{"id":466,"date":"2021-03-25T20:02:51","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T20:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-empire-amliterature\/?post_type=chapter&p=466"},"modified":"2021-07-12T15:34:56","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T15:34:56","slug":"edgar-allan-poe-the-fall-of-the-house-of-usher","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-empire-amliterature\/chapter\/edgar-allan-poe-the-fall-of-the-house-of-usher\/","title":{"raw":"Edgar Allan Poe, Composition & Poems","rendered":"Edgar Allan Poe, Composition & Poems"},"content":{"raw":"

Introduction: Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)<\/h2>\r\nwritten by Corey Parson<\/em><\/sup>\r\n\r\n\"Edgar\r\n\r\nBorn in Boston to actors Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe, Jr., Edgar Allan Poe was swiftly abandoned by both parents before the age of four. His father simply picked up and left the family. A year later, Poe\u2019s mother unfortunately contracted tuberculosis and passed away, leaving Poe an orphan. He was taken in by John Allan, a tobacco merchant, and his wife, Frances Valentine Allan. The Allans raised Poe as their own, though he was never officially adopted by the couple.\r\n\r\nPoe took to poetry at a young age, which often caused a clash between himself and his adoptive father. Whereas John Allan wished for Poe to take over the family business, Poe had no such desire and continued to write. As a young man, he attended the University of Virginia with Allan footing the bill. However, this arrangement didn\u2019t last long as Allan refused to continue to pay for Poe\u2019s secondary education, reportedly due to financial disagreements between the two men. After amounting a mass of debt due to gambling, Poe was forced to leave the university and enlisted in the Army.\r\n\r\nIt was while in the Army that Poe anonymously published his first collection, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827). After Frances Valentine Allan, the only mother Poe knew, died of tuberculosis, John Allan and Poe mended their relationship, and Allan helped Poe get accepted into West Point. Though he was a good student, Poe\u2019s mind wandered more to prose and poetry and less to his duties at West Point. Worse yet, his relationship with Allan was on the rocks yet again. Poe was kicked out of West Point, though it is unclear if Poe purposefully caused his expulsion to spite his foster father. Allan won the parting shot though; after his death in 1834, he left Poe out of his will completely.\r\n\r\nAfter West Point, Poe traveled extensively, living in poverty as a full-time writer in major cities like New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Richmond. While in Richmond, he fell in love with his cousin, Virginia Clemm, and married her in 1836. Poe was 27, and Clemm was 13.\r\n\r\nAfter winning a short story contest, Poe\u2019s writing career picked up and he went on to publish more short stories in literary journals and magazines. He also worked as a critic for the Southern Literary Messenger and was notorious for his biting reviews, earning him the nickname \u201cTomahawk Man.\u201d His position as critic with the magazine proved short-lived as his seething reviews often led to confrontation. It is believed he was fired after his boss found him drunk on the job. Over the years, Poe had developed a liking to alcohol, eventually leading to a dependence on liquor. This dependence evolved into full-blown alcoholism when Virginia fell ill with tuberculosis in 1842. The very disease that killed his birth mother and later his adoptive mother seemed insatiable, targeting the women Poe loved. It was while his wife was sick that Poe wrote the famous poem for which he is known: \u201cThe Raven\u201d (1845).\r\n\r\n\u201cThe Raven\u201d skyrocketed Poe from infamous critic to famous poet. But the literary recognition of his arguably most popular poem did not come with the paycheck one would expect. He only received $9 from The American Review for it, and Poe continued to struggle financially for the rest of his life.\r\n\r\nDebt and alcoholism weren\u2019t the only demons haunting Poe. Death soon darkened his door yet again. In 1947, Virginia lost her battle with tuberculosis, devastating Poe. She was only 24 years old. After her death, Poe\u2019s dependency on substances grew until, in 1849, he died at the age of 40 under suspicious circumstances. Some sources say he drank himself to death while others blame his death on drugs or rabies. No one is certain how Poe died, and it remains a mystery to this day, not unlike the gothic endings of some of his most celebrated works.\r\n\r\nPoe may have beaten Death in the end; his works are still recognized as an important part of the American Literature canon. Modern day readers have Poe to thank for detective fiction, a genre which some credit him for creating. Best known for his evocative storytelling and his gothic style, Poe continues to influence writers across the centuries from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Stephen King, who is quoted in a Mystery Scene magazine article as saying of Poe, \u201cHe wasn\u2019t just a mystery\/suspense writer. He was the first.\u201d\r\n\r\nYou may be interested in the following video, which offers a good overall introduction to Poe's works.\r\n\r\n[embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8lgg-pVjOok[\/embed]\r\n

