∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
NOTES
References to Poe's Works are to the Virginia edition. In references to the text of the present volume the first number refers to page, the second to line. For the convenience of the reader references are in many cases made both to the present text and to the complete Works.
1: 1. This letter dated “West Point, ——, 1831,” and beginning, “Dear B——,” was prefixed to the Poems, New York, 1831. With slight changes it was reprinted in the Southern Literary Messenger, July, 1836, with the following note by Poe: “These detached passages form part of the preface to a small volume printed some years ago for private circulation. They have vigor and much originality — but of course we shall not be called upon to endorse all the writer's opinions.” The text of 1836 is here followed; for the text of 1831 see Works, Stedman and Woodberry, vol. x, p. 144.
1: 2, no poet. The critic, according to Poe, must be a poet; a good poet is not, however, necessarily a good critic. Cf. Works, vol. xi, p. 150: ‘A poet is necessarily neither a critical nor an impartial judge of poetry.” Also Works, vol. xvi, p. 101: “Poets are by no means, necessarily judges of poetry, but nothing is more certain than that, to be a judge of poetry, it is necessary at least to have the poetic sentiment, if not the poetic power — the ‘vision,’ if not the ‘faculty divine’;” — and Works, vol. xvi, p. 66 (266: 14): “To appreciate thoroughly the work of what we call genius, is to possess all the genius by which the work was produced.” Cf. also Works, vol. xvi, p. 69 (268: 6). [page 324:]
3: 7, Milton. “We commonly hear and read that Milton preferred his Paradise Regained to his Paradise Lost. There is no warrant whatever for that idea, but only for the fact that he did not like his shorter epic to be decried in comparison with his longer.” — Masson, Life, vol. vi, p. 655.
3: 22, singular heresy. Cf. 234; 2, note.
3: 31, Aristotle. Poe makes this statement in other places; cf. Works, vol. xi, p. 12; vol. xii, p. 15. He apparently misquotes and misunderstands Aristotle, whose expression lends no support to didactic poetry. Cf. Poetics, IX, 3: διὸ καὶ φλυσυφωτερον καὶ σπουδαιότερον ποίησις ίστορίας ὲστίν; “Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history.” Poe, however, errs with Wordsworth, from whom he may have got this idea; cf. Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1800: “Aristotle, I have been told, has said, that Poetry is the most philosophic of all writing: it is so; its object is truth,” etc, “Poe's references to Aristotle is casual and second-hand; his purpose is to combat Wordsworth and the “heresy of the Lake School.” Several passages in the “Letter to B——” suggest that Poe wrote it after a critical reading of Wordsworth's prefaces and Coleridge's Biographia, Cf. Biographia, chap. xv: “No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.” Cf. also Shelley, Defence of Poetry: Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton are philosophers of the very loftiest power.”
4: 25, Melmoth the Wanderer, a tale by Charles Robert Maturin, 1820.
4: 29, poetry a study. This is evidently a protest against a passage in Wordsworth's Essay Supplementary to the Preface (1815): “And, lastly, there are many, who, having been enamored of this [poetical] art in their youth, have found leisure, after youth was spent, to cultivate general literature; in which poetry has continued to be comprehended as a study. Into the above classes the Readers of poetry may be divided; Critics abound in them all; but from the last only can opinions be collected of absolute value.”
6: 25, Of genius. The quotation is from the Essay Supplementary [page 325:] to the Preface, 1815 (in Prose Works, ed. Knight, vol. ii, p. 251).
7: 12, “Temora.” See Essay Supplementary to the Preface (vol. ii, p. 245).
7: 21, And now she's at. The lines, from The Idiot Boy, are not consecutive and are somewhat garbled. The second passage, from The Pet Lamb, is also slightly misquoted, and made ridiculous by the dashes.
8: 13, his preface; i. e., the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, 1800. Poe takes some liberties in quotation.
8: 22, immortality to a wagon. See Wordsworth's Waggoner.
8: 23, the bee Sophocles. A. W. Schlegel in his Lectures on Dramatic Art, vii, refers to the fact that Sophocles was called the “Attic Bee”; the point is interesting as evidence to show that Poe read Schlegel. Poe has many references to Schlegel; cf., for example, Works, vol. viii, p. 126; vol. x, p. 65 (58: 19); vol. xi, p. 79 (84: 2); vol. xiii, p. 43; and see Introduction.
9: 23, A poem. Poe evidently takes as a starting-point Coleridge's definition in the Azographia Literaria, chap. xiv: “ A poem is that species of composition, which is opposed to works of science, by proposing for its immediate object pleasure, not truth; and from all other species (having this object in common with it) it is discriminated by proposing to itself such delight from the whole, as is compatible with a distinct gratification from each component part.” Poe's distinction between poem and romance is suggested by the context in Coleridge. Cf. also Coleridge's definition in Lectures, 1818; and Wordsworth's distinction between “poetry and matter of fact, or science,” in Preface to Lyrical Ballads (Prose Works, vol. i, p. 56, note).
Poe's definition in the Letter to B—— (1831) contains the germ of the conception of poetry which he held throughout, and to which he gave final statement in the Poetic Principle (1850). Cf. 234: 2, 263: 4, 295: 21, 236: 22, and notes.
9: 26, indefinite. Poe uses this criterion throughout; see 263: 4, note. Poe may have got both the word and the idea from Wordsworth and Coleridge; see 54: 14, note. [page 326:]
11: 1. What follows is from a review of Drake's Culprit Fay and Other Poems and Halleck's Alnwick Castle with other Poems, which appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger, April, 1836. Drake, whose poems were published posthumously in 1836, was hailed as a great American poet. Poe attempts to determine his poetical merits. The review is an admirable example of sanity and sound critical method. The present edition omits a summary of the plot of the Culprit Fay, and, at the end, several pages reviewing Drake's minor poems and the poems of Halleck.
12: 20, true theatre of the biblical histrio. A favorite idea of Poe; cf. 65: 24.
