An Analysis of “The Philosophy of Composition” by Edgar A. Poe
Edgar Allen Poe was an accomplished writer, poet, and literary critic who produced many famous works that are still popular in our modern era. Over the span of his literary career he developed a method of writing that he used to create his literary pieces and recorded this method in his essay “The Philosophy of Composition”. In his “The Philosophy of Composition”, Edgar Allan Poe sets out the successful method by which he wrote his popular works and offers it to other hopeful writers as a guideline for creating their own literary masterpieces.
Edgar Allen Poe believed that an author of prose or poetry must begin with the end of a literary work, or the denouement, in mind before the work is even begun. “Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its denouement before any thing be attempted with the pen” (Poe 905). Poe goes on to state that only with the “denouement” in mind that the author can establish the steps toward the “tone at all points” and the “development of the intention” (905). It is only after the denouement has been clearly established in one’s mind that the writer can then proceed to insert the structures by which the literary work can reach its successful conclusion.
Once the denouement of a literary work is established, according to Poe the next step to consider is one of “effect”, or the overall framework with which the literary work will occupy and fill. Poe states, “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?” (906). After deciding upon a narrative, and then the effect he wishes to produce within the reader, Poe then states the writer must then “consider whether” how effect “can best be wrought” (906). Concerning the frame work of effect, Poe gives us gives us two categories: “incident” and “tone” (906). Within these two categories of incident and tone, Poe believes that combinations of “ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity of both incident and tone”, and by searching his environment and within himself for similar combinations of desired incident and tone, “shall best aid me in the construction of the effect” (906). The effect that Poe intends to put across to the reader is the framework that Poe creates from observing incidents, from either himself or his environment, that seem most similar to the incident and tone he has in mind for his literary work.
The second step to composing a piece of literature for Poe is of length, or what he calls “extent” (907). According to Poe, “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” (907). Poe believes that if a literary work is too long to be read in one sitting then its “totality is at once destroyed” (907). To deal with this loss of totality, Poe states that the writer must maintain the “excitement or elevation” during whatever length or “brevity” of the piece in proportion to the “intensity of the intended effect” (907). Poe remarks that “a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for the production of any effect at all” (907). To Poe, the length, or “extent” of a literary work must maintain a consistent emotional consistency throughout a length of a literary work.
The third step to completing a work of literature is the impression the writer wants to impart to be popular among many readers. Poe states, “I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work universally appreciable” (907). The three main categories to which Poe believes a literary work is found favorable with the general public is: Beauty, Truth, and Passion (907). Poe goes on to assign Beauty, which most readily appeals to the soul, as the “sole legitimate province of the poem” (907). Truth and Passion, the other two means to appeal to the reader, is the “satisfaction of the intellect” for the former, and a satisfaction to “homeliness” or plainness for the latter (Poe 908). While Beauty is the realm of the poem, Truth and Passion to Poe are “far more readily attainable in prose” (908). Poe concedes that Truth and Passion can be “profitably introduced into a poem” to serve as an “effect” by “contrast”, Beauty is still “the atmosphere and the essence of the poem” (908). Once the effect, or overall framework, and the length of a literary work is established, the third step for the author in creating the literary work is impression, or the actual filler for the structure that the author has already created.
Poe gives us his poem The Raven as his example by which he intends to demonstrate his philosophy of literary composition. Poe states that after he determined “the length, the province, and the tone” of the work, he then searched for the “pivot upon which the whole structure might turn” (908). Poe decides upon using the refrain, or “a phrase, verse, or group of verses repeated at intervals throughout a song or poem, especially at the end of each stanza”, or a “a repeated utterance or theme” (www.thefreedictionary.com). The refrain being “limited to lyric verse”, depending upon how it sounds and looks, creates the “sense of identity” in its repetition (Poe 908). This refrain to Poe, establishes the effect, or repeated pattern or structure of continued tone or mood, as well as the length of the structure, and the impression or substance with which Poe creates his literary work.
The particular refrain with which Poe settles upon for his example is the word “nevermore” (909). Poe selected this word “nevermore” to frame each stanza closing, after deciding upon a word that had a “force”, and was a word “sonorous and susceptible of protracted emphasis” (908). Poe decided upon a word with a “sonorous vowel” in the “long o”, and “in connection with r as the most producible consonant” that would most easily be matched with other rhyming words to achieve the aims with which he could best tell the tale that he intended (908). The use of the word “nevermore” for Poe, encompasses the refrain that could best achieve his intended effect and impression, while also allowing him the most rhyming words as he interspersed “nevermore” throughout the structure of The Raven.
Edgar Allen Poe developed a method after many years of writing which he sets out in his “The Philosophy of Composition”. In this work he sets out the criteria by which he believes a literary work should be created: its overall effect, the length by which this effect can be maintained, and the impression by which the structure is filled to create the desired effect. Once the denouement, or the conclusion of a literary work is decided upon, Poe gives us in “The Philosophy of Composition”, the guideline in the categories of overall effect, the required length, and general impression by which the reader can most satisfactorily be brought to the denouement that the author had first decided upon.
Works Cited
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/refrain
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Philosophy of Composition”. The American Tradition in Literature. 12th ed. Ed. George Perkins and Barbara Perkins. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 905-913. Print.
this is a summary, not an analysis
ReplyDeleteGood post
ReplyDelete