爱伦坡 - 写作的哲学 - 英文 - The Philosophy of Composition

The Philosophy of Composition

by Edgar Allan Poe

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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."

I cannot think this the precise mode of procedure on the part of Godwin

- and indeed what he himself acknowledges, is not altogether in accordance

with Mr. Dickens' idea - but the author of "Caleb Williams" was too good

an artist not to perceive the advantage derivable from at least a somewhat

similar process. Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the

name, must be elaborated to its denouement before anything be attempted

with the pen. It is only with the denouement constantly in view that we

can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by

making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the

development of the intention.

There is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a

story. Either history affords a thesis - or one is suggested by an incident

of the day - or, at best, the author sets himself to work in the combination

of striking events to form merely the basis of his narrative-designing,

generally, to fill in with description, dialogue, or autorial comment,

whatever crevices of fact, or action, may, from page to page, render

themselves apparent.

I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping

originality always in view - for he is false to himself who ventures to

dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest

- I say to myself, in the first place, "Of the innumerable effects, or

impressions, of which the heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the

soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select?"

Having chosen a novel, first, and secondly a vivid effect, I consider

whether it can be best wrought by incident or tone - whether by ordinary

incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of

incident and tone - afterward looking about me (or rather within) for such

combinations of event, or tone, as shall best aid me in the construction

of the effect.

I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written

by any author who would - that is to say, who could - detail, step by step,

the processes by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate

point of completion. Why such a paper has never been given to the world,

I am much at a loss to say - but, perhaps, the autorial vanity has had

more to do with the omission than any one other cause. Most writers - poets

in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species

of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at

letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and

vacillating crudities of thought - at the true purposes seized only at

the last moment - at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not

at the maturity of full view - at the fully-matured fancies discarded in

despair as unmanageable - at the cautious selections and rejections - at

the painful erasures and interpolations - in a word, at the wheels and

pinions - the tackle for scene-shifting - the step-ladders, and

demon-traps - the cock's feathers, the red paint and the black patches,

which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, constitute the properties

of the literary histrio.

I am aware, on the other hand, that the case is by no means common, in

which an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his

conclusions have been attained. In general, suggestions, having arisen

pell-mell are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner.

For my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to,

nor, at any time, the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive

steps of any of my compositions, and, since the interest of an analysis

or reconstruction, such as I have considered a desideratum, is quite

independent of any real or fancied interest in the thing analysed, it will

not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to show the modus operandi

by which some one of my own works was put together. I select "The Raven"

as most generally known. It is my design to render it manifest that no

one point in its composition is referable either to accident or intuition

- that the work proceeded step by step, to its completion, with the

precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem.

Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem, per se, the circumstance - or

say the necessity - which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention

of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical

taste.

We commence, then, with this intention.

The initial consideration was that of extent. If any literary work is too

long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the

immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression - for, if

two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and

everything like totality is at once destroyed. But since, ceteris paribus,

no poet can afford to dispense with anything that may advance his design,

it but remains to be seen whether there is, in extent, any advantage to

counterbalance the loss of unity which attends it. Here I say no, at once.

What we term a long poem is, in fact, merely a succession of brief ones

- that is to say, of brief poetical effects. It is needless to demonstrate

that a poem is such only inasmuch as it intensely excites, by elevating

the soul; and all intense excitements are, through a psychal necessity,

brief. For this reason, at least, one-half of the "Paradise Lost" is

essentially prose - a succession of poetical excitements interspersed,

inevitably, with corresponding depressions - the whole being deprived,

through the extremeness of its length, of the vastly important artistic

element, totality, or unity of effect.

It appears evident, then, that there is a distinct limit, as regards length,

to all works of literary art - the limit of a single sitting - and that,

although in certain classes of prose composition, such as "Robinson

Crusoe" (demanding no unity), this limit may be advantageously overpassed,

it can never properly be overpassed in a poem. Within this limit, the

extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to its merit

- in other words, to the excitement or elevation-again, in other words,

to the degree of the true poetical effect which it is capable of inducing;

for it is clear that the brevity must be in direct ratio of the intensity

of the intended effect - this, with one proviso - that a certain degree

of duration is absolutely requisite for the production of any effect at

all.

Holding in view these considerations, as well as that degree of excitement

which I deemed not above the popular, while not below the critical taste,

I reached at once what I conceived the proper length for my intended poem

- a length of about one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred and eight.

