The Raven; with literary and historical commentary/Genesis
GENESIS.
"A history of how and where works of imagination have been produced," remarked L. E. L., "would often be more extraordinary than the works themselves." The "where" seldom imports much, but the "how" frequently signifies everything. Rarely has an attempt been made, and still more rarely with success, to investigate the germination of any poetic chef d'œuvre: Edgar Poe's most famous poem—The Raven—has, however, been a constant object of such research. Could the poet's own elaborate and positive analysis of the poem—his so styled Philosophy of Composition—be accepted as a record of fact, there would be nothing more to say in the matter, but there are few willing to accept its statements, at least unreservedly. Whether Edgar Poe did—as alleged—or did not profess that his famed recipe for manufacturing such a poem as The Raven was an afterthought—a hoax—our opinion will not be shaken that his essay embodies, at the most, but a modicum of fact. The germs of The Raven, its primitive inception, and the processes by which it grew into a "thing of beauty," are to be sought elsewhere.
"I have often thought," says Poe, "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 ... 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 stepladders 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."
Besides the unwillingness there is, also, as Poe acknowledges, frequently an inability to retrace the steps by which conclusions have been arrived at: the gradations by which his work arrived at maturity are but too often forgotten by the worker. "For my own part," declares Poe, "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."
Having made so positive a declaration the poet attempts to prove its trustworthiness by assuming to show the modus operandi by which The Raven was put together. The author of The Balloon Hoax; of Von Kempelen and his Discovery; of The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, and of other immortal hoaxes, confidingly assures us that it is his design to render manifest that no one point in the composition of his poetic master-piece The Raven, "is referrible either to accident or intuition" and "that the work proceeded, step by step, to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem."
From the premises thus precisely laid down, Edgar Poe proceeds to trace step by step—phase by phase—to their logical conclusion, the processes by which his famous poem was manufactured. We not only doubt, we feel assured that The Raven was not built entirely upon the lines thus laid down. Some commentators—notably Mr. William Minto, in a remarkably thoughtful and original essay[1]—have elected to place entire reliance upon Poe's statements, as given in The Philosophy of Composition; we, for reasons to be given, can only regard them as the result of an afterthought, as the outcome of a desire—or perhaps of a necessity—to produce an effect; to create another sensation.
Those unable or unwilling to accept the poet's theory for The Raven's composition have diligently sought for the source of its inspiration—for the germ out of which it grew. To satisfy this desire for information many fraudulent statements and clumsy forgeries have been foisted on the public: these things will be referred to later on, for the present they are beside our purpose. Among the few suggestions worth noticing, one which appeared in the Athenæum[2] requires examination. In The Gem for 1831, it is pointed out, appeared two poems by Tennyson, "included, we believe, in no collection of the poet's works. The first poem is entitled No More, and seems worthy, in all respects," says the writer, "of preservation." It reads thus:—
"Oh sad No More! oh sweet No More!
Oh strange No More!
By a mossed brook bank on a stone
I smelt a wildweed-flower alone;
There was a ringing in my ears,
And both my eyes gushed out with tears.
Surely all pleasant things had gone before,
Low-buried fathom deep beneath with thee, No More!"
The other poem, entitled Anacreontic, contains the name of Lenora. "It is not suggested," says the writer, "that Poe took from these verses more than the name Lenora or Lenore, and the burden 'Never More.' The connection of the two in The Raven renders all but certain that the author had come across the book in which the poems appear."
Whether or no Poe ever saw The Gem for 1831, is almost immaterial to inquire, but that so common a poetic phrase as "No More" supplied him, fourteen years later, with his melancholy burden of "Never More" no one can believe. In truth, for many years "No More" had been a favorite refrain with Poe: in his poem To One in Paradise, the publication of which is traceable back to July, 1835, is the line,
"No more—no more—no more!"