15: 19, Ideality. The term of phrenology, which Poe, like others of his age, took seriously. “Craniology is worth some consideration, although it is merely in its rudiments and guesses yet.” — Coleridge, Table Talk, June 24, 1827. Poe hopes that phrenology will be helpful to criticism; cf. Works, vol. xi, p. 65.
16: 4, with the passions. Cf. 238: 20, note.
16: note 2, What the Deity imagines. Perhaps an echo of Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, chap. xiii: “The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I am.” Cf. 103: 16.
16: note 2, Bielfeld. This encyclopedic work, to which Poe is fond of referring, contains sections — “Of the polite arts in general,” “Poetry,” “On versification” — which Poe read attentively and drew upon for ideas. The demonstration to which Poe refers may be found in Book II, chap. i, § vii, of the English translation (London, 1770). For other references to Bielfeld see Works, vol. X, pp. 47, 62; vol. xi; p. 74; vol. xiv, p. 39; vol. xvi, pp. 13, 93.
18: 10, Auncient Mariner. Coleridge's spelling in the title of 1798 was “Ancyent Marinere”; in 1800 and subsequently “Ancient Mariner.”
18: 18, Mr. George Dearborn. Drake's son-in-law, who brought out the volume of poems under review.
19: 24, compendium of the narrative. Omitted in this edition. [page 327:]
20: note 1, Chestnut color, — from “A Celebration of Chavis,” ix.
23: 21, melancholy. For the same idea cf. 156: 24, 242: 26, and Works, vol. xi, p. 24. Poe may have got the idea from A. W. Schlegel: “Several inquirers ... have placed the essence of the northern poetry in melancholy.” — Lectures (Bohn edition), p. 26.
26: note 1, We have seen American poems. Has Poe his own poems in mind?
32: 1. From a review of Bryant's Poems, in the Southern Literary Messenger, January, 1837. The present edition omits several pages from the middle of the review.
32: 1, Mr. Bryant's poetical reputation. Poe paid full tribute to Bryant's genius. For other reviews see Works, vol. x, p. 85; vol. xiii, p. 125; also vol. viii, pp. vii, 1.
34: 6, time necessary. The following acute analysis is in accord with the theory later developed in The Rationale of Verse. Cf. 190: 25 and note.
38: 15, first book of the Dunciad. The last three are from the second book.
53: 1. A review in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, January, 1840. What Poe here says of Drake and of fancy and imagination is drawn from his review of Drake's Culprit Fay; cf.19:8 ff. The theory of fancy and imagination receives further development in the review of Willis; cf. 103; 9 ff.
53: 3, Anacreon Moore. Moore published Odes of Anacreon in 1800.
54: 14, “The fancy.” Not apparently a direct quotation from the Biographia; but a fair summary of Coleridge's famous distinction between the fancy and the imagination. Poe probably had in [page 328:] mind the following passages: “The imagination then I consider either as primary or secondary. The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. The secondary I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-create; or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still, at all events, it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead. Fancy, on the contrary has no other counters to play with, but fixities and definites. The Fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space,” etc. (Biographia, chap. xiii), “He [the Poet] diffuses a. tone and spirit of unity, that blends, and (as it were) fuses, each into each, by that sympathetic and magical power to which we have exclusively appropriated the name of imagination” (chap. xiv). Cf. also the last half of Wordsworth's Preface of 1815, particularly the following, which may have set Poe thinking: “Fancy does not require that the materials which she makes use of should be susceptible of change in their constitution, from her touch; and, when they admit of modification, it is enough for her purpose if it be slight, limited, and evanescent. Directly the reverse of these, are the desires and demands of the Imagination. She recoils from everything but the plastic, the pliant, and the indefinite.” Cf. the discussion beginning at 103: 9.
54: 22, unusual combinations. Cf. 78:4, note.
55: 24, “Lilian.” Tennyson's poem appeared in 1830.
62: 7, of a prose relation. Cf. Marginalia (303: 14): “As regards verbal construction, the more prosaic a poetical style is, the better.” Also Works, vol. xiii, p. 103. This favorite idea of Poe may have come to him in perusal of Wordsworth's Preface to the Lyrical Ballads: ‘Not only the language of a large portion of every good poem, even of the most elevated character, must necessarily, except with reference to the meter, in no respect differ from [page 329:] that of good prose, but likewise some of the most interesting parts of the best poems will be found to be strictly the language of prose when prose is well written.”
65: 1. From Graham's Magazine, January, 1 42, where it stood under the general title “Review of New Books.”
65: 14, Time was. The following paragraph is a rewriting of the first paragraph of the review of Drake's Culprit Fay, published in the Southern Literary Messenger, April, 1836. See 11: 8.
68: 3, essay upon the subject matter of the publication. Cf. the opposite view expressed by Coleridge in Biographia Literaria, chap. xxi.
69: 7, Arcturus. ‘Mr. Cornelius Mathews,” Poe says in The Literati, “was one of the editors and originators of Arcturus, decidedly the very best magazine in many respects ever published in the United States.” See also Poe's remarks on Mathews in a review of The Fable for Critics, Works, vol. xiii, p. 169.
71: 22, Orphicism, — referring to Alcott's “Orphic Sayings,” published in the transcendental Dial, 1840-1844.
72: 22, with Bulwer. Poe quotes from a paper by Bulwer “Upon the Spirit of True Criticism,” in Critical and Miscellaneous Writings, — reviewed by Poe in Graham's Magazine two months before (November, 1841). Cf. Works, vol. x, p. 213.
73: 1. A review in Graham's Magazine, April, 1842. A shorter notice of the Ballads appeared in Graham's, March, 1842 (see Works, vol. xi, p. 64). These two reviews are run together to form the essay which appears in the Griswold and Stedman-Woodberry editions. For other reviews of Longfellow see Works, vol. x, pp. 39, 71; vol. xii, p. 413; vol. xiii, p. 54.