My next thought concerned the choice of an impression, or effect, to be

conveyed: and here I may as well observe that throughout the construction,

I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work universally

appreciable. I should be carried too far out of my immediate topic were

I to demonstrate a point upon which I have repeatedly insisted, and which,

with the poetical, stands not in the slightest need of demonstration -

the point, I mean, that Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem.

A few words, however, in elucidation of my real meaning, which some of

my friends have evinced a disposition to misrepresent. That pleasure which

is at once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure is,

I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful. When, indeed, men

speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but

an effect - they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation

of soul - not of intellect, or of heart - upon which I have commented,

and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating the "beautiful."

Now I designate Beauty as the province of the poem, merely because it is

an obvious rule of Art that effects should be made to spring from direct

causes - that objects should be attained through means best adapted for

their attainment - no one as yet having been weak enough to deny that the

peculiar elevation alluded to is most readily attained in the poem. Now

the object Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object

Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable to a

certain extent in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose. Truth,

in fact, demands a precision, and Passion, a homeliness (the truly

passionate will comprehend me), which are absolutely antagonistic to that

Beauty which, I maintain, is the excitement or pleasurable elevation of

the soul. It by no means follows, from anything here said, that passion,

or even truth, may not be introduced, and even profitably introduced, into

a poem for they may serve in elucidation, or aid the general effect, as

do discords in music, by contrast - but the true artist will always

contrive, first, to tone them into proper subservience to the predominant

aim, and, secondly, to enveil them, as far as possible, in that Beauty

which is the atmosphere and the essence of the poem.

Regarding, then, Beauty as my province, my next question referred to the

tone of its highest manifestation - and all experience has shown that this

tone is one of sadness. 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.

The length, the province, and the tone, being thus determined, I betook

myself to ordinary induction, with the view of obtaining some artistic

piquancy which might serve me as a key-note in the construction of the

poem - some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn. In carefully

thinking over all the usual artistic effects - or more properly points,

in the theatrical sense - I did not fail to perceive immediately that no

one had been so universally employed as that of the refrain. The

universality of its employment sufficed to assure me of its intrinsic

value, and spared me the necessity of submitting it to analysis. I

considered it, however, with regard to its susceptibility of improvement,

and soon saw it to be in a primitive condition. As commonly used, the

refrain, or burden, not only is limited to lyric verse, but depends for

its impression upon the force of monotone - both in sound and thought.

The pleasure is deduced solely from the sense of identity - of repetition.

I resolved to diversify, and so heighten the effect, by adhering in general

to the monotone of sound, while I continually varied that of thought: that

is to say, I determined to produce continuously novel effects, by the

variation of the application of the refrain - the refrain itself remaining

for the most part, unvaried.

These points being settled, I next bethought me of the nature of my refrain.

Since its application 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.

In proportion to the brevity of the sentence would, of course, be the

facility of the variation. This led me at once to a single word as the

best refrain.

The question now arose as to the character of the word. Having made up

my mind to a refrain, the division of the poem into stanzas was of course

a corollary, the refrain forming the close to each stanza. That such a

close, to have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted

emphasis, admitted no doubt, and these considerations inevitably led me

to the long o as the most sonorous vowel in connection with r as the most

producible consonant.

The sound of the refrain being thus determined, it became necessary to

select a word embodying this sound, and at the same time in the fullest

possible keeping with that melancholy which I had pre-determined as the

tone of the poem. 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." In observing the difficulty which I had at once found in

inventing a sufficiently plausible reason for its continuous repetition,

I did not fail to perceive that this difficulty arose solely from the

preassumption that the word was to be so continuously or monotonously

spoken by a human being - I did not fail to perceive, in short, that the

difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise

of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word. Here, then,

immediately arose the idea of 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.

I 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 poem of melancholy tone, and in length about one hundred lines.

Now, never losing sight of the object - supremeness or perfection at all

points, I asked myself - "Of all melancholy topics what, according to the

universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy?" Death, was

the obvious reply. "And when," I said, "is this most melancholy of topics

most poetical?" From what I have already explained at some length the

answer here also is obvious - "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 equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited

for such topic are those of a bereaved lover."