In the sonnet To Zante, published in January, 1837, the sorrowful words occur five times,
"No more! alas, that magical sad sound
Transforming all!"
whilst in the sonnet To Silence, published in April, 1840, "No More" again plays a leading part. The first at least of these three poems there is good reason to believe had been written as early as 1832 or 1833. As regards Poe's favorite name of Lenore, an early use of it may be pointed out in his poem entitled "Lenore," published in the Pioneer for 1842, the germ of the said poem having been first published in 1831.
We are now about to touch more solid ground. In 1843 Edgar Poe appears to have been writing for The New Mirror, a New York periodical edited by his two acquaintances, G. P. Morris and N. P. Willis. In the number for October the 14th appeared some verses entitled Isadore: they were by Albert Pike, the author of an Ode to The Mocking Bird and other pieces once well-known. In an editorial note by Willis, it was stated that Isadore had been written by its author "after sitting up late at study,—the thought of losing her who slept near him at his toil having suddenly crossed his mind in the stillness of midnight."
Here we have a statement which must have met Poe's gaze, and which establishes the first coincidence between the poems of Pike and of The Raven's author: both write a poem lamenting a lost love when, in fact, neither the one has lost his "Isadore" nor the other his "Lenore":—the grief is fictitious. In The Philosophy of Composition Poe states that he selected for the theme of his projected poem, "a lover lamenting his deceased mistress." Pike, we are told by Willis, in the statement certainly seen by Poe, wrote his lines "in the stillness of midnight," "after sitting up late at study," and the initial stanza of The Raven begins,—
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume."
The key-note has been struck, and all that follows is in due sequence. Poe, in his Philosophy of Composition, says that when he had determined upon writing his poem, "with the view of obtaining some artistic piquancy" in its construction, "some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn," he did not fail to at once notice that of all the usual effects, or points, adopted by writers of verse, "no one had been so universally employed as that of the refrain. The universality of its employment," he declared "sufficed to assure me of its intrinsic value, and spared me the necessity of submitting it to analysis." Now it may be noticed in passing that the refrain was neither universal—nor common, save with ballad makers—up to Poe's days, and that either of those attributes would have sufficed to repel him—whose search was ever after the outré—the bizarre. But the truth was Poe found as the most distinctive—the only salient—feature in his contemporary's poem the refrain,
"Thou art lost to me forever, Isadore."
Naturally, Poe's genius impelled him to improve upon the simple repetend: "I considered it," he says, "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," continues Poe, "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," pursues the poet, "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 predetermined as the tone of the poem. In such a search," avers Poe, "it would have been absolutely impossible to overlook the word 'Nevermore.' In fact it was the very first which presented itself."
Thus the author of The Raven would lead his readers to believe that he was irresistibly impelled to select for his refrain the word "Nevermore," but, evidently, there are plenty of eligible words in the English language both embodying the long sonorous o in connection with r as the most producible consonant, and of sorrowful import. A perusal of Pike's poem, however, rendered it needless for Poe to seek far for the needed word, for, not only does the refrain to Isadore contain the antithetic word to never, and end with the ōre syllable, but in one line of the poem are "never" and "more," and in others the words "no more," "evermore," and "for ever more"; quite sufficient, all must admit, to have supplied the analytic mind of our poet with what he needed.
Thus far the theme, the refrain, and the word selected for the refrain, have been somewhat closely paralleled in the poem by Pike, whilst over the transmutation of the heroine's name from Isadore into Lenore no words need be wasted.
But the ballad of "Isadore" contains no allusion to the "ghastly grim and ancient Raven"—the ominous bird whose croaking voice and melancholy "nevermore" has found an echo in so many hearts. Where then did Poe obtain this sable, sombre auxiliary, the pretext, at he tells us, for the natural and continuous repetition of the refrain? Observing the difficulty of inventing a plausible reason for this continuous repetition, he did not fail to perceive, is his declaration, "that this difficulty arose solely from the presumption that the word was to be so continuously or monotonously spoken by a human being. I did not fail to perceive, in short," is his remark, "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."