73: 1, hasty observations, — to the effect that “it will always be [page 330:] impossible to construct an English hexameter,” and that Longfellow's “didactics are all out of place.” See Works, vol. xi, p. 64.
73: 7, a similar objection. Cf. 52: 9.
74: 15, Now with as deep a reverence. The following exposition of poetry is repeated in The Poetic Principle (234: 21 ff.); see also notes on those pages. As usual Poe revised and changed his phrasing; it is instructive to compare the two passages. The citations from Bielfeld are omitted in The Poetic Principle.
78: 4, novel combinations. Poe believed that imagination, creation, originality (the terms are to him synonymous) consisted in novel combination. See discussion of this point in the Introduction. The following references cover the important passages on this. subject: Works, vol. x; pp. 62 (54: 21), 126, 153; vol. xi, p. 96; vol. xii, p. 37 (103: 15); vol. xiv, p. 73.
78: 28, Bielfeld's definition. ‘This, and also the observation on German terms which follows, will be found in The Elements of Universal Erudition (London, 1770), vol. ii, p. 194. Cf. p. 16, and note thereon.
81: 4, “Armstrong on Health,” John Armstrong (1709-1779), physician and disciple of Thomson, published his didactic Art of Preserving Health in 1744.
81: 9, Brainard's Poems, Cf. Works, vol. xi, p. 23: “Of the merely humorous pieces we have little to say. Such things are not poetry. ... Humor, with an exception to be made hereafter, is directly antagonistical to that which is the soul of the Muse proper; and the omni-prevalent belief, that melancholy is inseparable from the higher manifestations of the beautiful, is not without a firm basis in nature and in reason. But it so happens that humor and that quality which we have termed the soul of the Muse (imagination) are both essentially aided in their development by the same adventitious assistance — that of rhythm and of rhyme. Thus the only bond between humorous verse and poetry, properly so-called, is that they employ in common a certain tool.”
83: 19, poems of magnitude. This germ develops into Poe's argument against the long poem in The Poetic Principle; cf. 228: 12, note. [page 331:]
84: 2, Schlegel. A. W. Schlegel, in his Lectures on Dramatic Art, XVII, approves of De la Motte's substitution of “unity of interest” for “unity of action.” Cf. Works, vol. viii, p. 126.
84: 21, Moore's Alciphron. The passage probably referred to will be found at 58; 13.
87: 25, Mr. Langtree. In Autography (Works, vol. xv, p. 252) Poe praises S. D. Langtree as a “just, bold, and acute critic.”
HAWTHORNE'S TWICE-TOLD TALES (1842)
91: 1. A review in Graham's Magazine, May, 1842. The Twice- Told Tales had been briefly noticed in Graham's, April, 1842. Another review, appearing in Godey's Lady's Book, November, 1847 (see Works, vol. xii, p. 141), is partially a repetition of the earlier reviews. The reviews of May, 1842, and November, 1847, are run together, with omission of repeated passages, to form the essay in the Griswold and Stedman-Woodberry editions. On the authority of Griswold's text see Nation, Dec. 4, 1902, p. 445.
92: 28, under-current of suggestion. Refers to Poe's discussion of fancy and imagination in the review of Alciphron; see 59: 23; also 165: 17 and note.
93: 4, The tale proper. The following passage, repeated (with revision) in a later review of Hawthorne (Works, vol. xiii, p. 151), contains the best exposition of Poe's theory of the tale. Compare it with his theory of the poem, 228: 1; also with Works, vol. ix, p. 46; vol. x, p. 116.
95: 3, unique or single effect. Cf. the expression of another master of the short story: “Let him [the fiction-writer] choose a motive, whether of character or of passion; carefully construct his plot so that every incident is an illustration of the motive and every property employed shall bear to it a near relation of congruity or contrast; avoid a sub-plot, unless, as sometimes in Shakespeare, the sub-plot be a reversion or complement of the main intrigue; ... and allow neither himself in the narrative nor any character in the course of the dialogue, to utter one sentence that is not part and parcel of the business of the story or the discussion of the problem [page 332:] involved.’ — R. L. Stevenson, “A Humble Remonstrance” (Memories and Portraits).
95: 19, rhythm. Cf. 79: 14, 81: 30, 237: 15.
96: 3, the humorous. Cf. note on 81: 9; in the passage there quoted, however, Poe speaks of rhythm as aiding humorous effect.
99: 16, something which resembles plagiarism. Poe is apparently the plagiarist, if any one. “Howe's Masquerade” appeared in The Democratic Review, May, 1838, “William Wilson” in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, October, 1839, and in The Gift for 1840.
102: 1. From the Broadway Journal, January 18, 1845. The two paragraphs beginning at 103: 9 summarize the passage on the same subject in the review of Moore's Alciphron; see note on 53: 1. The discussion is then broadened to include fantasy and humor, wit and sarcasm.
102: 5, Proctor. A misspelling of the name of Bryan Waller Procter (1787-1874)?
107: 1. From the American Whig Review, August, 1845. A brief notice of Willis's Tortesa had appeared in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1839 (see Works, vol. x, p. 27).
107: 9, de nier ce gui est. Quoted at the close of The Murders in the Rue Morgue, where it is attributed to Rousseau, Nouvelle Héloise.
108: 26, the imitative arts. Poe seems to use the word “imitative” vaguely or ambiguously. Does he mean arts reproductive of what exists in nature, or arts in which the tendency for one artist to follow another is strong? Or does he argue that an art reproductive in the first sense will be reproductive in the other? For a discussion of the imitative arts see Sidney Colvin, Encyclopedia Britannica, sub “Fine Arts.” [page 333:]
110: 28, Elizabethan routine. It is strange that two such different minds as Poe and Emerson should have come to the same conclusion. Cf. The American Scholar: “Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over-influence. ... The English dramatic poets have Shakespearized now for two hundred years.”
118: 1, P. S. and O. P. “Prompter's Side” (right hand side facing audience), and “Opposite Prompter.”
