’s “The Raven” more faith­ful­ly than any bit of lit found in any oth­er episode. The poem, read by James Earl Jones, remains intact, more or less, but with Dan Castellaneta’s Homer Simp­son pro­vid­ing the unnamed narrator’s voice. Marge makes an appear­ance as the long depart­ed Lenore, with hair so tall it needs an extra can­vas to con­tain it in por­trait. Mag­gie and Lisa are the censer-swing­ing seraphim, and Bart is the annoy­ing raven that dri­ves Homer insane.

Castel­lan­e­ta does a great job deliv­er­ing Poe’s verse with con­vic­tion and humor, while keep­ing the char­ac­ter true to both Homer and Poe. It’s a bal­anc­ing act hard­er than it sounds.

Suf­fice it to say that this for­ay into Poe was good enough for sev­er­al teach­ers guides (includ­ing this one from The New York Times) to sug­gest using the video in class. (We’d love to hear about this if you were a teacher or stu­dent who expe­ri­enced this.) And it’s the first and only time that Poe got co-writ­ing cred­it on a Simp­sons episode.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Simp­sons Pay Won­der­ful Trib­ute to the Ani­me of Hayao Miyaza­ki

Watch The Simp­sons’ Hal­loween Par­o­dy of Kubrick’s A Clock­work Orange and The Shin­ing

Thomas Pyn­chon Edits His Lines on The Simp­sons: “Homer is my role mod­el and I can’t speak ill of him.”

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.