Classic Note on Poe's Poetry

In his essay, "The Philosophy of Composition," Edgar Allan Poe writes that in an ideal poem, "two things are invariably required first, some amount of complexity, or more properly, adaptation; and, secondly, some amount of suggestiveness some under-current, however indefinite, of meaning." While he claims to use this statement to justify the "suggestiveness" of the final two stanzas of "The Raven," he points at a more universal under-current that lies behind several of his poems, particularly those about deceased women. In poems such as "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven," the speaker covertly confesses to murdering the women about whom they are written. The complexity of these poems lies in the nature of the speaker, who wishes to make his guilt public, yet at the same time enjoys keeping it hidden. The principle of a covert confession serves as Poe's poetic inspiration, drawing a connection between confession and creation.

Since the death of beautiful women is such a common theme in Poe's poems, it obviously an inspiring topic. More important than the deaths themselves, however, is the manner in which they are narrated. Poe's speakers tell stories about dead women that hint that they are responsible for killing them. One of the best examples is "Annabel Lee," in which Poe frames the speaker's underlying confession primarily through the use of meter. First of all, the sprung rhythm, or lines of alternating four and three beats, makes the poem sound like a fairy-tale. With the opening lines: "It was many and many a year ago / In a kingdom by the sea," the reader is immediately clued in that what is about to follow is a story, and not necessarily the truth. Thus, the reader is at once skeptical when the speaker declares that the angels in heaven, who coveted their love, were responsible for the death of his maiden. Perhaps the most revealing part of the covert confession is in the fourth stanza, in which the speaker exclaims, "Yes! that was the reason (as all men know / In this kingdom by the sea)" The exclamation, which disrupts the general pattern of beats, gives the impression that the speaker is convincing himself of this false excuse, as if he has just now begun to believe it as it escapes his mouth. Another possibility is that the speaker has anticipated the reader's doubtfulness at this point, and feels it necessary to affirm his story by crying, "Yes!" In either case, the speaker's frenzied exclamation that disrupts the otherwise smooth, almost hypnotic meter, illustrates how the speaker wants the reader to read his confession that lies beneath his thin and meager excuse for his maiden's death.Poe also uses rhyme and alliteration to hint at the speaker's guilt. One of the most subtle, yet effective uses of rhyme is the repetition of the vowel sound at the end of every other line. With the exception of a minor variation in the fourth stanza, the pattern of end rhymes in every other line is: "sea," "Lee," and "me." The continuous rhyming of the word "me" suggests that the speaker is directing the reader's attention to himself for a particular reason. That is, he is pointing the guilty finger toward himself as if to say, "it was me." The alliteration of the "s" sound in the final two lines of the poem mimics the peaceful lapping of the sea, where the speaker presumably lies down with the corpse. Similarly, the internal rhymes such as "the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes" and "all the night-tide, I lie down by the side" force the reader to pronounce the same sounds in each line, mimicking the echo of the speaker's voice within the walls of the tomb in which Annabel Lee is buried. The alliteration, internal rhyme, and peaceful rhythm create a tone of eerie calmness that reflects the speaker's own calmness and lack of grief another sign of his self-indictment.The guilty speakers in Poe's short stories also claim to be of calm composure. In the beginning of "The Tell-Tale Heart," the speaker attempts to show that he is sane by saying, "Hearken! and observe how calmly I can tell you the whole story." Throughout the story, the speaker goes to great lengths to tell the reader how calm and how careful he is in order to "prove" his sanity; however, the story as a whole serves as a confession of his insanity. Similarly, in "Annabel Lee," the speaker's calmness in the final stanza points to his own guilt, since he is strangely calm enough to lie peacefully next to his lover's rotting corpse. The relationship of calmness to confession is especially strong in "The Black Cat," in the scene in which the police are examining the area in which the speaker has walled up his dead wife and (unknowingly) the cat. Poe writes:'Gentlemen,' I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, 'I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this this is a very well constructed house.' [In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.] 'I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls are you going gentlemen? these walls are solidly put together;' andI rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.The speaker, who delights in keeping his composure in the presence of the police so near to the evidence of his crime, has an inexplicable urge to expose the evidence that will undoubtedly point to his guilt. However, there are no indications whatsoever that the speaker's urge to confess is motivated by remorse. Therefore, it appears that the speaker has an inclination toward self-torment.The inclination toward self-torment is a prevalent topic in "The Raven," as Poe discusses in his essay, "The Philosophy of Composition." The speaker's self-torment is illustrated by his repeated questioning of the bird, whom he knows will only answer, "Nevermore." According to Poe, the speaker asks, "half in superstition and half in that species of despair which delights in self-torture," and because "he experiences a frenzied pleasure in so modelling his questions as to receive from the expected 'Nevermore' the most delicious because the most intolerable of sorrows2E" Delighting in torment is not only a staple of the Gothic genre, but also a correlative of confession. Poe's narrators enjoy a kind of covert confessing because it is a kind of self-torment.The concept of self-torment, particularly through the act of confession, is closely tied to the idea of narcissism. The very act of tormenting oneself shows at once a degree of self-obsession. By definition, to confess is to disclose information that has previously been kept only in one's own head. Logically, then, a poem that is characterized by a speaker's confession is a poem that is about himself. The relationship of self-torture and narcissism is well-defined in "The Tell-Tale Heart," in which, at the end of the story, the narrator pulls up the floorboards in front of the police to expose the corpse of the man whom he killed. Ironically, the object that drives the speaker to murder the old man is his eye, a homonym for the word "I." The underlying suggestion is that the "eye" is at the