SUCCESS: AND SOME OF ITS MINOR CONDITIONS
The Truth about Success
There are two kinds of success in fiction--commercial and literary; and
sometimes a writer is able to combine the two. Thomas Hardy is an
example of the writer who produces literature and has large sales. On
the other hand, there are many writers who succeed in one direction,
but not in the other. The works of Marie Corelli have an amazing
circulation, but they are not regarded as literature; whereas such
genuine work as that of Mr Quiller Couch has to be content with sales
far less extensive.
Now Thomas Hardy, Marie Corelli, and Quiller Couch have all succeeded,
but in different ways. No doubt the reader would prefer to succeed in
the manner of Hardy, but if he can't do it, he must be content to
succeed in the best way he can. It is easy to talk about Miss Corelli's
"rot" and "bosh" and "high falutin," but long columns of figures in a
publisher's ledger mean something after all. They do not necessarily
mean literary merit, delicate insight, or beautiful characterisation;
they probably mean a keen sense of what the public likes, and a power to
tickle its palate in an agreeable manner. Still, not every man or woman
is able to do this, and although such a success may not rank as one of
the first order, it _is_ a success which nobody can gainsay. Literary
journals have been instituting "inquiries" into the cases of men like Mr
Silas Hocking and the Rev. E. P. Roe: why have they a circulation
numbered by the million? No "inquiry" is needed. They are literary
merchantmen who have studied the book-market thoroughly, and as a result
they know what is wanted and supply it. Let them have their reward
without mean and angry demur.
However one may try to explain the fact, it is none the less true that
genuine literature often fails to pay the expenses of publication; at
any rate, if it accomplishes more than that, it is infinitesimal as
compared with the huge sales of inferior work. I do not know the
circulation of Mr Henry Harland's "Comedies and Errors"--possibly it has
been moderate--but I would rather be the author of this volume of
beautiful workmanship than of all the works of Marie Corelli--the bags
of gold notwithstanding. Of course, this is merely a personal preference
with which the reader may have no sympathy; but the fact remains that,
if a writer produces real literature and it does not sell, he has not
therefore failed in his purpose; he may not receive many cheques from
his publisher, but it is real compensation to have an audience, "fit
though few."
On the general question of literary success, George Henry Lewes says:
"We may lay it down, as a rule, that no work ever succeeded, even for a
day, but it deserved that success; no work ever failed but under
conditions which made failure inevitable. This will seem hard to men who
feel that, in their case, neglect arises from prejudice or stupidity.
Yet it is true even in extreme cases; true even when the work once
neglected has since been acknowledged superior to the works which for a
time eclipsed it. Success, temporary or enduring, is the measure of the
relation, temporary or enduring, which exists between a work and the
public mind."[167:A]
Failure has a still more fruitful cause--namely, the misdirection of
talent. "Men are constantly attempting, without special aptitude, work
for which special aptitude is indispensable.
'On peut etre honnete homme et faire mal des vers.'
A man may be variously accomplished and yet be a feeble poet. He may be
a real poet, yet a feeble dramatist. He may have dramatic faculty, yet
be a feeble novelist. He may be a good story-teller, yet a shallow
thinker and a slip-shod writer. For success in any special kind of work,
it is obvious that a special talent is requisite; but obvious as this
seems, when stated as a general proposition, it rarely serves to check a
mistaken presumption. There are many writers endowed with a certain
susceptibility to the graces and refinements of literature, which has
been fostered by culture till they have mistaken it for native power;
and these men being destitute of native power are forced to imitate what
others have created. They can understand how a man may have musical
sensibility, and yet not be a good singer; but they fail to understand,
at least in their own case, how a man may have literary sensibility, yet
not be a good story-teller or an effective dramatist."[168:A]
The conclusion of the whole matter is this: determine what your
projected work is to do; if you are going to offer it in a popular
market, give the public plenty for its money, and spice it well; if you
are going to offer a sacrifice to the Goddess of Art, be content if you
receive no more applause than that which comes from the few worshippers
who surround the sacred shrine.
FOOTNOTES:
[167:A] "The Principles of Success in Literature," p. 10.
[168:A] "The Principles of Success in Literature," p. 7.
