he had already noticed in print—even if that creature had been capable of enacting the needful rôle, so for a while, it is possible, he may have deemed the parrot suitable for his purpose. Gresset's Ver-Vert—that most amusing of birds!—with whose history he was familiar, may indeed have been recalled to mind, but that he would speedily discard all idea of such a creature as out of all keeping with the tone of his projected poem is evident. To us it appears clear that it was in Barnaby Rudge he finally found the needed bird. In a review which he wrote of that story Poe drew attention to certain points he deemed Dickens had failed to make: the Raven in it, the well-known "Grip," he considered, "might have been made more than we now see it, a portion of the conception of the fantastic Barnaby. Its croaking might have been prophetically heard in the course of the drama. Its character might have performed, in regard to that of the idiot, much the same part as does, in music, the accompaniment in respect to the air." Here would seem to be, beyond question, shadowed forth the poet's own Raven and its duty.
It has been seen that Poe found much of what he wanted in Isadore, and it might not be investigating too nicely to question whether the "melancholy strain" of its "mocking bird" may not have suggested the "melancholy burden" of the Raven; but more palpable similarities are apparent. In order to justify the following portion of our argument it will be necessary to cite some specimens of Pike's work, this stanza of it shall, therefore, be given:—
| "Thou art lost to me forever—I have lost thee Isadore,— Thy head will never rest upon my loyal bosom more, Thy tender eyes will never more gaze fondly into mine, Nor thine arms around me lovingly and trustingly entwine— Thou art lost to me forever, Isadore."[3] |
As might be expected Pike's metre and rhythm are very much less dexterously managed than are Poe's, but, to some extent the intention was to produce an effect similar to that carried out afterwards in the Raven, and this is the greatest proof of all that the author of the latter poem derived the germ thought of it from Isadore. The irregularities of the prototype poem, however, are so manifold and so eccentric, it is easy to perceive that its author was unable to get beyond the intention, and that his acquaintance with the laws of versification was limited.
"Of course," remarks Poe, "I pretend to no originality in either the rhythm or metre of the Raven" adding, "what originality the Raven has, is in their (the forms of verse employed) combination into stanza, nothing even remotely approaching this combination has ever been attempted."
In concluding this section of our analysis it will not be superfluous to reiterate the points in which we have endeavoured to demonstrate the various similarities between the poems of Pike and of Poe. Firstly, the theme: upon a dreary midnight a toilworn student is sitting in his study, lamenting his lost love. Secondly, with a view of giving some originality to his ballad the poet adopts a refrain. Thirdly, the refrains, which are of melancholy import, conclude with the similarly sounding words "forever," and "nevermore," whilst fourthly, Poe's stanzas have the appearance of being formed upon the basis of Pike's, though it is true, so improved and expanded by extra feet, and the addition of another long line, that they need a very careful and crucial examination ere the appearance becomes manifest. Minor, or less salient points of resemblance, such as "the melancholy strain" of the mocking bird, and the "melancholy burden" of the raven need no further comment, as the reader will be able to detect them for himself.
It is now necessary to examine the claims of another poem to having been an important factor in the inception and composition of The Raven. A few months previous to the publication of Poe's poetic masterwork he read and reviewed the newly published Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (Mrs. Browning). From amid the contents of the volumes he selected for most marked commendation Lady Geraldine's Courtship, strongly animadverting, however, upon its paucity of rhymes and deficiencies of rhythm. The constructive ability of the authoress he remarks "is either not very remarkable, or has never been properly brought into play:—in truth her genius is too impetuous for the minuter technicalities of that elaborate art so needful in the building-up of pyramids for immortality."
It has been hastily assumed that the author of the Raven drew his conception of it from Lady Geraldine's Courtship. The late Buchanan Read even informed Mr. Robert Browning that Poe had described to him the whole construction of his poem and had stated the suggestion of it lay wholly in this line of Mrs. Browning's poem—
"With a murmurous stir uncertain, in the air, the purple curtain."
There was necessarily a misunderstanding in this: assuredly, Poe did derive useful hints from
Lady Geraldine's Courtship
but not to the extent surmised: he has one line too close a parallel to that just cited to admit of accidental resemblance:—
" And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain,"
together with other points to be noted.
We know by experience how greatly Poe revised, and, how differently from the original drafts, he re-wrote his poems. The Bells, for instance, was originally only an unimportant colourless piece of seventeen lines, and underwent numerous transformations before it reached its present form. It is fairly safe to assume, therefore, that upon the strength of the suggestions given by Pike's Isadore, Poe had devised if, indeed, he had not already written the Raven in its original form when he met with Lady Geraldine's Courtship. Here was something instinct with genius and replete with that Beauty which he worshipped. Do we go beyond probability, in deeming he returned to his unpublished poem, already, there is reason to believe, the rejected of several editors, and, fired by Mrs. Browning's attempt, determined to make his poem one of those "pyramids for immortality" of which he had spoken?
It may be further assumed that by the light of this new pharos he revised and rewrote his poem, as he did so reflecting, amid its original beauties, some stray gleams from his new beacon.
Besides the line already pointed out there are several lesser points of likeness, as between,—
"And she treads the crimson carpet and she breathes the perfumed air,"
and the lines,—
"Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by angels whose faint foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor."[4]
Again, 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