Charles Dickens, in a note now lying before me, alluding to an examination I once made of the mechanism of „Barnaby Rudge,“ says \u00e2\u20ac\u201d „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.“
\n
\nI cannot think this the precise mode of procedure on the part of Godwin \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and indeed what he himself acknowledges, is not altogether in accordance with Mr. Dickens‘ idea \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but the author of „Caleb William“ was too good an artist not to perceive the advantage derivable from at least a somewhat similar process. Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its d\u00e9nouement before any thing be attempted with the pen. It is only with the d\u00e9nouement 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.<\/p>\n
There is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a story. Either history affords a thesis \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or one is suggested by an incident of the day \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or, at best, the author sets himself to work in the combination of striking events to form merely the basis of his narrative \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view \u00e2\u20ac\u201d for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 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 best be wrought by incident or tone \u00e2\u20ac\u201d whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident and tone \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by any author who would \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that is to say, who could \u00e2\u20ac\u201d detail, step by step, the processes by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point of completion. Why such a paper has never been given to the world, I am much at a loss to say \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but, perhaps, the autorial vanity has had more to do with the omission than any one other cause. Most writers \u00e2\u20ac\u201d poets in especial \u00e2\u20ac\u201d prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy \u00e2\u20ac\u201d an ecstatic intuition \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at the true purposes seized only at the last moment \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at the fully matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at the cautious selections and rejections \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at the painful erasures and interpolations \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in a word, at the wheels and pinions \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the tackle for scene-shifting \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the step-ladders and demon-traps \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the cock’s feathers, the red paint and the black patches, which, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, constitute the properties of the literary histrio.<\/p>\n
I am aware, on the other hand, that the case is by no means common, in which an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his conclusions have been attained. In general, suggestions, having arisen pell-mell, are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner.<\/p>\n
For my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to, nor, at any time, the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive steps of any of my compositions; and, since the interest of an analysis, or reconstruction, such as I have considered a desideratum, is quite independent of any real or fancied interest in the thing analyzed, it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to show the modus operandi by which some one of my own works was put together. I select „The Raven“ as most generally known. It is my design to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is referrible either to accident or intuition \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that the work proceeded, step by step, to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem.<\/p>\n
Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem per se, the circumstance \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or say the necessity \u00e2\u20ac\u201d which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste.<\/p>\n
We commence, then, with this intention.<\/p>\n
The initial consideration was that of extent. If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression \u00e2\u20ac\u201d for, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and every thing like totality is at once destroyed. But since, ceteris paribus, no poet can afford to dispense with any thing that may advance his design, it but remains to be seen whether there is, in extent, any advantage to counterbalance the loss of unity which attends it. Here I say no, at once. What we term a long poem is, in fact, merely a succession of brief ones \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that is to say, of brief poetical effects. It is needless to demonstrate that a poem is such, only inasmuch as it intensely excites, by elevating the soul; and all intense excitements are, through a psychal necessity, brief. For this reason, at least one half of the „Paradise Lost“ is essentially prose \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a succession of poetical excitements interspersed, inevitably, with corresponding depressions \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the whole being deprived, through the extremeness of its length, of the vastly important artistic element, totality, or unity, of effect.<\/p>\n