The Philosophy of Composition (1846)<\/h2>\r\nCHARLES 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.\"\r\n\r\nI 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.\r\n\r\nThere 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.\r\n\r\nI 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.\r\n\r\nI 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.\r\n\r\nI 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.\r\n\r\nFor 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.\r\n\r\nLet 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.\r\n\r\nWe commence, then, with this intention.\r\n\r\nThe 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.\r\n\r\nIt 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.\r\n\r\nHolding 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.\r\n\r\nMy 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.\r\n\r\nRegarding, 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.\r\n\r\nThe 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.\r\n\r\nThese 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.\r\n\r\nThe 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.\r\n\r\nThe 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.\r\n\r\nThe 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.\r\n\r\nI 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.\"\r\n\r\nI 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.\r\n\r\nHere 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:\r\n\r\n\"Prophet!\" said I, \"thing of evil! prophet still if bird or devil!\r\nBy that Heaven that bends above us- by that God we both adore,\r\nTell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn,\r\nIt shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-\r\nClasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.\"\r\nQuoth the Raven- \"Nevermore.\"\r\n\r\nI 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.\r\n\r\nAnd 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.\r\n\r\nOf 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.\r\n\r\nThe 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.\r\n\r\nI 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.\r\n\r\nThe 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.\r\n\r\nI 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.\r\n\r\nI 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.\r\n\r\nAbout 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.\"\r\n\r\nNot the least obeisance made he- not a moment stopped or stayed he,\r\nBut with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door.\r\n\r\nIn the two stanzas which follow, the design is more obviously carried out:-\r\n\r\nThen this ebony bird, beguiling my sad fancy into smiling\r\nBy the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,\r\n\"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,\" I said, \"art sure no craven,\r\nGhastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore-\r\nTell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore?\"\r\nQuoth the Raven- \"Nevermore.\"\r\n\r\nMuch I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,\r\nThough its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore;\r\nFor we cannot help agreeing that no living human being\r\nEver yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door-\r\nBird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,\r\nWith such name as \"Nevermore.\"\r\n\r\nThe 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,\r\n\r\nBut the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only, etc.\r\n\r\nFrom 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.\r\n\r\nWith 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.\r\n\r\nBut 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.\r\n\r\nHolding 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-\r\n\r\n\"Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!\"\r\nQuoth the Raven \"Nevermore!\"\r\n\r\nIt 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:\r\n\r\nAnd the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting,\r\nOn the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;\r\nAnd his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming,\r\nAnd the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;\r\nAnd my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor\r\nShall be lifted- nevermore.\r\n