118: 20, bedight, — apparently in the sense of named. Perhaps a slip of the pen or misprint; Poe had already used the word correctly in The Conqueror Worm (1843):
“An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears.”
120: 1, Bridgewater treatises. This passage is reprinted by Poe from the Marginalia, in the Democratic Review, November, 1844. Poe reviewed one of the Bridgewater treatises in the Southern Literary Messenger, February, 1836; see Works, vol. viii, p. 206.
121: 8, not an essential. The fullest statement of Poe's theory on this point is to be found in a review of Bulwer's Night and Morning (1841), Works, vol. x, p. 120: “The interest of plot, referring, as it does, to cultivated thought in the reader, and appealing to considerations analogous with those which are the essence of sculptural taste, is by no means a popular interest; although it has the peculiarity of being appreciated in its atoms by all, while in its totality of beauty it is comprehended but by the few. The pleasure which the many derive from it is disjointed, ineffective, and evanescent; and even in the case of a critical reader it is a pleasure which may be purchased too dearly. A good tale may be written without it. Some of the finest fictions in the world have neglected it altogether. We see nothing of it in Gil Blas, in the Pilgrim's Progress, or in Robinson Crusoe. Thus it is not an essential in story-telling at all; although, well managed, within proper limits, it is a thing to be desired. At best it is but a secondary and rigidly artistical merit, for which no merit of a higher class — no merit founded in nature — should be sacrificed.” [page 334:] The last sentence is particularly interesting, as showing that Poe did not prize mere “artistical merits” above truth to nature. The same view of plot is taken in a review of Cooper's Wyandotte (1843), in Works, vol. xi, p. 209.
128: 28, this general opinion. ‘The substance of this passage is from the “ Letter to B doe Ss bd Nee we
143: 4, Nec Deus intersit. From Horace, Art of Poetry, 1. 191: “Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nedus inciderit.”
149: 1. Prefixed to The Raven and Other Poems, New York, 1845. For a slight change in the text see Works, vol. vil, p. xlvii, note.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION (1846)
150: 1. From Graham's Magazine, April, 1846.
150: 1, Charles Dickens. The note will be found in Works, vol. xvii, p. 107; Poe's examination of Barnaby Rudge in Works, vol. xi, p. 38. Although he had Dickens's letter “lying before him,” Poe does not use Dickens's exact words.
150: 10, what he himself acknowledges. Godwin's account will be found in his preface to Caleb Williams, 1832: I formed a conception of a book of fictitious adventure, that should in some way be distinguished by a very powerful interest. Pursuing this idea, I invented first the third volume of my tale, then the second, and last of all the first,” etc. The passage is quite in Poe's ratiocinative style and may have suggested to him The Philosophy of Composition. Cf. Works, vol. xvi, p. 170: “to begin their works at the end.”
151: 5, effect. Cf. what Poe says of preconceived effect in the review of Hawthorne, 95: 3.
152: 16, For my own part. Cf. Marginalia (264: 21) where Poe is evidently thinking of himself: “It is the curse of a certain order of mind, that it can never rest satisfied with the consciousness [page 335:] of its ability to do a thing. Still less is it content with doing it. It must both know and show how it was done.” This was published in December, 1844, more than a year before the Philosophy of Composition and before The Raven — indeed at about the time when The Raven was probably written.
153: 16, a long poem. Cf. The Poetic Principle, 228: 12, review of Hawthorne, 93: 25, and review of Longfellow's Ballads, 83: 19.
153: 19, excites, by elevating, the soul. Cf. The Poetic Principle, 228: 16.
154: 26, Beauty is the sole legitimate province. Cf. The Poetic Principle, 237: 31, and note.
155: 22, passion, or even truth. Poe throughout takes the ground that passion and truth may be introduced provided they are “toned into proper subservience.” Cf. 238: 20, and note.
156: 4, Melancholy. Cf. 23: 21, note.
158: 20, the death, then, of a beautiful woman. Cf. “the moral sentiment of beauty heightened in dissolution,” 30: 11.
160: 23, My first object. Cf. Works, vol. xi, p. 277: “Originality of theme, if not absolutely first sought, should be sought among the first. ... The desire of the new is an element of the soul.” Also Works, vol. xiii, p. 85: “In all cases of fictitious composition it [originality] should be the first object — by which we do not mean to say that it can ever be considered as the most important.” Cf. 151: 5, 267: 26.
161: 3, it must be elaborately sought. Cf. Peter Snook (1836), Works, vol. xiv, p. 73: ‘There is no greater mistake than the supposition that a true originality is a mere matter of impulse or inspiration. To originate, is carefully, patiently, and understandingly to combine.” vol: 9,
161: 9, heptameter catalectic. Poe must mean octameter catalectic; the alternate lines contain fifteen syllables.
161: 20, nothing even remotely approaching this combination. The resemblances between The Raven and Lady Geraldine's Courtship are too striking to be overlooked, — these resemblances extending to rhythm, phrasing, and what Poe himself calls “tone” [page 336:] (cf. 134: 3). Though the date of composition of The Raven is undetermined (see Works, vol. vii, p. 211), certain facts suggest that Poe was reading Mrs. Browning's poem and writing The Raven at the same time. Lady Geraldine's Courtship appeared in the Poems of 1844, which Poe reviewed in the Evening Mirror in the autumn of 1844 and in the Broadway Journal, January 4 and 11, 1845 (see Works, vol. xii, p. 1). The Raven appeared a little later in the same periodicals, — in the Evening Mirror, January 29, 1845, and in the Broadway Journal in the same year. Metrically The Raven and Lady Geraldine's Courtship are very similar: both are in an eight-foot trochaic measure, the rhymes in some of Mrs. Browning's stanzas also corresponding to those in the first four lines of Poe's. For example, the following:
With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air the purple curtain
Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale brows,
While the gliding of the river sends a rippling noise for ever
Through the open casement heightened by the moonlight's slant repose.