It appears evident, then, that there is a distinct limit, as regards length, to all works of literary art \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the limit of a single sitting \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and that, although in certain classes of prose composition, such as „Robinson Crusoe,“ (demanding no unity,) this limit may be advantageously overpassed, it can never properly be overpassed in a poem. Within this limit, the extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to its merit \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in other words, to the excitement or elevation \u00e2\u20ac\u201d again in other words, to the degree of the true poetical effect which it is capable of inducing; for it is clear that the brevity must be in direct ratio of the intensity of the intended effect: \u00e2\u20ac\u201d this, with one proviso \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for the production of any effect at all.<\/p>\n
Holding in view these considerations, as well as that degree of excitement which I deemed not above the popular, while not below the critical, taste, I reached at once what I conceived the proper length for my intended poem \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a length of about one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred and eight.<\/p>\n
My next thought concerned the choice of an impression, or effect, to be conveyed: and here I may as well observe that, throughout the construction, I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work universally appreciable. I should be carried too far out of my immediate topic were I to demonstrate a point upon which I have repeatedly insisted, and which, with the poetical, stands not in the slightest need of demonstration \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the point, I mean, that Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem. A few words, however, in elucidation of my real meaning, which some of my friends have evinced a disposition to misrepresent. That pleasure which is at once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful. When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect \u00e2\u20ac\u201d they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not of intellect, or of heart \u00e2\u20ac\u201d upon which I have commented, and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating „the beautiful.“ Now I designate Beauty as the province of the poem, merely because it is an obvious rule of Art that effects should be made to spring from direct causes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that objects should be attained through means best adapted for their attainment \u00e2\u20ac\u201d no one as yet having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation alluded to, is most readily attained in the poem. Now the object, Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable, to a certain extent, in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose. Truth, in fact, demands a precision, and Passion, a homeliness (the truly passionate will comprehend me) which are absolutely antagonistic to that Beauty which, I maintain, is the excitement, or pleasurable elevation, of the soul. It by no means follows from any thing here said, that passion, or even truth, may not be introduced, and even profitably introduced, into a poem \u00e2\u20ac\u201d for they may serve in elucidation, or aid the general effect, as do discords in music, by contrast \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but the true artist will always contrive, first, to tone them into proper subservience to the predominant aim, and, secondly, to enveil them, as far as possible, in that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the essence of the poem.<\/p>\n
Regarding, then, Beauty as my province, my next question referred to the tone of its highest manifestation \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and all experience has shown that this tone is one of sadness. Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.<\/p>\n
The length, the province, and the tone, being thus determined, I betook myself to ordinary induction, with the view of obtaining some artistic piquancy which might serve me as a key-note in the construction of the poem \u00e2\u20ac\u201d some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn. In carefully thinking over all the usual artistic effects \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or more properly points, in the theatrical sense \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I did not fail to perceive immediately that no one had been so universally employed as that of the refrain. The universality of its employment sufficed to assure me of its intrinsic value, and spared me the necessity of submitting it to analysis. I considered it, however, with regard to its susceptibility of improvement, and soon saw it to be in a primitive condition. As commonly used, the refrain, or burden, not only is limited to lyric verse, but depends for its impression upon the force of monotone \u00e2\u20ac\u201d both in sound and thought. The pleasure is deduced solely from the sense of identity \u00e2\u20ac\u201d of repetition. I resolved to diversify, and so vastly heighten, the effect, by adhering, in general, to the monotone of sound, while I continually varied that of thought: that is to say, I determined to produce continuously novel effects, by the variation of the application of the refrain \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the refrain itself remaining, for the most part, unvaried.<\/p>\n
