not only are there resemblances in thought, but a marked resemblance in rhythm and metre, to Poe's words and work in this stanza of Mrs. Browning's poem:—
"Eyes, he said, now throbbing through me! are ye eyes that did undo me?
Shining eyes like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone!
Underneath that calm white forehead, are ye ever burning torrid
O'er the desolate sand desert of my heart and life undone?"
Here is, veritably, a stanza, to parallel in versification and ideas Poe's lines,—
"On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming."
This stanza far more likely than that containing the first cited line of Mrs. Browning, would have suggested the metrical method, the rhythm, and the additional rhymes in the first and third lines. But there the suggestion ends; all beyond that is apparently Poe's own. It is, of course, possible that other sources of the inspiration of the Raven are discoverable although not yet discovered, but, when all the germs have been analyzed and all the suggested sources scrutinized what a wealth of imagination and a power of words remain the unalienable property of Poe—this builder of "pyramids for immortality."
Every poem must have been suggested by something, but how rarely do suggestions—whence-so-ever drawn—from Nature or Art—culminate in works so magnificent as this—the melodious apotheosis of Melancholy! This splendid consecration of unforgetful, undying sorrow!
As has already been pointed out Poe made no claim to originality as regarded either the rhythm or the metre of the Raven: the measures of each of the lines composing the stanzas of his poem had been often used before, but to cite his own words with respect to this feature of the work, "what originality the Raven has, is in their combination into stanza, nothing even remotely approaching this combination has ever been attempted. The effect of this originality of combination is," as he justly claims, "aided by other unusual and some altogether novel effects, arising from an extension of the application of the principles of rhyme and alliteration."
This is, indeed, a modest method of placing before his public the markedly original variations from known and well-worn forms of versification. "The possible varieties of metre and stanza are," as Poe remarks, "absolutely infinite, and yet, for centuries, no man, in verse, has ever done, or ever seemed to think of doing, an original thing. The fact is" asserts the poet "that originality (unless in minds of very unusual force) is by no means a matter, as some suppose, of impulse or intuition. In general, to be found, it must be elaborately sought, and although a positive merit of the highest class, demands in its attainment less of invention than of negation."
In proof of Poe himself having possessed this "merit of the highest class," it is but necessary to refer to the Raven. Not only is the whole conception and construction of the poem evidence of his inventive originality, not only are the artistic alliteration, the profusion of open vowel sounds and the melodious metre, testimony to his sense of beauty, but, by the introduction of the third rhyme into the fourth line of the stanza, and by the new, the novel, insertion of a fifth line between that fourth line and the refrain, he did really do, what, as he pointed out, no man had done for centuries, an original thing in verse!
1 ↑ The Fortnightly Review, July 1st, 1880.
2 ↑ No. 2473, page 395, March 20th, 1875.
3 ↑ For the satisfaction of the reader the whole of this poem is given at pp. 35—39.
4 ↑ First published version.
The Raven
For other versions of this work, see The Raven (Poe).
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THE RAVEN.
I.
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