Now it will be recalled to mind that Pike was not only the author of a well-known Ode to The Mocking Bird, but that in his poem of Isadore, which has already served us so well, is the line—
"The mocking-bird sits still and sings a melancholy strain."
Poe would naturally desire to avoid introducing any direct allusion to the mocking-bird of his contemporary—which, indeed he had already noticed in print—even if that creature had been capable of enacting the needful rôle, so for a while, it is possible, he may have deemed the parrot suitable for his purpose. Gresset's Ver-Vert—that most amusing of birds!—with whose history he was familiar, may indeed have been recalled to mind, but that he would speedily discard all idea of such a creature as out of all keeping with the tone of his projected poem is evident. To us it appears clear that it was in Barnaby Rudge he finally found the needed bird. In a review which he wrote of that story Poe drew attention to certain points he deemed Dickens had failed to make: the Raven in it, the well-known "Grip," he considered, "might have been made more than we now see it, a portion of the conception of the fantastic Barnaby. Its croaking might have been prophetically heard in the course of the drama. Its character might have performed, in regard to that of the idiot, much the same part as does, in music, the accompaniment in respect to the air." Here would seem to be, beyond question, shadowed forth the poet's own Raven and its duty.
It has been seen that Poe found much of what he wanted in Isadore, and it might not be investigating too nicely to question whether the "melancholy strain" of its "mocking bird" may not have suggested the "melancholy burden" of the Raven; but more palpable similarities are apparent. In order to justify the following portion of our argument it will be necessary to cite some specimens of Pike's work, this stanza of it shall, therefore, be given:—
|
"Thou art lost to me forever—I have lost thee Isadore,— |
As might be expected Pike's metre and rhythm are very much less dexterously managed than are Poe's, but, to some extent the intention was to produce an effect similar to that carried out afterwards in the Raven, and this is the greatest proof of all that the author of the latter poem derived the germ thought of it from Isadore. The irregularities of the prototype poem, however, are so manifold and so eccentric, it is easy to perceive that its author was unable to get beyond the intention, and that his acquaintance with the laws of versification was limited.
"Of course," remarks Poe, "I pretend to no originality in either the rhythm or metre of the Raven" adding, "what originality the Raven has, is in their (the forms of verse employed) combination into stanza, nothing even remotely approaching this combination has ever been attempted."
In concluding this section of our analysis it will not be superfluous to reiterate the points in which we have endeavoured to demonstrate the various similarities between the poems of Pike and of Poe. Firstly, the theme: upon a dreary midnight a toilworn student is sitting in his study, lamenting his lost love. Secondly, with a view of giving some originality to his ballad the poet adopts a refrain. Thirdly, the refrains, which are of melancholy import, conclude with the similarly sounding words "forever," and "nevermore," whilst fourthly, Poe's stanzas have the appearance of being formed upon the basis of Pike's, though it is true, so improved and expanded by extra feet, and the addition of another long line, that they need a very careful and crucial examination ere the appearance becomes manifest. Minor, or less salient points of resemblance, such as "the melancholy strain" of the mocking bird, and the "melancholy burden" of the raven need no further comment, as the reader will be able to detect them for himself.
It is now necessary to examine the claims of another poem to having been an important factor in the inception and composition of The Raven. A few months previous to the publication of Poe's poetic masterwork he read and reviewed the newly published Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (Mrs. Browning). From amid the contents of the volumes he selected for most marked commendation Lady Geraldine's Courtship, strongly animadverting, however, upon its paucity of rhymes and deficiencies of rhythm. The constructive ability of the authoress he remarks "is either not very remarkable, or has never been properly brought into play:—in truth her genius is too impetuous for the minuter technicalities of that elaborate art so needful in the building-up of pyramids for immortality."