These points being settled, I next bethought me of the nature of my refrain. Since its application was to be repeatedly varied, it was clear that the refrain itself must be brief, for there would have been an insurmountable difficulty in frequent variations of application in any sentence of length. In proportion to the brevity of the sentence, would, of course, be the facility of the variation. This led me at once to a single word as the best refrain.<\/p>\n
The question now arose as to the character of the word. Having made up my mind to a refrain, the division of the poem into stanzas was, of course, a corollary: the refrain forming the close to each stanza. That such a close, to have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted emphasis, admitted no doubt: and these considerations inevitably led me to the long o as the most sonorous vowel, in connection with r as the most producible consonant.<\/p>\n
The sound of the refrain being thus determined, it became necessary to select a word embodying this sound, and at the same time in the fullest possible keeping with that melancholy which I had predetermined as the tone of the poem. In such a search it would have been absolutely impossible to overlook the word „Nevermore.“ In fact, it was the very first which presented itself.<\/p>\n
The next desideratum was a pretext for the continuous use of the one word „nevermore.“ In observing the difficulty which I at once found in inventing a sufficiently plausible reason for its continuous repetition, I did not fail to perceive that this difficulty arose solely from the pre-assumption that the word was to be so continuously or monotonously spoken by a human being \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I did not fail to perceive, in short, that the difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word. Here, then, immediately arose the idea of a non-reasoning creature capable of speech; and, very naturally, a parrot, in the first instance, suggested itself, but was superseded forthwith by a Raven, as equally capable of speech, and infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone.<\/p>\n
I had now gone so far as the conception of a Raven \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the bird of ill omen \u00e2\u20ac\u201d monotonously repeating the one word, „Nevermore,“ at the conclusion of each stanza, in a poem of melancholy tone, and in length about one hundred lines. Now, never losing sight of the object supremeness, or perfection, at all points, I asked myself \u00e2\u20ac\u201d „Of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy?“ Death \u00e2\u20ac\u201d was the obvious reply. „And when,“ I said, „is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?“ From what I have already explained at some length, the answer, here also, is obvious \u00e2\u20ac\u201d „When it most closely allies itself to Beauty: the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.“<\/p>\n
I had now to combine the two ideas, of a lover lamenting his deceased mistress and a Raven continuously repeating the word „Nevermore“ \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I had to combine these, bearing in mind my design of varying, at every turn, the application of the word repeated; but the only intelligible mode of such combination is that of imagining the Raven employing the word in answer to the queries of the lover. And here it was that I saw at once the opportunity afforded for the effect on which I had been depending \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that is to say, the effect of the variation of application. I saw that I could make the first query propounded by the lover \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the first query to which the Raven should reply „Nevermore“ \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that I could make this first query a commonplace one \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the second less so \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the third still less, and so on \u00e2\u20ac\u201d until at length the lover, startled from his original nonchalance by the melancholy character of the word itself \u00e2\u20ac\u201d by its frequent repetition \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and by a consideration of the ominous reputation of the fowl that uttered it \u00e2\u20ac\u201d is at length excited to superstition, and wildly propounds queries of a far different character \u00e2\u20ac\u201d queries whose solution he has passionately at heart \u00e2\u20ac\u201d propounds them half in superstition and half in that species of despair which delights in self-torture \u00e2\u20ac\u201d propounds them not altogether because he believes in the prophetic or demoniac character of the bird (which, reason assures him, is merely repeating a lesson learned by rote) but because he experiences a phrenzied pleasure in so modeling his questions as to receive from the expected „Nevermore“ the most delicious because the most intolerable of sorrow. Perceiving the opportunity thus afforded me \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or, more strictly, thus forced upon me in the progress of the construction \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I first established in mind the climax, or concluding query \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that to which „Nevermore“ should be in the last place an answer \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that in reply to which this word „Nevermore“ should involve the utmost conceivable amount of sorrow and despair.<\/p>\n
Here then the poem may be said to have its beginning \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at the end, where all works of art should begin \u00e2\u20ac\u201d for it was here, at this point of my preconsiderations, that I first put pen to paper in the composition of the stanza:<\/p>\n
„Prophet,“ said I, „thing of evil! prophet still if bird or devil!