Said he — ” Vision of a lady! stand there silent, stand there steady!
Now I see it plainly, plainly now I cannot hope or doubt —
There, the brows of mild repression, there the lips of silent passion,
Curved like an archer's bow to send the bitter arrows out.”
Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling,
And approached him slowly, slowly, in a gliding measured pace;
With her two white hands extended as if praying one offended,
And a look of supplication gazing earnest in his face.
As in The Raven, the first and third lines have internal feminine rhyme at the fourth foot, and the second and fourth masculine rhyme with what Poe calls “cæsura.” It is hard to believe that Poe, fresh from reading Mrs. Browning, was unconscious of the resemblance, or that he is justified in saying that “nothing even remotely approaching this combination has ever been attempted.” Some readers may even feel that one object Poe may have had in writing the Philosophy of Composition was to convince the public that The Raven was original and independent by showing its genesis in his own mind. [page 337:]
163: 5, moment. This reads minute in other versions of the poem.
165: 17, under current. Cf. review of Alciphron, 59: 23, where an under current of suggestion is spoken of as a mark of ideality; here it appears as imparting richness, which (Poe thinks) may be confounded with the ideal. Cf. also 84: 19, 92: 28.
167: 1. The Rationale of Verse, published in the Southern Literary Messenger, October and November, 1848, was an elaboration of “Notes on English Verse,” published in The Pioneer, March, 1843. Poe also incorporated, in a review of Griswold's Poets, 1843, a “short notice of the art of versification”; for this see Works, vol, xi, p. 225. Cf. also the passage on versification in the review of Bryant, 33: 22 ff. 10736, 20 topic in polite literature. An opinion repeatedly expressed by Poe. Cf. Works, vol. xiii, p. 91: “In common with a very large majority of American and, indeed, of European poets, Mrs. Smith seems to be totally unacquainted with the principles of versification — by which, of course, we mean its rationale. ... There is not a prosody in existence which is worth the paper on which it is printed.” Cf. also 281: 3; 291: Poe's note.
168: 14, irrational deference to antiquity. Cf. Poe's opinion of the ancient plays, 286: 17.
168: 15, Nature of Truth. A favorite idea of Poe; cf. Letter to B——. (5: 11): “As regards the greater truths men oftener err by seeking them at the bottom than at the top.” In The Purloined Letter the Parisian police err because they are over-ingenious and overlook the obvious.
176: 23, enjoyment of equality. Cf. Marginalia (295: 28): “The sentiments deducible from the conception of sweet sound simply, are out of the reach of analysis — although referable, possibly, in their last result, to that merely mathematical recognition of equality which seems to be the root of all Beauty.” Also 272: 9.
178: 20, inferior or less capable Music. Cf. what Poe says of music in the Poetic Principle, 236: 22, 237: 16, and note. [page 338:]
179: 4, “The Principle of Variety in Uniformity.” In his essay “What is Poetry?”’ prefixed to Imagination and Fancy (1844). Leigh Hunt defines poetry as “ the utterance of a passion for truth, beauty, and power, embodying and illustrating its conceptions by imagination and fancy, and modifying its language on the principle of variety in uniformity.” In the last part of the essay this principle is discussed. Cf. Coleridge, Anima Poete (Boston, 1895), p. 129: “Now, poetry produces two kinds of pleasure, one for each of the two master-movements or impulses of man, — the gratification of the love of variety, and the gratification of the love of uniformity,” etc. Cf. also Table Talk, Dec. 27, 1831 (“ multitude in unity’); and “On the Principles of Genial Criticism,” Biographia Literaria, ed. Shaweross, vol. ii, p. 232 (“multeity in unity”). Poe perhaps treats Hunt's essay contemptuously because it contains ideas not in harmony with his own. Hunt, for example, identifies poetry with passion, and makes “continuity” one of the marks of the great poet. Cf. 280: 3; and 274: 3, “Perfection of rhyme is attainable only in the combination of the two elements, Equality and Unexpectedness,”’ etc.
183: 16, Parturiunt montes. Misquoted from Horace, Art of Poetry, l. 139: “ Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.”
183: 18, Litorets ingens. Virgil, Æneid, III, 1. 390.
188: 13, varying its application. Cf. 158; 29.
190: 25, point of time. A comparison of this passage with the review of Bryant (33; 22 ff.) shows that a part of Poe's theory of verse had been worked out eleven years earlier (1837). The example from Pope's Dunciad occurs in both passages.
193: 8, “Orion.” Poe published a very appreciative review of Horne's poem in Graham's Magazine, March, 1844; see Works, vol. xi, p. 249.
194: 19, two consecutive equivalent feet. “The suggestion of his [Poe's] being the first to use two initial inversions shows extraordinary ignorance of Milton, to go no farther.” — Omond, English Metrists, p. 141.
196: 18, Coleridge. Poe probably has in mind the Preface of 1816 (see Poetical Works, ed. J. Dykes Campbell, p. 601): “I have [page 339:] only to add, that the metre of Christabel is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle: namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four. Nevertheless this occasional variation in number of syllables is not introduced wantonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, but in correspondence with some transition, in the nature of the imagery or passion.” Cf. Robertson, New Essays Toward a Critical Method, p. 363.
198: 3, “Christabel.” Poe does scant justice to Coleridge's poem as to his theory. That Poe's difficulties are not all imaginary, however, the reader may see by rereading the poem. What, for example, is Coleridge's metrical intention in the first of the following lines?
“Is the night chilly and dark?
The night is chilly, but not dark.”