SUCCESS
Minor Conditions of Success
1. Good literature has the same value in manuscript as in typescript,
but from the standpoint of author and publisher, it can hardly be said
to have the same chances. Penmanship does not tend to improve, and some
of the scrawly MSS. sent in to publishers are enough to create dismay in
the stoutest heart. It is pure affectation to pretend to be above such
small matters. Just as a dinner is all the more appetising because it is
neatly and daintily served, so a _MS._ has better chances of being read
and appreciated when set out in type-written characters.
2. Be sure that you are sending your _MS._ to the right publisher.
Novels with a strongly developed moral purpose are not exactly the kind
of thing wanted by Mr Heinemann; and if you have anything like "The
Woman Who Did," don't send it to a Sunday School Publishing Company.
These suppositions are no doubt absurd in the extreme, but they will
serve my purpose in pointing out the careless way in which many
beginners dispose of their wares. Nearly all publishers specialise in
some kind of literature, and it is the novelist's duty to study these
types from publishers' catalogues, providing, of course, he does not
know them already. The commercial instinct is proverbially lacking in
authors; if it were not we should witness less frequently the spectacle
of portly MSS. being sent out haphazard to publisher after publisher.
3. Perhaps my third point ought to have come first. It relates to the
obtaining of an expert's views on the matter and form of your story.
This will cost you a guinea, perhaps more, but it will save your time
and hasten the possibilities of success. You can easily spend a guinea
in postage and two or three more in having the MS. re-typed,--and yet
the tale be ever the same--"Declined with thanks." Spare yourself many
disappointments by putting your literary efforts before a competent
critic, and let him point out the crudities, the digressions, and those
weaknesses which betray the 'prentice hand. It will not be pleasant to
see a pen line through your "glorious" passages, or two blue pencil
marks across a favourite piece of dialogue, but it is better to know
your defects at once than to discover them by painful and constant
rejections.
4. Be willing to learn; have no fear of hard work; do the best, and
write the best that is in you; and never ape anybody, but be yourself.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I
THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION[175:1]
By EDGAR ALLAN POE
Charles Dickens, in a note now lying before me, alluding to an
examination I once made of the mechanism of "Barnaby Rudge," says--"By
the way, are you aware that Godwin wrote his 'Caleb Williams' backwards?
He first involved his hero in a web of difficulties, forming the second
volume, and then, for the first, cast about him for some mode of
accounting for what had been done."
I cannot think this the _precise_ mode of procedure on the part of
Godwin--and indeed what he himself acknowledges, is not altogether in
accordance with Mr. Dickens' idea--but the author of "Caleb Williams"
was too good an artist not to perceive the advantage derivable from at
least a somewhat similar process. Nothing is more clear than that every
plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its _denouement_ before
anything be attempted with the pen. It is only with the _denouement_
constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air of
consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the
tone at all points, tend to the development of the intention.
There is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a
story. Either history affords a thesis--or one is suggested by an
incident of the day--or, at best, the author sets himself to work in the
combination of striking events to form merely the basis of his
narrative--designing, generally, to fill in with description, dialogue,
or 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--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 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 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_.
I am aware, on the other hand, that the case is by no means common, in
which an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his
conclusions have been attained. In general, suggestions, having arisen
pell-mell, are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner.
For my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to,
nor, at any time, the least difficulty in recalling to mind the
progressive steps of any of my compositions; and, since the interest of
an analysis, or reconstruction, such as I have considered a
_desideratum_, is quite independent of any real or fancied interest in
the thing analysed, it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on
my part to show the _modus operandi_ by which some one of my own works
was put together. I select "The Raven" as most generally known. It is my
design to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is
referable either to accident or intuition--that the work proceeded, step
by step, to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a
mathematical problem.
Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem, _per se_, the
circumstance--or say the necessity--which, in the first place, gave rise
to the intention of composing _a_ poem that should suit at once the
popular and the critical taste.
We commence, then, with this intention.
The initial consideration was that of extent. If any literary work is
too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with
the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression--for,
if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and
everything like totality is at once destroyed. But since, _caeteris
paribus_, no poet can afford to dispense with _anything_ that may
advance his design, it but remains to be seen whether there is, in
extent, any advantage to counterbalance the loss of unity which attends
it. Here I say no, at once. What we term a long poem is, in fact, merely
a succession of brief ones--that is to say, of brief poetical effects.