Selected Poems<\/h2>\r\n

The Raven (1845)<\/h3>\r\nOnce upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,\r\nOver many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,\r\nWhile I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,\r\nAs of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.\r\n\u201c\u2018Tis some visiter,\u201d I muttered, \u201ctapping at my chamber door\u2014\r\nOnly this, and nothing more.\u201d\r\n\r\nAh, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,\r\nAnd each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.\r\nEagerly I wished the morrow;\u2014vainly I had sought to borrow\r\nFrom my books surcease of sorrow\u2014sorrow for the lost Lenore\u2014\r\nFor the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore\u2014\r\nNameless here for evermore.\r\n\r\nAnd the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain\r\nThrilled me\u2014filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;\r\nSo that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating\r\n\u201c\u2018Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door\u2014\r\nSome late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;\u2014\r\nThis it is, and nothing more.\u201d\r\n\r\nPresently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,\r\n\u201cSir,\u201d said I, \u201cor Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;\r\nBut the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,\r\nAnd so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,\r\nThat I scarce was sure I heard you \u201c\u2014here I opened wide the door;\u2014\u2014\r\nDarkness there and nothing more.\r\n\r\nDeep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,\r\nDoubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;\r\nBut the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,\r\nAnd the only word there spoken was the whispered word, \u201cLenore!\u201d\r\nThis I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, \u201cLenore!\u201d\u2014\r\nMerely this, and nothing more.\r\n\r\nBack into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,\r\nSoon I heard again a tapping somewhat louder than before.\r\n\u201cSurely,\u201d said I, \u201csurely that is something at my window lattice;\r\nLet me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore\u2014\r\nLet my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;\u2014\r\n\u2018Tis the wind and nothing more!\u201d\r\n\r\nOpen here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,\r\nIn there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;\r\nNot the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he;\r\nBut, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door\u2014\r\nPerched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door\u2014\r\nPerched, and sat, and nothing more.\r\n\r\nThen this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,\r\nBy the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,\r\n\u201cThough thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,\u201d I said, \u201cart sure no craven,\r\nGhastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore\u2014\r\nTell me what thy lordly name is on the Night\u2019s Plutonian shore!\u201d\r\nQuoth the raven \u201cNevermore.\u201d\r\n\r\nMuch I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,\r\nThough its answer little meaning\u2014little relevancy bore;\r\nFor we cannot help agreeing that no living human being\r\nEver yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door\u2014\r\nBird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,\r\nWith such name as \u201cNevermore.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only\r\nThat one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.\r\nNothing farther then he uttered\u2014not a feather then he fluttered\u2014\r\nTill I scarcely more than muttered \u201cOther friends have flown before\u2014\r\nOn the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.\u201d\r\nThen the bird said \u201cNevermore.\u201d\r\n\r\nStartled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,\r\n\u201cDoubtless,\u201d said I, \u201cwhat it utters is its only stock and store\r\nCaught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster\r\nFollowed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore\u2014\r\nTill the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore\r\nOf \u201cNever\u2014nevermore.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,\r\nStraight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;\r\nThen, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to blinking\r\nFancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore\u2014\r\nWhat this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore\r\nMeant in croaking \u201cNevermore.\u201d\r\n\r\nThis I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing\r\nTo the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom\u2019s core;\r\nThis and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining\r\nOn the cushion\u2019s velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o\u2019er,\r\nBut whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o\u2019er,\r\nShe shall press, ah, nevermore!\r\n\r\nThen, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer\r\nSwung by Angels whose faint foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.\r\n\u201cWretch,\u201d I cried, \u201cthy God hath lent thee\u2014by these angels he hath sent thee\r\nRespite\u2014respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;\r\nQuaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!\u201d\r\nQuoth the raven, \u201cNevermore.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cProphet!\u201d said I, \u201cthing of evil!\u2014prophet still, if bird or devil!\u2014\r\nWhether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,\r\nDesolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted\u2014\r\nOn this home by Horror haunted\u2014tell me truly, I implore\u2014\r\nIs there\u2014is there balm in Gilead?\u2014tell me\u2014tell me, I implore!\u201d\r\nQuoth the raven, \u201cNevermore.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cProphet!\u201d said I, \u201cthing of evil\u2014prophet still, if bird or devil!\r\nBy that Heaven that bends above us\u2014by that God we both adore\u2014\r\nTell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,\r\nIt shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore\u2014\r\nClasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.\u201d\r\nQuoth the raven, \u201cNevermore.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBe that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!\u201d I shrieked, upstarting\u2014\r\n\u201cGet thee back into the tempest and the Night\u2019s Plutonian shore!\r\nLeave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!\r\nLeave my loneliness unbroken!\u2014quit the bust above my door!\r\nTake thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!\u201d\r\nQuoth the raven, \u201cNevermore.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnd the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting\r\nOn the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;\r\nAnd his eyes have all the seeming of a demon\u2019s that is dreaming,\r\nAnd the lamp-light o\u2019er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;\r\nAnd my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor\r\nShall be lifted\u2014nevermore!\r\n