\nBy that heaven that bends above us \u00e2\u20ac\u201d by that God we both adore,
\nTell this soul with sorrow laden, if within the distant Aidenn,
\nIt shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nClasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.“
\nQuoth the raven \u00e2\u20ac\u201d „Nevermore.“<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI composed this stanza, at this point, first that, by establishing the climax, I might the better vary and graduate, as regards seriousness and importance, the preceding queries of the lover \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and, secondly, that I might definitely settle the rhythm, the metre, and the length and general arrangement of the stanza \u00e2\u20ac\u201d as well as graduate the stanzas which were to precede, so that none of them might surpass this in rhythmical effect. Had I been able, in the subsequent composition, to construct more vigorous stanzas, I should, without scruple, have purposely enfeebled them, so as not to interfere with the climacteric effect.<\/p>\n
And here I may as well say a few words of the versification. My first object (as usual) was originality. The extent to which this has been neglected, in versification, is one of the most unaccountable things in the world. Admitting that there is little possibility of variety in mere rhythm, it is still clear that the possible varieties of metre and stanza are absolutely infinite \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and yet, for centuries, no man, in verse, has ever done, or ever seemed to think of doing, an original thing. The fact is, 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 negation.<\/p>\n
Of course, I pretend to no originality in either the rhythm or metre of the „Raven.“ The former is trochaic \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the latter is octametre acatalectic, alternating with heptameter catalectic repeated in the refrain of the fifth verse, and terminating with tetrameter catalectic. Less pedantically \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the feet employed throughout (trochees) consist of a long syllable followed by a short: the first line of the stanza consists of eight of these feet \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the second of seven and a half (in effect two-thirds) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the third of eight \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the fourth of seven and a half \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the fifth the same \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the sixth three and a half. Now, each of these lines, taken individually, has been employed before, and 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 aided by other unusual, and some altogether novel effects, arising from an extension of the application of the principles of rhyme and alliteration.<\/p>\n
The next point to be considered was the mode of bringing together the lover and the Raven \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and the first branch of this consideration was the locale. For this the most natural suggestion might seem to be a forest, or the fields \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but it has always appeared to me that a close circumscription of space is absolutely necessary to the effect of insulated incident: \u00e2\u20ac\u201d it has the force of a frame to a picture. It has an indisputable moral power in keeping concentrated the attention, and, of course, must not be confounded with mere unity of place.<\/p>\n
I determined, then, to place the lover in his chamber \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in a chamber rendered sacred to him by memories of her who had frequented it. The room is represented as richly furnished \u00e2\u20ac\u201d this in mere pursuance of the ideas I have already explained on the subject of Beauty, as the sole true poetical thesis.<\/p>\n
The locale being thus determined, I had now to introduce the bird \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and the thought of introducing him through the window, was inevitable. The idea of making the lover suppose, in the first instance, that the flapping of the wings of the bird against the shutter, is a „tapping“ at the door, originated in a wish to increase, by prolonging, the reader’s curiosity, and in a desire to admit the incidental effect arising from the lover’s throwing open the door, finding all dark, and thence adopting the half-fancy that it was the spirit of his mistress that knocked.<\/p>\n
I made the night tempestuous, first, to account for the Raven’s seeking admission, and secondly, for the effect of contrast with the (physical) serenity within the chamber.<\/p>\n
I made the bird alight on the bust of Pallas, also for the effect of contrast between the marble and the plumage \u00e2\u20ac\u201d it being understood that the bust was absolutely suggested by the bird \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the bust of Pallas being chosen, first, as most in keeping with the scholarship of the lover, and, secondly, for the sonorousness of the word, Pallas, itself.<\/p>\n
About the middle of the poem, also, I have availed myself of the force of contrast, with a view of deepening the ultimate impression. For example, an air of the fantastic \u00e2\u20ac\u201d approaching as nearly to the ludicrous as was admissible \u00e2\u20ac\u201d is given to the Raven’s entrance. He comes in „with many a flirt and flutter.“<\/p>\n
Not the least obeisance made he \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not a moment stopped or stayed he,
\nBut with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nIn the two stanzas which follow, the design is more obviously carried out: \u00e2\u20ac\u201d<\/p>\n
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling
