Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions — John H. Ingram, 1880, volume I — reading text

in all the others of one line — mostly the second in the verse — which flows continuously, with only an aspirate pause in the middle, like that before the short line in the Sapphic Adonic, while the fifth has at the middle pause no similarity of sound with any part beside, give the versification an entirely different effect. We could wish the capacities of our noble language, in prosody, were better understood.” No single “fugitive” poem ever caused such a furor; in the course of a few weeks it spread over the whole of the United States, calling into existence parodies and imitations innumerable, and, indeed, creating quite a literature of its own; it carried its author’s name and fame from shore to shore, inducing veritable poets in other lands — last but not least, Monsieur Mallarmè, — to attempt to transmute its magical charms into their tongues; it drew admiring testimony from some of the finest spirits of the age, and, finally, made Poe the lion of the season. And for this masterpiece of genius — this poem which has, probably, done more for the renown of American letters than any other single work — it is alleged that Poe, then in the heyday of his intellect and reputation, received the sum of ten dollars! Mrs. Browning, then Miss Barrett, in a letter written some time after publication of this poem, says: “This vivid writing! — this power which is felt! ‘The Raven’ has produced a sensation — a ‘fit horror’ here in En land. Some of my friends are taken by the fear of it, and some by the music. I hear of persons haunted by the Nevermore, and one acquaintance of mine, who has the misfortune of possessing a ‘bust of Pallas,’ never can bear to look at it in the twilight. Our great poet, Mr. Browning, author of ‘Paracelsus,’ &c., is enthusiastic in his admiration of the rhythm.” Poe himself, although extremely proud of the profound impression “The Raven” had made on the public, had no particular fondness for it, and preferred, far more, many of his juvenile pieces; they, he could not but feel, were the offspring of inspiration, whilst this was but the product of art — of art, of course, controlling and controlled by genius. Writing to a favourite correspondent upon this subject, he remarks: — “What you say about the blundering criticism of ‘the Hartford Review man’ is just. For the purposes of poetry it is quite sufficient that a thing is possible, or at least that the improbability be not offensively glaring. It is true that in several ways, as you say, the lamp might have thrown the bird’s shadow on the floor. My conception was that of the bracket candelabrum affixed against the wall, high up above the door and bust, as is often seen in the English palaces, and even in some of the better houses of New York. “Your objection to the tinkling of the footfalls is far more pointed, and in the course of composition occurred so forcibly to myself that I hesitated to use the term. I finally used it, because I saw that it had, in its first conception, been suggested to my mind by the sense of the supernatural with which it was, at the moment, filled. No human or physical foot could tinkle on a soft carpet, therefore, the tinkling of feet would vividly convey the supernatural impression. This was the idea, and it is good within itself; but if it fails, (as I fear it does,) to make itself immediately and generally felt, according to my intention, then in so much is it badly conveyed, or expressed. “Your appreciation of ‘The Sleeper’ delights me. In the higher qualities of poetry it is better than ‘The Raven;’ but there is not one man in a million who could be brought to agree with me in this opinion. ‘The Raven,’ of course, is far the better as a work of art; but in the true basis of all art, ‘The Sleeper’ is the superior. I wrote the latter when quite a boy. “You quote, I think, the two best lines in ‘The Valley of Unrest’ — those about the palpitating trees.” Whence Poe drew the first idea of “The Raven” is a much mooted point. The late Buchanan Read informed Robert Browning that Poe described to him, (i.e., Read,) the whole process of the construction of his poem, and declared that the suggestion of it lay wholly in a line from “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship: — “With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air the purple curtain,” &c. This account necessarily involves some misunderstanding: that Poe did derive certain hints, unconsciously or otherwise, from Mrs. Browning’s poem cannot be in his parallel line to the doubted, as, for instance, above: — “And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain;” but the germ of “The Raven” is most assuredly discoverable elsewhere. Does not the following explanation offer more tangible evidence as to its origin than anything yet published? Does it not, indeed, tear the veil from the mystery, and prove that the first suggestion was derived from an American theme? It has been seen that in 1843 Poe was writing for the New Mirror. The number for October 14th contained some verses entitled “Isadore,” by Mr. Albert Pike, a well-known American littérateur. Amongst some introductory remarks by the irrepressible editor, N. P. Willis, these words occur: “We do not understand why we should not tell what we chance to know — that these lines were written after sitting up late at study — the thought of losing her who slept near him at his toil having suddenly crossed his mind in the stillness of midnight.” This statement really establishes a first coincidence between the poems of Poe and Pike; both write a poem lamenting a lost love, when, in point of fact, neither one nor the other had lost either his “Isadore,” or his “Lenore,” save in imagination; and in his half-hoaxing, half-serious, “Philosophy of Composition” Poe states that the theme adopted for the projected poem was “a lover lamenting his deceased mistress.” Far more important, however, than the subject of his verse, so