It is needless to demonstrate that a poem is such, only inasmuch as it
intensely excites, by elevating, the soul; and all intense excitements
are, through a psychal necessity, brief. For this reason, at least one
half of the "Paradise Lost" is essentially prose--a succession of
poetical excitements interspersed, _inevitably_, with corresponding
depressions--the whole being deprived, through the extremeness of its
length, of the vastly important artistic element, totality, or unity, of
effect.
It appears evident, then, that there is a distinct limit, as regards
length, to all works of literary art--the limit of a single sitting--and
that, although in certain classes of prose composition, such as
"Robinson Crusoe" (demanding no unity), this limit may be advantageously
overpassed, it can never properly be overpassed in a poem. Within this
limit, the extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to
its merit--in other words, to the excitement or elevation--again, in
other words, to the degree of the true poetical effect which it is
capable of inducing; for it is clear that the brevity must be in direct
ratio of the intensity of the intended effect:--this, with one
proviso--that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for
the production of any effect at all.
Holding in view these considerations, as well as that degree of
excitement which I deemed not above the popular, while not below the
critical, taste, I reached at once what I conceived the proper _length_
for my intended poem--a length of about one hundred lines. It is, in
fact, a hundred and eight.
My next thought concerned the choice of an impression, or effect, to be
conveyed; and here I may as well observe that, throughout the
construction I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work
_universally_ appreciable. I should be carried too far out of my
immediate topic were I to demonstrate a point upon which I have
repeatedly insisted, and which, with the poetical, stands not in the
slightest need of demonstration--the point, I mean, that Beauty is the
sole legitimate province of the poem. A few words, however, in
elucidation of my real meaning, which some of my friends have evinced a
disposition to misrepresent. That pleasure which is at once the most
intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in
the contemplation of the beautiful. When, indeed, men speak of Beauty,
they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect--they
refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of
_soul_--_not_ of intellect, or of heart--upon which I have commented,
and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating "the
beautiful." Now I designate Beauty as the province of the poem, merely
because it is an obvious rule of Art that effects should be made to
spring from direct causes--that objects should be attained through means
best adapted for their attainment--no one as yet having been weak enough
to deny that the peculiar elevation alluded to, is _most readily_
attained in the poem. Now the object Truth, or the satisfaction of the
intellect, and the object Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are,
although attainable, to a certain extent, in poetry, far more readily
attainable in prose. Truth, in fact, demands a precision, and Passion a
_homeliness_ (the truly passionate will comprehend me) which are
absolutely antagonistic to that Beauty which, I maintain, is the
excitement, or pleasurable elevation, of the soul. It by no means
follows from anything here said, that passion, or even truth, may not be
introduced, and even profitably introduced, into a poem--for they may
serve in elucidation, or aid the general effect, as do discords in
music, by contrast--but the true artist will always contrive, first, to
tone them into proper subservience to the predominant aim; and,
secondly, to enveil them, as far as possible, in that Beauty which is
the atmosphere and the essence of the poem.
Regarding, then, Beauty as my province, my next question referred to the
_tone_ of its highest manifestation--and all experience has shown that
this tone is one of _sadness_. Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme
development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy
is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.
The length, the province, and the tone, being thus determined, I betook
myself to ordinary induction, with the view of obtaining some artistic
piquancy which might serve me as a key-note in the construction of the
poem--some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn. In
carefully thinking over all the usual artistic effects--or more properly
_points_, in the theatrical sense--I did not fail to perceive
immediately that no one had been so universally employed as that of the
_refrain_. The universality of its employment sufficed to assure me of
its intrinsic value, and spared me the necessity of submitting it to
analysis. I considered it, however, with regard to its susceptibility of
improvement, and soon saw it to be in a primitive condition. As commonly
used, the _refrain_, or burden, not only is limited to lyric verse, but
depends for its impression upon the force of monotone--both in sound and
thought. The pleasure is deduced solely from the sense of identity--of
repetition. I resolved to diversify, and so heighten, the effect, by
adhering, in general, to the monotone of sound, while I continually
varied that of thought: that is to say, I determined to produce
continuously novel effects, by the variation _of the application_ of the
_refrain_--the _refrain_ itself remaining, for the most part, unvaried.
These points being settled, I next bethought me of the _nature_ of my
_refrain_. Since its application was to be repeatedly varied, it was
clear that the _refrain_ itself must be brief, for there would have been
an insurmountable difficulty in frequent variations of application in
any sentence of length. In proportion to the brevity of the sentence,
would, of course, be the facility of the variation. This led me at once
to a single word as the best _refrain_.
