Page 58 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

sitting; but also it must be long enough to express fully the idea which he
had in mind.

Then, it must be beautiful. All true poetry is about beauty. It doesn’t teach

anything useful, or analyze anything, but it simply makes the reader feel a
certain effect. When you read "The Raven" you hardly know what the poet
is saying; but you feel the ghostly scene, and it makes you shudder; and

there is a strange fascination about it that makes you like it, even if it is
horrible.

He goes on to say that he decided to have a refrain at the end of each
stanza, the single word "Nevermore." At first he thought he would have a

parrot utter it; but a raven can talk as well as a parrot, and is more
picturesque. The most striking subject he could think of was the death of a

beautiful woman--this he felt to be so because of his own impressions
concerning the approaching death of his sweet wife.

Besides this, Poe said that poetry and music are much alike, and he tried to
have his poem produce the effect of solemn music. All his best poetry is

very much like music.

With these materials at his command, he now turned his attention to the

construction of the poem. He would ask questions, and the raven would
always reply by croaking "Nevermore." As an answer to some questions,

this would sound very terrible. Says he: "I first established in my mind the
climax, or concluding query,--that query in reply to which the 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 the
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