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 phrenzy—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
analyzed, it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to
show the modus operandi by which some one of my own works was put
together. I select “The Raven,” as most generally known. It is my design
to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is referable
either to accident or intuition—that the work proceeded, step by step,
to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a
mathematical problem.
Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem, per se, the circumstance—or
say the necessity—which, in, the first place, gave rise to the intention
of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the
critical taste.
We commence, then, with this intention.
The initial consideration was that of extent. If any literary work is
too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with
the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression—for,
if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and
everything like totality is at once destroyed. But since, 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 to
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 keynote 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 of
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.
[Illustration]
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 phrenzied 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 query 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
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 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, 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 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 minute 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 marvelled this ungainly fowl to bear 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 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 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 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 lamp-light 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!
[Illustration: _Fordham Cottage_]