The question now arose as to the _character_ of the word. Having made up
my mind to a _refrain_, the division of the poem into stanzas was, of
course, a corollary: the _refrain_ forming the close to each stanza.
That such a close, to have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of
protracted emphasis, admitted no doubt: and these considerations
inevitably led me to the long _o_ as the most sonorous vowel, in
connection with _r_ as the most producible consonant.
The sound of the _refrain_ being thus determined, it became necessary to
select a word embodying this sound, and at the same time in the fullest
possible keeping with that melancholy which I had pre-determined as the
tone of the poem. In such a search it would have been absolutely
impossible to overlook the word "Nevermore." In fact, it was the very
first which presented itself.
The next _desideratum_ was a pretext for the continuous use of the one
word "nevermore." In observing the difficulty which I 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 modelling
his question 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 query to which "Nevermore" should be
in the last place an answer--that query in reply to which this word
"Nevermore" should involve the utmost conceivable amount of sorrow and
despair.
Here then the poem may be said to have its beginning--at the end, where
all works of art should begin--for it was here, at this point of my
pre-considerations, that I first put pen to paper in the composition of
the stanza:
"'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil! prophet still, if bird or
devil!
By that heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore,
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore?'
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'"
I composed this stanza, at this point, first that, by establishing the
climax, I might the better vary and graduate, as regards seriousness
and importance, the preceding queries of the lover--and, secondly, that
I might definitely settle the rhythm, the metre, and the length and
general arrangement of the stanza--as well as graduate the stanzas which
were to precede, so that none of them might surpass this in rhythmical
effect. Had I been able, in the subsequent composition, to construct
more vigorous stanzas, I should, without scruple, have purposely
enfeebled them, so as not to interfere with the climacteric effect.
And here I may as well say a few words of the versification. My first
object (as usual) was originality. The extent to which this has been
neglected, in versification, is one of the most unaccountable things in
the world. Admitting that there is little possibility of variety in mere
_rhythm_, it is still clear that the possible varieties of metre and
stanza are absolutely infinite--and yet, _for centuries, no man, in
verse, has ever done, or ever seemed to think of doing, an original
thing_. The fact is, that originality (unless in minds of very unusual
force) is by no means a matter, as some suppose, of impulse or
intuition. In general, to be found, it must be elaborately sought, and
although a positive merit of the highest class, demands in its
attainment less of invention than negation.
Of course, I pretend to no originality in either the rhythm or metre of
the "Raven." The former is trochaic--the latter is 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 _grace and stern decorum of the countenance it wore_,
'Though thy _crest be shorn and shaven_, thou,' I said, 'art sure
no craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore--
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore?'
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'
Much I marvelled _this ungainly fowl_ to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
_Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door--
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door_,
With such name as 'Nevermore.'"
The effect of the _denouement_ being thus provided for, I immediately
drop the fantastic for a tone of the most profound seriousness:--this
tone commencing in the stanza directly following the one last quoted,
with the line,
"But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only,"
etc.
From this epoch the lover no longer jests--no longer sees any thing even
of the fantastic in the Raven's demeanour. He speaks of him as a "grim,
ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore," and feels the
"fiery eyes" burning into his "bosom's core." This revolution of
thought, or fancy, on the lover's part, is intended to induce a similar
one on the part of the reader--to bring the mind into a proper frame for
the _denouement_--which is now brought about as rapidly and as
_directly_ as possible.
With the _denouement_ proper--with the Raven's reply, "Nevermore," to
the lover's final demand if he shall meet his mistress in another
world--the poem, in its obvious phase, that of a simple narrative, may
be said to have its completion. So far, every thing is within the limits
of the accountable--of the real. A raven, having learned by rote the
single word "Nevermore," and having escaped from the custody of its
owner, is driven at midnight, through the violence of a storm, to seek
admission at a window from which a light still gleams--the
chamber-window of a student, occupied half in poring over a volume, half
in dreaming of a beloved mistress deceased. The casement being thrown
open at the fluttering of the bird's wings, the bird itself perches on
the most convenient seat out of the immediate reach of the student, who,
amused by the incident and the oddity of the visitor's demeanour,
demands of it, in jest, and without looking for a reply, its name. The
raven addressed, answers with its customary word, "Nevermore"--a word
which finds immediate echo in the melancholy heart of the student, who,
giving utterance aloud to certain thoughts suggested by the occasion, is
again startled by the fowl's repetition of "Nevermore." The student now
guesses the state of the case, but is impelled, as I have before
explained, by the human thirst for self-torture, and in part by
superstition, to propound such queries to the bird as will bring him,
the lover, the most of the luxury of sorrow, through the anticipated
answer "Nevermore." With the indulgence, to the extreme, of this
self-torture, the narration, in what I have termed its first or obvious
phase, has a natural termination, and so far there has been no
overstepping of the limits of the real.