\nBy the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
\n„Though thy crest be shorn and shaven thou,“ I said, „art sure no craven,
\nGhastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the nightly shore \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nTell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!“
\nQuoth the Raven „Nevermore.“
\n \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nMuch I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
\nThough its answer little meaning \u00e2\u20ac\u201d little relevancy bore;
\nFor we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
\nEver yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nBird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
\nWith such name as „Nevermore.“<\/p>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The effect of the d\u00e9nouement being thus provided for, I immediately drop the fantastic for a tone of the most profound seriousness: \u00e2\u20ac\u201d this tone commencing in the stanza directly following the one last quoted, with the line,<\/p>\n
But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only, etc.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
From this epoch the lover no longer jests \u00e2\u20ac\u201d no longer sees any thing even of the fantastic in the Raven’s demeanor. He speaks of him as a „grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore,“ and feels the „fiery eyes“ burning into his „bosom’s core.“ This revolution of thought, or fancy, on the lover’s part, is intended to induce a similar one on the part of the reader \u00e2\u20ac\u201d to bring the mind into a proper frame for the d\u00e9nouement \u00e2\u20ac\u201d which is now brought about as rapidly and as directly as possible.<\/p>\n
With the d\u00e9nouement proper \u00e2\u20ac\u201d with the Raven’s reply, „Nevermore,“ to the lover’s final demand if he shall meet his mistress in another world \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the poem, in its obvious phase, that of a simple narrative, may be said to have its completion. So far, every thing is within the limits of the accountable \u00e2\u20ac\u201d of the real. A raven, having learned by rote the single word, „Nevermore,“ and having escaped from the custody of its owner, is driven, at midnight, through the violence of a storm, to seek admission at a window from which a light still gleams \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the chamber-window of a student, occupied half in poring over a volume, half in dreaming of a beloved mistress deceased. The casement being thrown open at the fluttering of the bird’s wings, the bird itself perches on the most convenient seat out of the immediate reach of the student, who, amused by the incident and the oddity of the visiter’s demeanor, demands of it, in jest and without looking for a reply, its name. The raven addressed, answers with its customary word, „Nevermore“ \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a word which finds immediate echo in the melancholy heart of the student, who, giving utterance aloud to certain thoughts suggested by the occasion, is again startled by the fowl’s repetition of „Nevermore.“ The student now guesses the state of the case, but is impelled, as I have before explained, by the human thirst for self-torture, and in part by superstition, to propound such queries to the bird as will bring him, the lover, the most of the luxury of sorrow, through the anticipated answer „Nevermore.“ With the indulgence, to the utmost extreme, of this self-torture, the narration, in what I have termed its first or obvious phase, has a natural termination, and so far there has been no overstepping of the limits of the real.<\/p>\n
But in subjects so handled, however skilfully, or with however vivid an array of incident, there is always a certain hardness or nakedness, which repels the artistical eye. Two things are invariably required \u00e2\u20ac\u201d first, some amount of complexity, or more properly, adaptation; and, secondly, some amount of suggestiveness \u00e2\u20ac\u201d some under current, however indefinite of meaning. It is this latter, in especial, which imparts to a work of art so much of that richness (to borrow from colloquy a forcible term) which we are too fond of confounding with the ideal. It is the excess of the suggested meaning \u00e2\u20ac\u201d it is the rendering this the upper instead of the under current of the theme \u00e2\u20ac\u201d which turns into prose (and that of the very flattest kind) the so called poetry of the so called transcendentalists.<\/p>\n
Holding these opinions, I added the two concluding stanzas of the poem \u00e2\u20ac\u201d their suggestiveness being thus made to pervade all the narrative which has preceded them. The under-current of meaning is rendered first apparent in the lines \u00e2\u20ac\u201d<\/p>\n
„Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!“
\n Quoth the Raven „Nevermore!“<\/p><\/blockquote>\nIt will be observed that the words, „from out my heart,“ involve the first metaphorical expression in the poem. They, with the answer, „Nevermore,“ dispose the mind to seek a moral in all that has been previously narrated. The reader begins now to regard the Raven as emblematical \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but it is not until the very last line of the very last stanza, that the intention of making him emblematical of Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance is permitted distinctly to be seen:<\/p>\n
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting,
\nOn the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
\nAnd his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
\nAnd the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
\nAnd my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
\nShall be lifted \u00e2\u20ac\u201d nevermore. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n