200: 18, the cæsura. Cf. 175: 1. In the earlier discussion of versification (see Works, vol. xi, p. 228) Poe says: “All our Prosodists define the cæsura as a pause introduced for the purpose of producing harmony, in a single verse or couplet, between ‘two members of the same verse,’ by which the one is placed in direct comparison with the others. ... We too use the cæsura as a pause — a pause compelled by the position of, and upon the foot — of the voice, which renders it equal in quantity to any of the larger feet, and at the same time gives to the close of the verse, where it is most frequently found, a singular richness, as well as sonorous fullness and force.” In the review of Longfellow's Ballads (87: 3), dating 1842, Poe has a conception of the cæsura perhaps slightly different, speaking of Byron's line
Know ye the | land where the | cypress and | myrtle
as “formed of three dactyls and a cæsura.” “The myrtle, at the close of Byron's line, is a double rhyme, and must be understood as one syllable.” This reading Poe apparently abandoned later, On [page 340:] the subject of pauses see Alden, English Verse, p. 16, where the cæsura is defined in its ordinary sense as “a pause not counted out of the regular time of the rhythm, but corresponding to the pause between ‘phrases’ of music, and nearly always coinciding with syntactical or rhetorical divisions of the sentence.”
202: 27, 'Tis the land. In quoting Poe transposes land and clime.
205: 31, false in point of melody. J. J. Sylvester, Laws of Verse, notes that “twine, ending a line, takes after it a slight pause, which with the and would make out the value of a dactyl.” See Robertson, New Essays Toward a Critical Method, p. 360; Omond, English Metrists, p. 139.
207: 5, hudsonizing. Explained by reference to an article by Poe on H. N. Hudson, a lecturer on Shakespeare; he had, Poe says, among other bad points “an elocution that would disgrace a pig.” See Works, vol. xii, p27.
207: 10, rhythm. Poe's etymology is false; it is from ρ́υθμός, motion or flow.
224: 13, English hexameters. Poe touches this subject in other places. Cf. 86: 28; also Works, vol. xi, p. 66; vol. xvi, p. 72.
224: 22, Professor Felton. C.C. Felton, Professor of Greek at Harvard and friend of Longfellow. The “Frogpondian Professors” are those dwelling near the pond in Boston Common.
225: 11, Also the church within. From The Children of the Lord's Supper. For “In which” (second line) read “When.” The line when correctly quoted, however, contains the feet to which Poe objects.
228: 1. The Poetic Principle, originally a lecture delivered in 1848-1849 in Lowell, Providence, Richmond, and other places, was published posthumously in Sartain's Union Magazine, October, 1850.
228: 12, a long poem. Poe insists on the brevity of the poem throughout, beginning in 1836. Cf. Works, vol. viii, p. 126. The point is more fully developed elsewhere; see 83: 19, 93: 7, 153: 16. [page 341:] For the first statement of the same principle applied to fiction see Works, vol. ix, p. 46.
Cf. two expressions of Gray, with whom Poe has something in common: “The true lyric style, with all its flights of fancy, ornaments, and heightening of expression, and harmony of sound, is in its nature superior to every other style; which is just the cause why it could not be borne in a work of great length,” etc. — Letter to Mason, December, 1756. “I have been used to write chiefly lyric poetry, in which, the poems being short, I have accustomed myself to polish every part of them with care; ... the labor of this in a long poem would hardly be tolerable.” — Mathias, Observations, p. 52.
228: 16, excites, by elevating the soul. Cf. Philosophy of Composition, 153: 19, where the insertion of the comma gives a slightly different meaning.
228: 22, half an hour, at the very utmost. “Not to exceed in length what might be perused in an hour,” is the limit set in an earlier discussion of the same point; see 93: 10.
229: 10, After a passage. Cf. Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, chap. xiv: “A poem of any length neither can be, or ought to be, all poetry,” etc.
230: 12, “The Columbiad.” Joel Barlow's great epic was the work of a lifetime. Begun in his college days, and published as The Vision of Columbus, 1787, it finally appeared in a large and sumptuous volume as The Columbiad, 1807.
230: 15. Lamartime was voluminous: Jocelyn and La Chute d’un Ange occupied four volumes in the original editions. Robert Pollok (1799-1827), a Scotchman, wrote a didactic poem, The Course of Time.
231: 14, undue brevity. Comparison with the examples given shows some of Poe's own poems to be unduly brief.
234: 2, The Didactic. Poe fought this “heresy” consistently throughout. The following references will enable the reader to collect Poe's most important expressions on this subject: Works, Vol, vii, pp. xxxvii, xliii (3: 22; 10: 8); vol. ix, p. 305 (52: 9); vol. x, p. 141; vol. xi, pp. 67, 68, 79 (82: 11), 84 (89: 10), 244, [page 342:] 247, 253, 254; vol. xii, p. 33; vol. xili, p. 131. Beginning with his attack on the heresy of the Lake School in the Preface of 1831 Poe uniformly takes the position that “ didactic subjects are utterly beyond, or rather beneath the province of true poesy.” Cf. Shelley, Defence of Poetry, to the effect that the “eternal poets” do not make the mistake of ‘affecting a moral aim.” — Prose Works, ed. Forman, vol. iii, p. 112.
234: 21, With as deep a reverence. Cf. 74: 15 and note.
235: 15, Aristotle. In the Ethics Aristotle treats indifferently morals and what we should consider matters of taste. He did not separate the good and the beautiful.
236: 4, mere repetition is not poetry. This gives Poe's attitude toward realism. Cf. 89: 10, 279: 23, 306: 6.
236: 15, the desire of the moth for the star. Quoted from Shelley, One Word is too Often Profaned.
236: 22, by Music. Cf. The Rationale of Verse (178: 19): “Verse which cannot be better designated than as an inferior or less capable music.” In a letter to Lowell, July 2, 1844, Poe says: “I am profoundly excited by music. ... Music is the perfection of the soul, or idea, of poetry. The vagueness of exaltation aroused by a sweet air (which should be strictly indefinite and never too strongly suggestive) is precisely what we should aim at in poetry.” — Woodberry, Poe, p. 213. Cf. also what Poe says of music at 177: 23; and E. Lauvrière, Edgar Poe, p. 353; note: “Nous savons son goût pour la musique, ses preférences pour les poétes chanteurs, Tennyson, Keats, Shelley; ses poémes juvéniles comme ses théories poétiques sont pleines des mots: musique, melodie, harmonie; ses premiers succésen poésie, Helen, Ligeia, Israfel, sont d’heureuses manifestations de cette musique des vers qui ne fera que s’affirmer et se perfectionner par lasuite. ... Les tendances artistiquesde Poe étaient,en leur fond intime, essentiellement musicales.”