he suggests, was the effect to be obtained from the refrain, and in Mr. Pike’s composition the most distinctive — the only salient — feature is the refrain of “forever, Isadore,” with which each stanza concludes. A still more remarkable coincidence follows: in his search for a suitable refrain Poe would have his to-be-mystified readers believe that he was irresistibly impelled to select the word “Nevermore.” Evidently there are plenty of equally eligible words in the English language — words embodying the long sonorous ? in connection with r as the most producible consonant; but a perusal of Mr. Pike’s poem rendered research needless, for not only does the refrain contain the antithetic word to never, and end with the -?re syllable, but in one line are found the words “never,” and “more,” and in others the words “no more,” “evermore,” and “forever more” — quite sufficient, all must admit, for the analytic mind of Poe. Thus far the subject, the refrain, and the word selected for the refrain, have been easily paralleled, and over the transmutation of the heroine’s name from Isadore into Lenore no words need be wasted. In concluding this section of our argument, it is but just that some specimen of Mr. Pike’s work should be shown; two stanzas, therefore, of his poem — which contains six stanzas fewer than Poe’s — shall be cited: “Thou art lost to me forever — I have lost thee, Isadore, — Thy head will never rest upon my loyal bosom more. Thy tender eyes will never more gaze fondly into mine, Nor thine arms around me lovingly, and trustingly entwine. Thou art lost to me forever, Isadore. “My footsteps through the rooms resound all sadly and forlore; The garish sun shines flauntingly upon the upswept floor; The mocking bird still sits and sings a melancholy strain, For my heart is like a heavy cloud that overflows with rain Thou art lost to me forever, Isadore.” Mr. Pike’s metre and rhythm are, as might be expected, very much less dexterously managed than Poe’s, although the intention was evidently to produce an effect similar to that afterwards carried out in “The Raven;” but the irregularities are so eccentric that one sees that the prototype poem was that of a writer unable to get beyond the intention — one unacquainted with metrical laws.” Of course, I pretend to no originality in either the rhythm, or the metre of “The Raven,” said Poe, adding, “what originality’ The Raven,’ has, is in their” (the forms of verse employed) “combination into stanza, nothing even remotely approaching this combination has ever been attempted.” But “Isadore” contains no allusion to the “ghastly grim and ancient Raven,” unless its “melancholy burden” be shadowed forth by the “melancholy strain” of “the mocking-bird.” Whence, then, did Poe import his sable auxiliary, the pretext, as he tells us, for the natural repetition of the refrain?” Naturally, a parrot, in the first instance, suggested itself,” he remarks, and as a favourite work with him was Gresset’s chef d’œuvre, it is not improbable that a reminiscence of “Ver-Vert” — not “Vert-Vert,” as many persist in miscalling that immortal bird — may have given him the first hint, but that it was in “Barnaby Rudge” he finally found the needed fowl seems clear to us. Upon the conclusion of that story Poe, referring to a prospective review he had formerly published of it,* called attention to certain points he deemed Dickens had failed to make: the raven therein, for instance, he considered, “might have been made more than we now see it, a portion of the conception of the fantastic Barnaby. Its croakings might have been prophetically heard in the course of the drama. Its character might have performed, in regard to that of the idiot, much the same part as does, in music, the accompaniment in respect to the air.” Here, indeed, beyond question, is seen shadowed forth the poet’s own raven and its duty. A few additional links in the chain may be added. The story following Mr. Pike’s verses in the New Mirror contains, many times repeated, the unusual name of “Eulalie.” Till the appearance of “The Raven,” for several years Poe had published but one new poem, “Dreamland,” yet in the following July appeared — in The American Review — his “Eulalie,” a poem which, in many passages, closely resembles “Isadore.” Thus, Mr. Pike speaks of “thy sweet eyes radiant,” and Poe, in “Eulalie,” of “the eyes of the radiant girl.” Mr. Pike says — “thy face, Which thou didst lovingly upturn with pure and trustful gaze,” and Poe, “dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye;” and, be it noted, the gaze of both is upturned to the moon. There are other points of resemblance between the poems, needless to advert to here, as the genesis of “The Raven” is now, it is presumed, satisfactorily and unanswerably expounded. This wonderful piece of poetic mechanism underwent, as did, indeed, nearly all of Poe’s work, several alterations and revisions after its first publication. The very many more minute of these variations do not call for notice here, but the change made in the latter half of the eleventh stanza, from the original reading of — ‘So, when Hope he would adjure, Stern Despair returned, instead of the sweet Hope he dared adjure, That sad answer, “Nevermore” ’ — to its present masterly roll of melancholy music, is too radical to be passed by unnoted. Poe’s reputation now rested upon a firm basis. His society was sought for by the élite of American society, and the best houses of New York were ready to proffer a hearty welcome to him who stood even yet on the brink. of poverty, dogged by all its attendant demons. “Although he had been connected with some of the leading magazines of the day,” remarks Mrs. Whitman, “and had edited for a time with great ability several successful periodicals, his literary reputation at the North had been comparatively limited until his removal to New York, when he became personally known to a large circle of authors and literary people, whose interest in his writings was manifestly enhanced by the perplexing