Text: Anonymous, “Edgar Allan Poe [part 1],” Once a Week (London, UK), vol. XXV, November 18, 1871, pp. 447-450

[page 447, column 2, continued:]

EDGAR ALLAN POE. — PART II.

LET us now take the several steps of the process by which, according to Poe's own account, the “Raven” was manufactured. He commenced with the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical. The first consideration was that of extent. If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, the important effect derivable from unity of impression would be lost, or at least greatly impaired; for where two sittings are required, the affairs of the world interfere, and everything like totality is at once destroyed. Following up this argument, the question then arose — how long should a poem be? The conclusion was, that to enable it to be read comfortably at one sitting, the intended poem should not be of a greater length than of about one hundred lines. The “Raven” is, in fact, a hundred and eight. His next thought was on the choice of an impression or effect to be conveyed; “and here,” says Poe, “I may as well observe that, throughout the construction, I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work universally appreciable.” His conclusion — for which he gives a prolixity of reasons — therefore, was that the impression must be one of sadness, and that the poem must be of a melancholy tone.

“Beauty, of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.”

His next consideration was whether there was some “artistic piquancy” which might serve him as the key-note in the construction of the poem. What, then, so suitable for this purpose as the employment of the refrain? Since the application of the refrain was to be repeatedly varied, it was clear that the refrain itself must be brief; for there would have been an insurmountable difficulty in frequent variations of application in any sentence of length. A single word, therefore, would make the best refrain. What was the refrain to be? It must be sonorous and emphatic, and in full keeping [page 448:] with that melancholy which the poet had pre-determined as the tone of the poem. The long o is the most sonorous vowel, in connection with r as the most producible consonant.

“In such a search it would have been absolutely impossible to overlook the word ‘Nevermore’ — in fact, it was the very first which presented itself.”

The next desideratum was a pretext for the continuous use of the one word, “Nevermore.” It would be awkward to have a single word monotonously repeated by a reasonable being. The refrain must, therefore, be uttered by a non-reasoning creature, capable of speech; and, very naturally, a parrot, in the first instance, suggested itself; but was superseded forthwith by a raven, as equally capable of speech, and infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone.

The poet had now gone so far as the conception of a raven — the bird of ill-omen — monotonously repeating the one word “Nevermore” at the conclusion of each stanza, in a melancholy tone.

The next question was, of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy? Death, was the obvious reply. And when is this most melancholy of topics most poetic? When it most closely allies itself to beauty. The death, then, of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world; and the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.

Combine, now, the ideas of a lover lamenting his deceased mistress, and a raven continually repeating the word “Nevermore.” Let the lover begin by a commonplace query, to which the raven should thus answer; then, a query less commonplace; then a third, still less so; and thus on, until at length the lover — startled from his original nonchalance by the melancholy character of the word itself, by its frequent repetition, and by a consideration of the ominous reputation of the fowl that uttered it — is excited to superstition, and wildly propounds queries of a far different character-queries whose solution he has passionately at heart; propounds them half in superstition and half in that species of despair which delights in self-torture; propounds them, not altogether because he believes in the prophetic or demoniac character of the bird (which, reason assures him, is merely repeating a lesson learned by rote), [column 2:] but because he experiences a frenzied pleasure in so modelling his question as to receive from the expected “Nevermore” the most delicious, because the most intolerable, of sorrow. At this stage, Poe assures us, the poem had its beginning —

“At the end, where all works of art should begin; for it was here, at this point of my preconsiderations, that I first put pen to paper in the composition of the stanza: —

This was to be the climax of the poem — and of all the stanzas the most vigorous. “Had I been able,” says Poe, “in the subsequent composition, to construct more vigorous stanzas, I should, without scruple, have purposely enfeebled them, so as not to interfere with the climactive effect.”

Originality in the rhythm and metre was another important part of the composition; and Poe maintained that nothing even remotely approaching the stanza of the “Raven” had ever been attempted.

Where, then, were the lover and the raven to be brought together? Not in a forest or in the fields, as might have seemed the natural suggestion — for “close circumscription of space is absolutely necessary to the effect of insulated incident: it has the force of a frame to a picture.” It was determined, then, to place the lover in his chamber, which, in pursuance of the ideas already explained on the subject of Beauty as the sole true poetical basis, must be richly furnished.

The raven must come in by the window. The night must be stormy. The bird must alight on a bust of Pallas — for contrast of marble and plumage-because the lover is a scholar: the bust of Pallas being chosen, first, as most in keeping with the scholarship of the lover, and, secondly, for the sonorousness of the word Pallas itself.

About the middle of the poem the poet avails himself of the force of contrast, with a view of deepening the ultimate impression. An air of the fantastic is given to the [page 449:] raven's entrance. He comes in “with many a flirt and flutter” —

“Not the least obeisance made he — not a moment stopped or stayed he,

But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door.”

In the two succeeding stanzas, the idea of contrast is more forcibly exhibited: —

The narrative part of the poem done, two finishing stanzas are added, in order to cast a meaning on all that has gone before. The under-current of this meaning is first made apparent in the —

The words “from out my heart” form the first metaphysical expression in the poem; and they, with the wailing “Nevermore,’ pave the way for the moral of the whole piece. The raven becomes emblematical; but it is not until the very last line of the last stanza that the intention of making him emblematical of mournful and never-ending remembrance is permitted distinctly to be seen: —

Now, all this is very ingenious, and has a [column 2:] wonderful air of truth about it; but when we remember Poe's own favourite artifices of composition, in which he delights to give to a sketch of pure imagination the appearance of the most gospel truth, we are inclined to be sceptical. There is too much of the real fire of genius, breaking forth in wild, involuntary song, in the “Raven,” as in his other poems, such as “Ulalume,” “Lenore,” or “Irene,” for us to accept such a cold-blooded confession as genuine.

In support of our disbelief, we will conclude with a poem of Poe's which has not, we believe, been generally published; and it is the more valuable, as professing to be the first idea of the more perfect poem of the “Raven.”

The “Fire Fiend” was first introduced to public notice some years ago by Mrs. Macready — the lady to whom we have referred at the commencement of this paper — in the following words: — “The ‘Fire Fiend,’ the title of the poem I enclose, Mr. Poe considered incomplete, and threw it aside in disgust. Some months afterwards, finding it amongst his papers, he sent it in a letter to a friend, labelled facetiously — ‘To be read by firelight, at midnight, after thirty drops of laudanum.’ I was intimately acquainted with the mother-in-law of Poe, and have frequently conversed with her respecting the ‘Raven;’ and she assured me that he had the idea in his mind for some years, and used frequently to repeat verses of it to her, and ask her opinion of them, frequently making alterations and improvements, according to the mood he chanced to be in at the time.”

The recent destructions from fire in America lend a sad and additional interest, at the present moment, to the following lines from the weird pen of Edgar Allan Poe: —

“THE FIRE FIEND. A NIGHTMARE.