To Helen (1846)<\/h3>\r\nI saw thee once\u2014once only\u2014years ago:\r\nI must not say\u00a0how<\/i>\u00a0many\u2014but\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0many.\r\nIt was a July midnight; and from out\r\nA full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,\r\nSought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,\r\nThere fell a silvery-silken veil of light,\r\nWith quietude, and sultriness and slumber,\r\nUpon the upturn'd faces of a thousand\r\nRoses that grew in an enchanted garden,\r\nWhere no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe\u2014\r\nFell on the upturn'd faces of these roses\r\nThat gave out, in return for the love-light,\r\nTheir odorous souls in an ecstatic death\u2014\r\nFell on the upturn'd faces of these roses\r\nThat smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted\r\nBy thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.\r\n\r\nClad all in white, upon a violet bank\r\nI saw thee half-reclining; while the moon\r\nFell on the upturn'd faces of the roses,\r\nAnd on thine own, upturn'd\u2014alas, in sorrow!\r\n\r\nWas it not Fate, that, on this July midnight\u2014\r\nWas it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow),\r\nThat bade me pause before that garden-gate,\r\nTo breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?\r\nNo footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,\r\nSave only thee and me\u2014(O Heaven!\u2014O God!\r\nHow my heart beats in coupling those two words!)\u2014\r\nSave only thee and me. I paused\u2014I looked\u2014\r\nAnd in an instant all things disappeared.\r\n(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)\r\nThe pearly lustre of the moon went out:\r\nThe mossy banks and the meandering paths,\r\nThe happy flowers and the repining trees,\r\nWere seen no more: the very roses' odors\r\nDied in the arms of the adoring airs.\r\nAll\u2014all expired save thee\u2014save less than thou:\r\nSave only the divine light in thine eyes\u2014\r\nSave but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.\r\nI saw but them\u2014they were the world to me.\r\nI saw but them\u2014saw only them for hours\u2014\r\nSaw only them until the moon went down.\r\nWhat wild heart-histories seemed to lie unwritten\r\nUpon those crystalline, celestial spheres!\r\nHow dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope!\r\nHow silently serene a sea of pride!\r\nHow daring an ambition! yet how deep\u2014\r\nHow fathomless a capacity for love!\r\n\r\nBut now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,\r\nInto a western couch of thunder-cloud;\r\nAnd thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees\r\nDidst glide away.\u00a0Only thine eyes remained.<\/i>\r\nThey\u00a0would not<\/i>\u00a0go\u2014they never yet have gone.\r\nLighting my lonely pathway home that night,\r\nThey<\/i>\u00a0have not left me (as my hopes have) since.\r\nThey follow me\u2014they lead me through the years.\r\n\r\nThey are my ministers\u2014yet I their slave.\r\nTheir office is to illumine and enkindle\u2014\r\nMy duty,\u00a0to be saved<\/i>\u00a0by their bright light,\r\nAnd purified in their electric fire,\r\nAnd sanctified in their elysian fire.\r\nThey fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),\r\nAnd are far up in Heaven\u2014the stars I kneel to\r\nIn the sad, silent watches of my night;\r\nWhile even in the meridian glare of day\r\nI see them still\u2014two sweetly scintillant\r\nVenuses, unextinguished by the sun!\r\n

Annabel Lee (1849)<\/h3>\r\n

It was many and many a year ago,\r\nIn a kingdom by the sea,\r\nThat a maiden lived whom you may know\r\nBy the name of ANNABEL LEE;\u2014\r\nAnd this maiden she lived with no other thought\r\nThan to love and be loved by me.<\/p>\r\n

I was a child and She was a child,\r\nIn this kingdom by the sea,\r\nBut we loved with a love that was more than love\u2014\r\nI and my ANNABEL LEE\u2014\r\nWith a love that the wing\u2019d seraphs of Heaven\r\nCoveted her and me.<\/p>\r\n

And this was the reason that, long ago,\r\nIn this kingdom by the sea,\r\nA wind blew out of a cloud by night\r\nChilling my ANNABEL LEE;\r\nSo that her high-born kinsmen came\r\nAnd bore her away from me,\r\nTo shut her up, in a sepulcher\r\nIn this kingdom by the sea.<\/p>\r\n

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,\r\nWent envying her and me;\r\nYes! that was the reason (as all men know,\r\nIn this kingdom by the sea)\r\nThat the wind came out of the cloud, chilling\r\nAnd killing my ANNABEL LEE.<\/p>\r\n

But our love it was stronger by far than the love\r\nOf those who were older than we\u2014\r\nOf many far wiser than we\u2014\r\nAnd neither the angels in Heaven above\r\nNor the demons down under the sea\r\nCan ever dissever my soul from the soul\r\nOf the beautiful ANNABEL LEE:\u2014<\/p>\r\n

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams\r\nOf the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;\r\nAnd the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes\r\nOf the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;\r\nAnd so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side\r\nOf my darling, my darling, my life and my bride\r\nIn her sepulchre there by the sea\u2014\r\nIn her tomb by the side of the sea.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Sonnet - To Science (1829)<\/h3>\r\n

(1829)<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art!\r\nWho alterest all things with thy peering eyes.\r\nWhy preyest thou thus upon the poet\u2019s heart,\r\nVulture, whose wings are dull realities?\r\nHow should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,\r\nWho wouldst not leave him in his wandering\r\nTo seek for treasure in the jewelled skies\r\nAlbeit he soared with an undaunted wing?\r\nHast thou not dragged Diana from her car?\r\nAnd driven the Hamadryad from the wood\r\nTo seek a shelter in some happier star?\r\nHast thous not torn the Naiad from her flood,\r\nThe Elfin from the green grass, and from me\r\nThe summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n

questions to consider<\/h3>\r\n
    \r\n \t
  • What does Poe mean by \"unity of impression\" in an art work?<\/li>\r\n \t
  • What does Poe mean by \"beauty\" in an art work?<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Do you accept his interpretation of these qualities in \"The Raven?\"\u00a0 Why or why not?<\/li>\r\n \t
  • What is the effect of repetition in \"The Raven\" and \"Annabel Lee?\"<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"