236: 24, Abbate Gravina. Probably Gianvincenzo Gravina, Italian critic, author of Della Ragion Poetica (1708). Cf. 264: 5, 296: 31.
237: 22, unfamiliar to the angels, Cf, Israfel, II. 40-51 : [page 343:]
Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely — flowers,
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.
If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.
Cf. also Shelley, Defence of Poetry: “It is doubtful whether the alloy of costume, habit, &c., be not necessary to temper this planetary music to mortal ears.” — Prose Works, ed. Forman, vol. iii, p. 110.
237: 31, The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. Substantially the same definition occurs in other places, particularly in the review of Longfellow's Ballads, 80: 20. Compare the following: “The sole legitimate object of a true poem is the creation of beauty.” — Works, vol. xi, p. 244. “A poem, whose single object is the creation of Beauty — the novel collocation of old forms of the Beautiful and of the Sublime.” — Vol. xi, p. 254. Cf. also 154: 26 ff.; 304: 8.
Robertson (New Essays Toward a Critical Method, p. 84, note) says: “It is remarkable that no one has ever pointed out that Poe's own excellent definition of poetry, ‘the rhythmical creation of beauty,’ is a condensation of a sentence by (of all men) Griswold.” This statement, however, is doubtful, the facts being as follows. Griswold used the words in the preface to his Poets and Poetry of America (1842): “The creation of beauty, the manifestation of the real by the ideal, ‘in words that move in metrical array,’ is poetry.” This preface is dated “Philadelphia, March, 1842.” In the same month, if not earlier, Poe was writing the review of Longfellow's Ballads in which his definition first occurs — since this review appeared in Graham's Magazine for April, 1842. The [page 344:] dates do not justify the assertion that Poe was indebted to Griswold. Furthermore, in an anonymous review of Griswold's Poets in the Philadelphia Saturday Museum, 1842 (Works, vol. xi. p. 239), Poe says, after quoting the sentence from Griswold's preface given above: “Now what is this but a direct amplification by our poet [Griswold] of the definition of poetry — ‘the rhythmical creation of beauty’ — which appeared in Mr. Poe's critique of Professor Longfellow's ballads, from which we know and he knows he stole it?” See also Works, vol. xi, p. 154. Poe would hardly make this charge so explicitly without some warrant? It should be noted, also, that Poe and Griswold were both in Philadelphia in March, 1842, and that Griswold soon succeeded Poe as editor of Graham's Magazine. Griswold, therefore, may have got the phrase in question directly from Poe before it appeared in print. It is likely that Poe got his famous definition, not from Griswold, but from A. W. Schlegel: see Introduction.
238: 20, It by no means follows, however. Poe takes the ground that truth and passion, while not proper subjects of poetry, may be introduced if strictly subordinated to the true poetic purpose. Cf. 162.4, 75: 24, 155: 22, 235: 22, 254: 31.
The best statement of his position may be found in the review of Horne's Orion “The question ... is not whether it be not possible to introduce didacticism, with effect, into a poem, or possible to introduce poetical images and measures, with effect, into a didactic essay. To do either the one or the other, would be merely to surmount a difficulty — would be simply a feat of literary sleight of hand. But the true question is, whether the author who shall attempt either feat, will not be laboring at a disadvantage. ... Although we agree, for example, with Coleridge that poetry and passion are discordant, yet we are willing to permit Tennyson to bring, to the intense passion which prompted his ‘Locksley Hall’ the aid of that terseness and pungency which are derivable from rhythm and from rhyme. The effect he produces, however, is a purely passionate, and not, unless in detached passages of this magnificent philippic, a properly poetic effect.” — Works, vol. xi, p. 254. [page 345:]
On passionate poetry the following is instructive: “Mrs. Welby's theme is ... one of the very best among the class passionate, ‘True passion is prosaic — homely. Any strong mental emotion stimulates all the mental faculties; thus grief the imagination: — but in proportion as the effect is strengthened, the cause surceases. The excited fancy triumphs — the grief is subdued — chastened, — is no longer grief. In this mood we are poetic, and it is clear that a poem now written will be poetic in the exact ratio of its dispassion. A passionate poem is a contradiction in terms.” — Works, vol. xi, p. 277. Cf. also Works, vol. xiii, pp. 131, 160, 162. In the last two of these passages Poe writes almost as if passion were a proper ingredient of poetry; and in a review of Lowell (Works, vol. xiii, p. 168) he says: “The poetry of sentiment ... to be sure is oft the very loftiest order of verse; for it is far inferior to that of the imagination or that of the passions.”
Poe regularly attributes to Coleridge the doctrine that “ poetry and passion are discordant,’ — apparently without authority. Coleridge, like the other early nineteenth century critics, considered passion “the all in all in poetry”; cf. Biographia Literaria, chap. xviii: “Now poetry, Mr. Wordsworth truly affirms, does always imply passion; which word must be here understood, in its most general sense, as an excited state of the feelings and faculties.” Many other passages are to the same effect. For passages, however, indicating vaguely that Coleridge believed poetry to arise in the subsidence or control of passion see Biographia, ed. Shawcross, vol. il, pp. 253, 15.
241: 30, I know. The line should read: “I know that I no more should see.”
242: 26, sadness is inseparably connected. Cf. 23: 21, and note. The quotation is from Longfellow's The Day is Done.
246: 7, originating with Coleridge. Cf. 54: 14, note.