It has been hastily assumed that the author of the Raven drew his conception of it from Lady Geraldine's Courtship. The late Buchanan Read even informed Mr. Robert Browning that Poe had described to him the whole construction of his poem and had stated the suggestion of it lay wholly in this line of Mrs. Browning's poem—
"With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air, the purple curtain."
together with other points to be noted.
We know by experience how greatly Poe revised, and, how differently from the original drafts, he re-wrote his poems. The Bells, for instance, was originally only an unimportant colourless piece of seventeen lines, and underwent numerous transformations before it reached its present form. It is fairly safe to assume, therefore, that upon the strength of the suggestions given by Pike's Isadore, Poe had devised if, indeed, he had not already written the Raven in its original form when he met with Lady Geraldine's Courtship. Here was something instinct with genius and replete with that Beauty which he worshipped. Do we go beyond probability, in deeming he returned to his unpublished poem, already, there is reason to believe, the rejected of several editors, and, fired by Mrs. Browning's attempt, determined to make his poem one of those "pyramids for immortality" of which he had spoken?
It may be further assumed that by the light of this new pharos he revised and rewrote his poem, as he did so reflecting, amid its original beauties, some stray gleams from his new beacon.
Besides the line already pointed out there are several lesser points of likeness, as between,—
"And she treads the crimson carpet and she breathes the perfumed air,"
"Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by angels whose faint foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor."[4]
Again, not only are there resemblances in thought, but a marked resemblance in rhythm and metre, to Poe's words and work in this stanza of Mrs. Browning's poem:—
"Eyes, he said, now throbbing through me! are ye eyes that did undo me?
Shining eyes like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone!
Underneath that calm white forehead, are ye ever burning torrid
O'er the desolate sand desert of my heart and life undone?"
Here is, veritably, a stanza, to parallel in versification and ideas Poe's lines,—
"On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming."
This stanza far more likely than that containing the first cited line of Mrs. Browning, would have suggested the metrical method, the rhythm, and the additional rhymes in the first and third lines. But there the suggestion ends; all beyond that is apparently Poe's own. It is, of course, possible that other sources of the inspiration of the Raven are discoverable although not yet discovered, but, when all the germs have been analyzed and all the suggested sources scrutinized what a wealth of imagination and a power of words remain the unalienable property of Poe—this builder of "pyramids for immortality."
Every poem must have been suggested by something, but how rarely do suggestions—whence-so-ever drawn—from Nature or Art—culminate in works so magnificent as this—the melodious apotheosis of Melancholy! This splendid consecration of unforgetful, undying sorrow!
As has already been pointed out Poe made no claim to originality as regarded either the rhythm or the metre of the Raven: the measures of each of the lines composing the stanzas of his poem had been often used before, but to cite his own words with respect to this feature of the work, "what originality the Raven has, is in their combination into stanza, nothing even remotely approaching this combination has ever been attempted. The effect of this originality of combination is," as he justly claims, "aided by other unusual and some altogether novel effects, arising from an extension of the application of the principles of rhyme and alliteration."
This is, indeed, a modest method of placing before his public the markedly original variations from known and well-worn forms of versification. "The possible varieties of metre and stanza are," as Poe remarks, "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" asserts the poet "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 of negation."
In proof of Poe himself having possessed this "merit of the highest class," it is but necessary to refer to the Raven. Not only is the whole conception and construction of the poem evidence of his inventive originality, not only are the artistic alliteration, the profusion of open vowel sounds and the melodious metre, testimony to his sense of beauty, but, by the introduction of the third rhyme into the fourth line of the stanza, and by the new, the novel, insertion of a fifth line between that fourth line and the refrain, he did really do, what, as he pointed out, no man had done for centuries, an original thing in verse!
- ↑ The Fortnightly Review, July 1st, 1880.
- ↑ No. 2473, page 395, March 20th, 1875.
- ↑ For the satisfaction of the reader the whole of this poem is given at pp. 35—39.
- ↑ First published version.