Edgar Allan Poe’s essay, “The Philosophy of Composition” states that an ideal poem should have two things. He claims that this statement is used to justify the “suggestiveness of the Raven’s final two stanzas.” However, he also points to a greater universal under-current behind many of his poems, especially those that are about women who are deceased. The speaker of poems like “Annabellee” or “The Raven” secretly admits to killing the women they wrote about. These poems are complex because of the speaker’s nature. He wants to be known for his guilt but also enjoys keeping it secret. Poe draws inspiration from the principle of a secret confession to create a link between creation and confession.
Poe makes it a popular topic because of his love for beautiful women. It is not just the death itself that is important, but the narratives about them. Poe’s speakers use stories about deceased women to hint at their responsibility for their deaths. Poe frames his speaker’s confession using meter as one of the finest examples. The poem is first of all a fairy-tale in its sprung rhythm. The opening line: “It happened many and many years ago / in a kingdom by sea” immediately signals that the story is not true. The reader is immediately skeptical when the speaker claims that angels from heaven were responsible for his maiden’s death. The fourth stanza is the most shocking. In it, the speaker declares that “Yes!” The fourth stanza contains the speaker exclamating, “Yes!” Another possibility is that speaker anticipates reader’s doubtfulness. In this case, he feels it necessary affirm his story by cries, “Yes!” A repetition of the vowel sound after every line is one subtle, but powerful use of rhyme. Except for one minor variation in the fourth section, the pattern of ending rhymes in each line is “sea”, “Lee”, and “me.” This suggests that the speaker is drawing the reader’s attention towards himself in a specific way. He is pointing the blame at himself. Internal rhymes like “the stars never rise, but my bright eyes see them” and “all-night-tide,” which force the reader’s pronunciation of each line to imitate the echo of Annabel Lee’s voice within the walls, make it sound almost as if he is speaking. The combination of alliteration and internal rhyme creates an eerie calmness, which is a sign of the speaker’s calmness. The speaker makes an attempt to prove his sanity in “The Tell-Tale Heart” by saying “Hearken!” Watch how calmly you can hear the entire story. The speaker attempts to prove that he is sane by saying, “Hearken!” The speaker’s calmness at the end of “Annabelle” is indicative of his guilt. He can be found lying peacefully next the rotting corpse of his lover. The link between calmness, confession and honesty is strongest in “The Black Cat”, where the police inspect the area where the speaker has placed his dead wife and (unknowingly), his cat. Poe writes, “Gentlemen,” he said as the party reached the top of the stairs, “I delight that you have allayed my suspicions.” I wish that you have good health, and that you show more kindness. Goodbye, gentlemen. This is a well-constructed house. “I might say a very well-constructed house. Gentlemen, where are these walls? These walls, gentlemen, are you going? There is no indication that the speaker wants to confess out of remorse. The speaker seems to be inclined to self-torment. Poe’s narrators are able to conceal their self-torment through confession. Tormenting your self is a sign that you are suffering from self-obsession. To confess means to reveal information that was previously kept in one’s head. The logic is that a poem that has been characterized by the confession of a speaker is one that is about him. The relationship between self-torture, narcissism and narcissism can be clearly seen in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” where the narrator pulls down the floorboards before the police to expose his victim. 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 same time the symbol of the speaker’s torment and of his own self-obsession.Narcissism is indeed prevalent in many of Poe’s works both prose and poetry. Many of Poe’s poems, although they claim to be about certain women (such “For Annie” or “Annabelle”) are really about him. The woman in “Annabel Lee” is, for example, almost completely absent, save for her name. It is the speaker’s own description of her. The speaker first describes her in terms that he has. The lack of poems by women make it clear that the speakers care far more about themselves and their own self-obsession than they do the women they have slain. It’s as if they are trying to fill in the silence left by the dead women with their own voices. Thus, the absences of women provide a poetic inspiration. Poe says that “the death of an attractive woman is unquestionably one of the most poetical topics in the world” and that “the bereavement of a lover is equally as valid.” This statement implies that a person can kill his lover to find poetic inspiration. The speakers of “Annabel Lee”, and “The Raven,” did exactly that. Poe realized, however, that these speakers hold a great deal of power. The power to tell the story of a lover who has been killed is there, but the most important thing is that he can choose how to tell it and what he wants to conceal. It isn’t the murder that inspires poetic creation. Bigger, the protagonist, slowly claims he killed a girl deliberately, even though her death was unintentional. Bigger claims that he committed the murder. This reaffirms his power and gives him a sense of identity. According to the narrator, Bigger had made a new life for his self by murdering. It was something he owned” (105) Soon thereafter, the narration says that Bigger wanted to suddenly shout at them, telling them that his murder of a wealthy white girl was a crime that all knew about (129). Bigger not only exposes murder’s relationship to creation but also senses the desire for confession. Bigger’s analeptic interpretation of the murder events shapes a significant portion of the story, from confession to murder and ultimately to creation. This is Poe’s core concept. It is not true that Poe murdered women to write about them. The voice of “The Philosophy of Composition”, though it is Poe’s, is actually that of Poe the guilty speaker. Poe probably wrote “The Philosophy of Composition” because he wanted people to be able to see the narrative voices of his guilt. He also encouraged people to read his poems again, to look for the underlying confessions if there were none. There is truth to the notion that a beautiful death can be poetic. Poe does not say this clearly. He says that the “lips best suited” for this topic are those belonging to a grieving lover. However, murder convictions are better for narration. This allows for much greater poetic creativity, with confession as the main example. Poe states that Beauty is the only legitimate subject of the poem. The essay should not be taken as a whole, since it is another dissembled confession. But Poe’s obsessiveness with Beauty aligns with the relationship between creation and murder. It’s not just the death a woman is “the most poetical matter in the universe,” but also the death a beautiful lady. A poet’s poetry may replace the loss of Beauty caused by the death of a beautiful woman. Poe fills in the gap left by the deaths of beautiful women through his poetry with his creative ideas. His confessions are self-tormented and narcissistic.
Poe’s “The Philosophy of Composition,” begins with: “I have often thought of how interesting it would be for a magazine to be written by any author. Who could describe, step by step the process through which any of his compositions came to completion. It is hard to explain why such a paper has not been made available to the world. Poe attributes the chaotic, chaotic process of writing “the Raven” to other poets. Poe’s claims that he has written “the Raven”, are completely absurd. This is intentional. Poe presents his poetic process in a way that is so bizarre that the reader can see the confession. Poe’s description of the writing process is also unrealistically planned and constructed, just like the way the guilty speak. Actually, the essay serves as a “key”, which allows one to access his other poems. Poe made the essay a confession and draws attention to his subtle “complexity”, “suggestiveness” and hidden confessions in his other poems. The use of confession for a composition essay affirms that creation and confession are in direct relation.