But in subjects so handled, however skilfully, or with however vivid an
array of incident, there is always a certain hardness or nakedness,
which repels the artistical eye. Two things are invariably
required--first, some amount of complexity, or more properly,
adaptation; and, secondly, some amount of suggestiveness--some
under-current, however indefinite, of meaning. It is this latter, in
especial, which imparts to a work of art so much of that _richness_ (to
borrow from colloquy a forcible term) which we are too fond of
confounding with _the ideal_. It is the _excess_ of the suggested
meaning--it is the rendering this the upper instead of the under current
of the theme--which turns into prose (and that of the very flattest
kind) the so-called poetry of the so-called transcendentalists.
Holding these opinions, I added the two concluding stanzas of the
poem--their suggestiveness being thus made to pervade all the narrative
which has preceded them. The under-current of meaning is rendered first
apparent in the 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!"
FOOTNOTES:
[175:1] I do not hold myself responsible for Poe's literary judgments:
my purpose in reproducing this essay is to reveal Poe's _methods_.
APPENDIX II
BOOKS WORTH READING
1. "The Art of Fiction." By Sir Walter Besant. Lecture delivered at the
Royal Institution, April 25th, 1884.
2. "Le Roman Naturaliste." By F. Brunetiere. Paris, 1883.
3. "The Novel: What it is." By F. Marion Crawford. New York, 1894.
4. "The Development of the English Novel." By W. L. Cross. London, 1899.
5. "Style." By T. de Quincey. "Works." Edinburgh, 1890.
6. "The Limits of Realism in Fiction," and "The Tyranny of the Novel"
(in "Questions at Issue"). By Edmund Gosse.
7. "The House of Seven Gables." By N. Hawthorne. See Preface.
8. "Confessions and Criticisms." By Julian Hawthorne.
9. "Criticism and Fiction." By W. D. Howells. New York, 1891.
10. "The Art of Fiction" (in "Partial Portraits"). By Henry James.
London, 1888.
11. "The Art of Thomas Hardy." By Lionel Johnson.
12. "The Principles of Success in Literature." By G. H. Lewes. London,
1898.
13. "The English Novel and the Principles of its Development." New York,
1883.
14. "The Philosophy of the Short Story" (in _Pen and Ink_). By Brander
Matthews. New York, 1888.
15. "Pierre and Jean." By Guy de Maupassant. See Preface.
16. "Four Years of Novel Reading." By Professor Moulton. London, 1895.
17. "The British Novelists and their Styles." By David Masson. London,
1859.
18. "Appreciations, with an Essay on Style." By Walter Pater. London,
1890.
19. "The English Novel." By Walter Raleigh. London, 1894.
20. "Style." By Walter Raleigh. London, 1897.
21. "The Logic of Style." By W. Renton. London, 1874.
22. "The Philosophy of Fiction." By D. G. Thompson. New York, 1890.
23. "A Humble Remonstrance," and "A Gossip on Romance" (in "Memories and
Portraits"). By R. L. Stevenson.
24. "The Present State of the English Novel" (in "Miscellaneous
Essays"). By George Saintsbury. London, 1892.
25. "Notes on Style" (in "Essays: Speculative and Suggestive"). By J. A.
Symonds. London, 1890.
26. "The Philosophy of Style." By Herbert Spencer. London, 1872.
27. "Introduction to the Study of English Fiction." By W. E. Simonds.
Boston, U.S.A., 1894.
28. "Le Roman Experimental." Paris, 1881.
29. "How to Write Fiction." Published by George Redway.
30. "The Art of Writing Fiction." Published by Wells Gardner.
31. "On Novels and the Art of Writing Them." By Anthony Trollope. In his
"Autobiography," vol. ii.