I had now to combine the two ideas of a lover lamenting his deceased

mistress and a Raven continuously repeating the word "Nevermore." I had

to combine these, bearing in mind my design of varying at every turn the

application of the word repeated, but the only intelligible mode of such

combination is that of imagining the Raven employing the word in answer

to the queries of the lover. And here it was that I saw at once the

opportunity afforded for the effect on which I had been depending, that

is to say, the effect of the variation of application. I saw that I could

make the first query propounded by the lover - the first query to which

the Raven should reply "Nevermore" - that I could make this first query

a commonplace one, the second less so, the third still less, and so 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 at length 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),

but because he experiences a frenzied pleasure in so modelling his

questions as to receive from the expected "Nevermore" the most delicious

because the most intolerable of sorrows. Perceiving the opportunity thus

afforded me, or, more strictly, thus forced upon me in the progress of

the construction, I first established in my mind the climax or concluding

query - that query to which "Nevermore" should be in the last place an

answer - that query in reply to which this word "Nevermore" should involve

the utmost conceivable amount of sorrow and despair.

Here then the poem may be said to have 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:

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! prophet still if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us— by that God we both adore,

Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."

Quoth the Raven— "Nevermore."

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.

And here I may as well say a few words of the versification. My first object

(as usual) was originality. The extent to which this has been neglected

in versification is one of the most unaccountable things in the world.

Admitting that there is little possibility of variety in mere rhythm, it

is still clear that the possible varieties of metre and stanza are

absolutely infinite, and yet, for centuries, no man, in verse, has ever

done, or ever seemed to think of doing, an original thing. The fact is

that originality (unless in minds of very unusual force) is by no means

a matter, as some suppose, of impulse or intuition. In general, to be found,

it must be elaborately sought, and although a positive merit of the highest

class, demands in its attainment less of invention than negation.

Of course I pretend to no originality in either the rhythm or metre of

the "Raven." The former is trochaic - the latter is octametre acatalectic,

alternating with heptametre catalectic repeated in the refrain of the

fifth verse, and terminating with tetrametre catalectic. Less

pedantically the feet employed throughout (trochees) consist of a long

syllable followed by a short, the first line of the stanza consists of

eight of these feet, the second of seven and a half (in effect two-thirds),

the third of eight, the fourth of seven and a half, the fifth the same,

the sixth three and a half. Now, each of these lines taken individually

has been employed before, and what originality the "Raven" has, is in their

combination into stanza; nothing even remotely approaching this has ever

been attempted. The effect of this originality of combination is aided

by other unusual and some altogether novel effects, arising from an

extension of the application of the principles of rhyme and alliteration.

The next point to be considered was the mode of bringing together the lover

and the Raven - and the first branch of this consideration was the locale.

For this the most natural suggestion might seem to be a forest, or the

fields - but it has always appeared to me that a close circumscription

of space is absolutely necessary to the effect of insulated incident -

it has the force of a frame to a picture. It has an indisputable moral

power in keeping concentrated the attention, and, of course, must not be

confounded with mere unity of place.

I determined, then, to place the lover in his chamber - in a chamber

rendered sacred to him by memories of her who had frequented it. The room

is represented as richly furnished - this in mere pursuance of the ideas

I have already explained on the subject of Beauty, as the sole true

poetical thesis.

The locale being thus determined, I had now to introduce the bird - and

the thought of introducing him through the window was inevitable. The idea

of making the lover suppose, in the first instance, that the flapping of

the wings of the bird against the shutter, is a "tapping" at the door,

originated in a wish to increase, by prolonging, the reader's curiosity,

and in a desire to admit the incidental effect arising from the lover's

throwing open the door, finding all dark, and thence adopting the

half-fancy that it was the spirit of his mistress that knocked.

I made the night tempestuous, first to account for the Raven's seeking

admission, and secondly, for the effect of contrast with the (physical)

serenity within the chamber.

I made the bird alight on the bust of Pallas, also for the effect of

contrast between the marble and the plumage - it being understood that

the bust was absolutely suggested by the bird - 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, also, I have availed myself of the force

of contrast, with a view of deepening the ultimate impression. For example,

an air of the fantastic - approaching as nearly to the ludicrous as was

admissible - is given to the 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 stanzas which follow, the design is more obviously carried out:

-

Then this ebony bird, beguiling my sad fancy into smiling

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no

craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore?"

Quoth the Raven— "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning— little relevancy bore;

For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

With such name as "Nevermore."

The effect of the denouement 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 anything even

of the fantastic in the Raven's demeanour. 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

denouement - which is now brought about as rapidly and as directly as

possible.

With the denouement 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, everything 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 visitor's demeanour, 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 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 skillfully, 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 under-current, 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 colloquy 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

under-current of the theme - which turns into prose (and that of the very

flattest kind), the so-called poetry of the so-called transcendentalists.

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 line-

"Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my

door!"

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore!"

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,

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 lamplight 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.