1809-1849

The father of Edgar Allan Poe came of a good Maryland family; his mother was a young English actress. After their marriage, which resulted in his father being disinherited, both gained a somewhat uncertain livelihood on the stage, and it was on one of their tours that their son, Edgar, was born, at Boston in 1809. Three years later he was left an orphan, but was ultimately adopted by a wealthy Richmond family named Allan. He received his early education in England, at StokeNewington, near London, and we have a vivid account of his childish impressions of this period in the semi-autobiographical tale "William Wilson." On his return to America he was sent to a private school near Richmond, and later to the University of Virginia. After two years of study, interrupted somewhat by a wild and unrestrained life, his fosterfather decided he should leave college. Soon afterwards he ran away, and tried to gain his livelihood by the pen. His first literary effort was Tamerlane, and Other Poems," published at Boston in 1827. He met, however, with no encouragement in this attempt, and consequently joined the army. After a year of this life his guardian procured his discharge, and he returned to Richmond. A second volume of poems was published in 1829, but met with no more favorable reception than the first. In 1830 he entered the military academy at West Point, the appointment having been secured for him by Mr. Allan, but he was dismissed for neglect of duties in less than a year.

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In 1831 Poe settled in Baltimore, and began a journalistic and literary career that continued till his death. His first notable success was a prize story," The Manuscript found in a Bottle," which secured for him a position as editor of the " Southern Literary Messenger," at Richmond. His criticisms and tales now gained for him a wide reputation, but his restless spirit soon prompted him to resign his editorship, and in 1837 he removed to New York, where he supported himself by contributing to the New York Quarterly Review and other periodicals. From 1839-40 he was editor of "The Gentleman's Magazine," at Philadelphia. Afterwards he edited Graham's Magazine for a year. In 1845 he went to New York, where he was associated for a while with Charles F. Briggs in editing the "Broadway Journal." In 1840 he brought out "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque," and, in 1845, he issued "The Raven, and Other Poems." At no time during this period was Poe in comfortable circumstances, and his desire for strong drink grew upon him steadily. In 1847 his child wife died, and he entered upon the darkest and most tragic stage of his life. He died two years later at the Washington Hospital in Baltimore, at the age of forty.

Poe's position in American literature is unique. Undoubtedly possessed of genius of a high order, his work is as remarkable for the narrowness of its range as for its perfection within the self-prescribed limits. His poems are not numerous, but include some of the most weird and fantastic poems in all literature. His tales, too, are comparatively few in number, but many of them are original and effective. As a literary critic Poe enjoyed considerable reputation in his day, and many of his literary essays are examples of an admirable prose style, as, for instance, The Philosophy of Composition," written in 1846, in which he discusses his own masterpiece, "The Raven." Poe's writings show no trace of humor, and little or no human sympathy. But in his keen sense of the weird and the grotesque, in his subtle appreciation of word values, in his portrayal of gloom, mystery, mental and physical decay, and death, and in his power of expressing the emotions of terror, inconsolable grief and desire, Poe has no superior.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION

HARLES 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's 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 dénouement before anything be attempted with the pen. It is only with the dénouement 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 authorial 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-afterwards 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 authorial 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 momentat 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 the 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 analyzed, 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, cæteris 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 psychical necessity, brief. For this reason at least one-half of the " Paradise Lost" is essentially prose -a succession of poetical excitements interpersed, 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 pure 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 pro

viso 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 demonstrationthe 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 causesthat 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,