APPENDIX III
MAGAZINE ARTICLES ON WRITING FICTION
"One Way to Write a Novel." By Julian Hawthorne. _Cosmopolitan_, vol. ii
p. 96.
"Names in Novels." _Blackwood_, vol cl. p. 230.
"Naming of Novels." _Macmillan_, vol. lxi. p. 372.
"Fiction as a Literary Form." By H. W. Mabie. _Scribner's Magazine_,
vol. v. p. 620.
"Candour in English Fiction." By W. Besant, Mrs Lynn Linton, and Thomas
Hardy. _New Review_, vol. ii. p. 6.
"The Future of Fiction." By James Sully. _Forum_, vol. ix. p. 644.
"Names in Fiction." By G. Saintsbury. _Macmillan_, vol. lix. p. 115.
"Real People in Fiction." By W. S. Walsh. _Lippincott_, vol. xlviii. p.
309.
"The Relation of Art to Truth." By W. H. Mallock. _Forum_, vol. ix p.
36.
"Success in Fiction." By M. O. W. Oliphant. _Forum_, vol vii. p. 314.
"Great Writers and their Art." _Chambers's Journal_, vol. lxv. p. 465.
"The Jews in English Fiction." _London Quarterly Review_, vol. xxviii.
1897.
"Heroines in Modern Fiction." _National Review_, vol. xxix. 1897.
"A Claim for the Art of Fiction." By E. G. Wheelwright. _Westminster
Review_, vol. cxlvi. 1896.
"The Speculations of a Story-Teller." By G. W. Cable. _Atlantic
Monthly_, vol. lxxviii. 1896.
"A Novelist's Views of Novel Writing." By E. S. Phelps. _M'Clure's
Magazine_, vol. viii. 1896.
"Hints to Young Authors of Fiction." By Grant Allen. _Great Thoughts_,
vol. vii. 1896.
"Novels Without a Purpose." _North American Review_, vol. clxiii. 1896.
"The Fiction of the Future." Symposium. _Ludgate Monthly_, vol. ii.
1896.
"The Place of Realism in Fiction." _Humanitarian_, vol. vii. 1895. By Dr
W. Barry, A. Daudet, Miss E. Dixon, Sir G. Douglas, G. Gissing, W. H.
Mallock, Richard Pryce, Miss A. Sergeant, F. Wedmore, and W. H. Wilkins.
"The Influence of Idealism in Fiction." By Ingrad Harting.
_Humanitarian_, vol. vi. 1895.
"Novelists on their Works." _Ludgate Monthly_, vol. i. 1895.
"Novel Writing and Novel Reading." Interview with Baring Gould.
_Cassell's Family Magazine_, vol. xxii. 1894.
"The Women Characters of Fiction." By H. Schutz Wilson. _Gentleman's
Magazine_, vol. cclxxvii. 1894.
"School of Fiction Series." In _Atalanta_, vol. vii. 1894:
1. "The Picturesque Novel, as represented by R. D. Blackmore."
By K. Macquoid.
2. "The Autobiographical Novel, as represented by C. Bronte."
By Dr A. H. Japp.
3. "The Historical Novel, as represented by Sir Walter Scott."
By E. L. Arnold.
4. "The Ethical Novel, as represented by George Eliot." By J.
A. Noble.
5. "The Satirical Novel, as represented by W. M. Thackeray."
By H. A. Page.
6. "The Human Novel, as represented by Mrs Gaskell." By
Maxwell Gray.
7. "The Sensational Novel, as represented by Mrs Henry Wood."
By E. C. Grey.
8. "The Humorous Novel, as represented by Oliver Goldsmith."
By Dr A. H. Japp.
"The Shudder in Literature." By Jules Claretie. _North American Review_,
vol. clv. 1892.
"The Profitable Reading of Fiction." By Thomas Hardy. _Forum_, vol. v.
p. 57.
"The Picturesque in Novels." _Chambers's Journal_, vol. lxii. 1892.
"Realism in Fiction." By E. F. Benson. _Nineteenth Century_, vol. xxxiv.
1893.
"Great Characters in Novels." _Spectator_, vol. lxxi. 1893.
"The Modern Novel." By A. E. Barr. _North American Review_, vol. clix.
1894.
"The Novels of Adventure and Manners." _Quarterly Review_, vol. clxxix.
