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My plan (my school's equivalent to a senior thesis) was going to be on Poe and Dante in part, and the Raven is indeed scary in its depiction of loss. Ghosts for him represent errors in judgment and the things we have to live with and without at the same time. The Raven is like Dante's third circle where souls in love are tossed by storms, unable to touch hands. It's the nightmare of separation embodied, and perhaps a bit of existential uncertainty. This poem is so impressive because it manages to do that. There's very little horror nowadays that deals with this great big fear and yet it's so substantial and such a big part of our psyche. Carnival of Souls goes into it, though from a different angle. I think the closest thing philosophically to it, would be Pet Sematary, which is all about our understandings of death, how warped they are and how much separation weighs us down.
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