    Introduction: Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)<\/h2>\n

    written by Corey Parson<\/em><\/sup><\/p>\n

    \"Edgar<\/p>\n

    Born in Boston to actors Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe, Jr., Edgar Allan Poe was swiftly abandoned by both parents before the age of four. His father simply picked up and left the family. A year later, Poe\u2019s mother unfortunately contracted tuberculosis and passed away, leaving Poe an orphan. He was taken in by John Allan, a tobacco merchant, and his wife, Frances Valentine Allan. The Allans raised Poe as their own, though he was never officially adopted by the couple.<\/p>\n

    Poe took to poetry at a young age, which often caused a clash between himself and his adoptive father. Whereas John Allan wished for Poe to take over the family business, Poe had no such desire and continued to write. As a young man, he attended the University of Virginia with Allan footing the bill. However, this arrangement didn\u2019t last long as Allan refused to continue to pay for Poe\u2019s secondary education, reportedly due to financial disagreements between the two men. After amounting a mass of debt due to gambling, Poe was forced to leave the university and enlisted in the Army.<\/p>\n

    It was while in the Army that Poe anonymously published his first collection, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827). After Frances Valentine Allan, the only mother Poe knew, died of tuberculosis, John Allan and Poe mended their relationship, and Allan helped Poe get accepted into West Point. Though he was a good student, Poe\u2019s mind wandered more to prose and poetry and less to his duties at West Point. Worse yet, his relationship with Allan was on the rocks yet again. Poe was kicked out of West Point, though it is unclear if Poe purposefully caused his expulsion to spite his foster father. Allan won the parting shot though; after his death in 1834, he left Poe out of his will completely.<\/p>\n

    After West Point, Poe traveled extensively, living in poverty as a full-time writer in major cities like New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Richmond. While in Richmond, he fell in love with his cousin, Virginia Clemm, and married her in 1836. Poe was 27, and Clemm was 13.<\/p>\n

    After winning a short story contest, Poe\u2019s writing career picked up and he went on to publish more short stories in literary journals and magazines. He also worked as a critic for the Southern Literary Messenger and was notorious for his biting reviews, earning him the nickname \u201cTomahawk Man.\u201d His position as critic with the magazine proved short-lived as his seething reviews often led to confrontation. It is believed he was fired after his boss found him drunk on the job. Over the years, Poe had developed a liking to alcohol, eventually leading to a dependence on liquor. This dependence evolved into full-blown alcoholism when Virginia fell ill with tuberculosis in 1842. The very disease that killed his birth mother and later his adoptive mother seemed insatiable, targeting the women Poe loved. It was while his wife was sick that Poe wrote the famous poem for which he is known: \u201cThe Raven\u201d (1845).<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe Raven\u201d skyrocketed Poe from infamous critic to famous poet. But the literary recognition of his arguably most popular poem did not come with the paycheck one would expect. He only received $9 from The American Review for it, and Poe continued to struggle financially for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n

    Debt and alcoholism weren\u2019t the only demons haunting Poe. Death soon darkened his door yet again. In 1947, Virginia lost her battle with tuberculosis, devastating Poe. She was only 24 years old. After her death, Poe\u2019s dependency on substances grew until, in 1849, he died at the age of 40 under suspicious circumstances. Some sources say he drank himself to death while others blame his death on drugs or rabies. No one is certain how Poe died, and it remains a mystery to this day, not unlike the gothic endings of some of his most celebrated works.<\/p>\n

    Poe may have beaten Death in the end; his works are still recognized as an important part of the American Literature canon. Modern day readers have Poe to thank for detective fiction, a genre which some credit him for creating. Best known for his evocative storytelling and his gothic style, Poe continues to influence writers across the centuries from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Stephen King, who is quoted in a Mystery Scene magazine article as saying of Poe, \u201cHe wasn\u2019t just a mystery\/suspense writer. He was the first.\u201d<\/p>\n

    You may be interested in the following video, which offers a good overall introduction to Poe’s works.<\/p>\n