1894.
"The Women of Fiction." By H. S. Wilson. _Gentleman's Magazine_, new
series, vol. liii. 1894.
"Why do Certain Works of Fiction Succeed?" By M. Wilcox. _New Scientific
Review_, vol. i. 1894.
"Magazine Fiction, and How not to Write It." By F. M. Bird.
_Lippincott's Magazine_, vol. liv. 1894.
"The Picaresque Novel." By J. F. Kelly. _New Review_, vol. xiii. p. 59.
"The Irresponsible Novelist." _Macmillan's Magazine_, vol. lxxii. p. 73.
"Great Realists and Empty Story Tellers." By H. H. Boyesen. _Forum_,
vol. xviii. p. 724.
"Motion and Emotion in Fiction." By R. M. Doggett. _Overland Monthly_,
new series, vol. xxvi. p. 614.
"'Tendencies' in Fiction." By A. Lang. _North American Review_, vol.
clxi. p. 153.
"The Two Eternal Types in Fiction." By H. W. Mabie. _Forum_, vol. xix.
p. 41.
"The Problem of the Novel." By A. N. Meyer. _Arena_, vol xvii. 1897.
"My Favourite Novel and Novelist." _The Munsey Magazine_, vols.
xvii.-xviii. 1897. By W. D. Howells, B. Matthews, F. B. Stockton, Mrs B.
Harrison, S. R. Crockett, P. Bourget, W. C. Russell, and A. Hope
Hawkins.
"Hard Times among the Heroines of Novels." By E. A. Madden.
_Lippincott's Magazine_, vol. lxix. 1897.
"On the Theory and Practice of Local Colour." By W. P. James.
_Macmillan's Magazine_, vol. lxxvi. 1897.
"The Writing of Fiction." By F. M. Bird. _Lippincott's Magazine_, vol.
lx. 1897.
"Novelists' Estimates of their own Work." _National Magazine_ (Boston,
U.S.A.), vol. x. 1897.
"Fundamentals of Fiction." By B. Burton. _Forum_, vol. xxviii. 1899.
"On the Future of Novel Writing." By Sir Walter Besant. _The Idler_,
vol. xiii. 1898.
"The Short Story." By F. Wedmore. _Nineteenth Century_, vol. xliii.
1898.
"The Complete Novelist." By James Payn. _Strand_, vol. xiv. 1897.
"What is a Realist?" By A. Morrison. _New Review_, vol. xvi. 1897.
"The Historical Novel." By B. Matthews. _Forum_, vol. xxiv. 1897.
"The Limits of Realism in Fiction." By Paul Bourget. _New Review_, vol.
viii. p. 201.
"New Watchwords in Fiction." By Hall Caine. _Contemporary Review_, vol.
lvii. p. 479.
"The Science of Fiction." By Paul Bourget, Walter Besant, and Thomas
Hardy. _New Review_, vol. iv. p. 304.
"The Dangers of the Analytic Spirit in Fiction." By Paul Bourget. _New
Review_, vol. vi. p. 48.
"Cervantes, Zola, Kipling, and Coy." By Brander Matthews.
_Cosmopolitan_, vol. xiv. p. 609.
"On Style in Literature." By R. L. Stevenson. _Contemporary Review_,
vol. xlvii. p. 458.
"The Apotheosis of the Novel." By Herbert Paul. _Contemporary Review_,
vol. xli. 1897.
"Vacant Places in Literature." By W. Robertson Nicoll. _British Weekly_,
March 20, 1895.
"What Makes a Novel Successful?" By W. Robertson Nicoll. _British
Weekly_, June 16, 1896.
"The Use of Dialect in Fiction." By F. H. French. _Atalanta_, vol. viii.
p. 125.
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
The word "manoevring" has an oe ligature in the original.
The following corrections have been made to the text:
Page 77: says Mr W. M. Hunt.[original has comma]
Page 87: If you know your characters[original has
chararacters]
Page 101: and "risk" the reader's acuteness,[original has
cuteness]
Page 113: in a way quite different to[illegible in the
original] everybody else
Page 126: for which, indeed, the spot[illegible in the
original--confirmed in other sources] is most fit
Page 202: 9. "Criticism and Fiction."[quotation mark missing
in original] By W. D. Howells.
[120:A] Erichsen: "Methods of Authors.[period missing in
original]"