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. 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 prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. 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. There is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a story. It is only with the denouement 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. Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its denouement before anything be attempted with the pen. 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. 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. And, in the composition of “The Raven” in particular, he describes how he arrived at the figure of a raven instead of a parrot.Ĭharles 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.” the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.” Poe discusses theme, setting, sound, and the merits of refrain. Beauty is the “province” of his work, and “melancholy. He advises brevity to communicate the essential “effect” of a piece. The essay is a methodical account of how he came to write “The Raven.” He describes the deliberate choices he made in composing the poem, and the choices reveal his aesthetic. In “The Philosophy of Composition,” Poe turned his attention to poetry. In his essay “The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose Tale,” Poe argued for his belief in “the unity of effect” in a short story. After giving lectures in Norfolk and Richmond, Poe died in a Baltimore hospital in 1849 the cause of his death is not known. In 1836 Poe married his cousin Virginia Clemm, and they remained together until her death from tuberculosis in 1847. He suffered from alcoholism, depression, and possibly diabetes. Despite his success as a writer, he lived in poverty. Poe worked as a journalist and editor in New York, Baltimore, and Richmond.

He briefly attended the University of Virginia before leaving to join the Army and attend West Point Military Academy he was expelled from West Point after a year. Orphaned in 1811, he moved to Richmond, Virginia, to live with his adoptive family. Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1809, the son of an actress. Known for his gothic tales and psychological dramas, his stories include “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” In 1845 he published The Raven and Other Poems. Edgar Allan Poe was an editor, journalist, poet, literary critic, and short story writer.

The melancholy of all things done