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 _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 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 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 the 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 vastly 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 predetermined 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 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
pre-assumption 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 modeling his
questions as to receive from the _expected_ "Nevermore" the most
delicious because the most intolerable of sorrow. Perceiving the
opportunity thus afforded me--or, more strictly, thus forced upon me in
the progress of the construction--I first established in mind the
climax, or concluding query--that to which "Nevermore" should be in the
last place an answer--that 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 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 meter, 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 meter 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, 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 meter of
the "Raven." The former is trochaic--the latter is octameter
acatalectic, alternating with heptameter catalectic repeated in the
_refrain_ of the fifth verse, and terminating with tetrameter
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 combination 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 marveled _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 _dénouement_ 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 demeanor. 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 _dénouement_--which is now brought about as rapidly and as
_directly_ as possible.
With the _dénouement_ 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 demeanor, 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 utmost 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
undercurrent, 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 undercurrent of meaning is rendered first
apparent in the lines--
"'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's 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."