253: 23, Alfred Tennyson. In a review of Tennyson of 1842 (Works, vol. xi, p. 127) Poe's tone is disparaging. Elsewhere he speaks, as here, in terms of highest praise. [page 346:]
257: 1, Marginalia. Poe published between 1836 and 1849 many articles made up of critical scraps, under this and other titles. The first article, entitled Pinakidia (tablets or memoranda), appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger, August, 1836; Literary Small Talk in the American Museum, January and February, 1839; Fifty Suggestions in Graham's Magazine, May and June, 1845; A Chapter of Suggestions in The Opal, 1845. The Marginalia appeared as follows: Democratic Review, November, December, 1844; Godey's Lady's Book, August, September, 1845 (with the title “Marginal Notes ... a sequel to the Marginalia of the Democratic Review”); Graham's Magazine, March, 1846; Democratic Review, April, 1846 [[, July, 1846]]; Graham's Magazine, November, December, 1846, January, February, March, 1848; Southern Literary Messenger, April, May, June, July, September, 1849. The article entitled Marginalia in Graham's Magazine, March, 1848, though under Poe's name and clearly Poe's, is not included in the Virginia edition; this article will be found in Works, Stedman and Woodberry, vol. vii, p. 238. The title Marginalia, properly belonging only to the articles given above, has been extended by editors of Poe to other scraps; see Works, vol. xvi, p. vii; and Works, Stedman and Woodberry, vol. vii, p. 355. Griswold, however, may have had some authority for his inclusions; see Nation, vol. 75, p. 446. Passages in Marginalia were often reprinted by Poe from earlier reviews, — sometimes reprinted in later ones.
258: 30, the analysis of language. Cf. The Rationale of Verse, 171: 13.
260: 29, In general. Cf. Works, vol. xii, p. 1, where this passage is worked over to furnish the opening to a review of Mrs. Browning's poems.
263: 4, the indefinite. Cf. 9: 26, 295: 21, 297: 8, and letter to Lowell, 236: 22, note.
264: 5, L’ Abbate Gravina. Cf. 236: 24, note.
264: 21, It is the curse. Cf. 306: 17. [page 347:]
264: 25, In a critical mood. ‘This passage is part only of a short review of Mrs. Welby's poems which Poe inserted in the Marginalia.
265: 15, class passionate. See 238: 20, note.
268: 18, if the practice fail. Cf. Works, vol. xi, p. 39.
269: 12, The poetic sentiment. For the same idea elaborated see Works, vol. xii, p. 105, where Poe thus explains Longfellow's “plagiarisms.”
271: 12, Mr. Longfellow. See Works, vol xii, p. 41, and references there given.
271: 18, less at merit. Cf. The Poetic Principle, 244: 24 ff.
272: 3, The effect derivable. An interesting variant of passages in The Rationale of Verse; cf. 116: 23 et seq.
273: 24, says Lord Bacon. A favorite quotation with Poe, occurring in Ligeia and other places. The sentence, in Bacon's essay Of Beauty, reads: “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” Cf. Poe's discussion of quaintness as a means of producing artistic effect, Works, vol. xii, pp. 6, 20, 21, and 304: 20, note.
276: 3, a class of fancies. The following passage throws light on Poe's poetry and imaginative tales.
276: 28, a character supernal. Cf. 717: 30, 236: 31, 254: 27.
277: 8, the power of words. In some of the tales, for example Ligeia, Poe evidently finds the power of words inadequate. He is forced constantly to the use of superlatives and expressions such as “more than passionate devotion,” “ melody more than mortal.” He sometimes admits the weakness of words: “Words are impotent to convey any just idea of the fierceness of resistance with which he wrestled with the shadow”; “Through a species of unutterable horror and awe, for which the language of mortality has no sufficiently energetic expression,” etc. Music, Poe believed, has powers of expression beyond words.
278: 22, The artist belongs. This will be found in Sarah Austin's Fragments of the German Prose Writers, 1841, — a volume of miscellaneous translations which Poe seems to have used.
280: 3, Leigh Hunt's rigmarolic attempt. In the prefatory [page 348:] essay to Imagination and Fancy (1844), “What is Poetry?” Cf. 179: 4, and note.
286: 17, About the “Antigone.” The passage is reprinted by Poe from an article in the Broadway Journal, April 12, 1845; see Works, vol. xii, p. 130.
287: 24, Trubdet published Literary and Moral Essays, 1735.
289: 15, Campbell and Johnson. Johnson's observations will be found in the Life of Pope and in Ramébler, No. 92; Campbell's in The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Book iii, ch. i, sec. iii.
295: 7, There are few cases. What follows is a revision of a ten years old review of George P. Morris; see Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, December, 1839; and Works, vol. x, p. 41.
295: 21, indefinitiveness. Cf. 263: 4, and note.
296: 2, equality. Cf. 176: 23, 272: 9.
299: 29, If ever mortal, etc. A revision from the review of Mrs. Browning's Poems; cf. Works, vol. xii, p. 32.
300: 21, His quaintness. Cf. 273: 24, note; and 304: 20, note.
302: 11, Gallicism. Cf. Works, vol. xiii, p. 103; also 62: 7, and note.
304: 20, Quaininess. Cf. 300: 21. Stedman, Poets of America, p. 241, well analyzes the quaintness of Poe's own diction in The Raven: ‘This appears in the gravely quaint diction. ... The grimness of fate is suggested by phrases which it requires a masterly hand to subdue to the meaning of the poem. ‘Sir, said I, or madam,’ ‘this ungainly fowl,’ and the like sustain the air of grotesqueness, and become a foil to the pathos, an approach to the tragical climax, of this unique production. Only genius can deal so closely with the grotesque, and make it add to the solemn beauty of structure an effect like that of the gargoyles seen by moonlight on the facade of Notre Dame.”
306: 6, mere imitation. See 236: 4 and note.
306: 17, To see distinctly the machinery. Cf. 264: 21.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - FCP09, 1909] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - A Poe Bookshelf - Notes (F. C. Prescott, 1909)