By Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) A Study Guide | |||||||||||||
Study Guide Prepared by Michael J. Cummings...© 2010 Type of Work and Publication Date .......Edgar Allan Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition" is an essay. Graham's Magazine, a Philadelphia journal, published it in April 1846. Poe was the editor of this publication between February 1841 and April 1842.
.......To elucidate his ideas, he explains how he composed his most famous poem, "The Raven," in which the narrator laments the death of his beloved. By Edgar Allan Poe .......Charles
Dickens, in a note now lying before me, alluding to an examination I once
made of the mechanism of "Barnaby Rudge," says—"By the way, are you aware
that Godwin wrote his 'Caleb Williams' backwards? He first involved his
hero in a web of difficulties, forming the second volume, and then, for
the first, cast about him for some mode of accounting for what had been
done." "Prophet," said I,
"thing of evil! prophet still if bird or devil!
.......I
composed this stanza, at this point, first that, by establishing the climax,
I might the better vary and graduate, as regards seriousness and importance,
the preceding queries of the lover—and, secondly, that I might definitely
settle the rhythm, the metre, and the length and general arrangement of
the stanza—as well as graduate the stanzas which were to precede, so that
none of them might surpass this in rhythmical effect. Had I been able,
in the subsequent composition, to construct more vigorous stanzas, I should,
without scruple, have purposely enfeebled them, so as not to interfere
with the climacteric effect.
Not the least obeisance made he—not a moment stopped or stayed he,In the two stanzas which follow, the design is more obviously carried out:— Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling.......The effect of the dénouement being thus provided for, I immediately drop the fantastic for a tone of the most profound seriousness:—this tone commencing in the stanza directly following the one last quoted, with the line, But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only, etc........From this epoch the lover no longer jests—no longer sees any thing even of the fantastic in the Raven's demeanor. He speaks of him as a "grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore," and feels the "fiery eyes" burning into his "bosom's core." This revolution of thought, or fancy, on the lover's part, is intended to induce a similar one on the part of the reader—to bring the mind into a proper frame for the dénouement—which is now brought about as rapidly and as directly as possible. .......With the dénouement proper—with the Raven's reply, "Nevermore," to the lover's final demand if he shall meet his mistress in another world—the poem, in its obvious phase, that of a simple narrative, may be said to have its completion. So far, every thing is within the limits of the accountable—of the real. A raven, having learned by rote the single word "Nevermore," and having escaped from the custody of its owner, is driven, at midnight, through the violence of a storm, to seek admission at a window from which a light still gleams—the chamber-window of a student, occupied half in poring over a volume, half in dreaming of a beloved mistress deceased. The casement being thrown open at the fluttering of the bird's wings, the bird itself perches on the most convenient seat out of the immediate reach of the student, who, amused by the incident and the oddity of the visiter's [visitor's] demeanor, demands of it, in jest and without looking for a reply, its name. The raven addressed, answers with its customary word, "Nevermore"—a word which finds immediate echo in the melancholy heart of the student, who, giving utterance aloud to certain thoughts suggested by the occasion, is again startled by the fowl's repetition of "Nevermore." The student now guesses the state of the case, but is impelled, as I have before explained, by the human thirst for self-torture, and in part by superstition, to propound such queries to the bird as will bring him, the lover, the most of the luxury of sorrow, through the anticipated answer "Nevermore." With the indulgence, to the utmost extreme, of this self-torture, the narration, in what I have termed its first or obvious phase, has a natural termination, and so far there has been no overstepping of the limits of the real. .......But in subjects so handled, however skilfully, or with however vivid an array of incident, there is always a certain hardness or nakedness, which repels the artistical eye. Two things are invariably required—first, some amount of complexity, or more properly, adaptation; and, secondly, some amount of suggestiveness—some undercurrent, however indefinite of meaning. It is this latter, in especial, which imparts to a work of art so much of that richness (to borrow from colloquy26 a forcible term) which we are too fond of confounding with the ideal. It is the excess of the suggested meaning—it is the rendering this the upper instead of the undercurrent of the theme —which turns into prose (and that of the very flattest kind) the so called poetry of the so called transcendentalists.27 .......Holding these opinions, I added the two concluding stanzas of the poem—their suggestiveness being thus made to pervade all the narrative which has preceded them. The under-current of meaning is rendered first apparent in the lines— "Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!".......It will be observed that the words, "from out my heart," involve the first metaphorical expression in the poem. They, with the answer, "Nevermore," dispose the mind to seek a moral in all that has been previously narrated. The reader begins now to regard the Raven as emblematical—but it is not until the very last line of the very last stanza, that the intention of making him emblematical of Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance is permitted distinctly to be seen: And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting,
Notes 1.....interpolations:
Additions to a manuscript, such as comments or new words.
.......Edgar
Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston. After being orphaned
at age two, he was taken into the home of a childless couple—John
Allan, a successful businessman in Richmond, Va., and his wife. Allan was
believed to be Poe’s godfather. At age six, Poe went to England with the
Allans and was enrolled in schools there. After he returned with the Allans
to the U.S. in 1820, he studied at private schools, then attended the University
of Virginia and the U.S. Military Academy, but did not complete studies
at either school.
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