THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION
(1846)
Charles Dickens, in a note now lying before me, alluding to an examination I once made of the
mechanism of "Barnaby Rudge," says- "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."
I cannot think this the precise mode of procedure on the part of Godwin- and indeed what he
himself acknowledges, is not altogether in accordance with Mr. Dickens' idea- but the author of
"Caleb Williams" 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 denouement before anything be attempted with the pen. It is only with the
denouement 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.
There is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a story. Either history affords a
thesis- or one is suggested by an incident of the day- or, at best, the author sets himself to work
in the combination of striking events to form merely the basis of his narrative-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.
I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view- for
he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source
of interest- 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 be best wrought by incident or tone- whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar
tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident and tone- 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.
I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by any author who
would- that is to say, who could- 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- but, perhaps, the autorial vanity has had more to do with
the omission than any one other cause. Most writers- poets in especial- prefer having it
understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy- an ecstatic intuition- and would
positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and
vacillating crudities of thought- at the true purposes seized only at the last moment- at the
innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view- at the fully-matured
fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable- at the cautious selections and rejections- at the
painful erasures and interpolations- in a word, at the wheels and pinions- the tackle for scene-
shifting- the step-ladders, and demon-traps- the cock's feathers, the red paint and the black
patches, which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, constitute the properties of the literary
histrio.
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.
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 analysed, 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 referable either to accident or intuition- that the
work proceeded step by step, to its completion, with the precision and rigid consequence of a
mathematical problem.
Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem, per se, the circumstance- or say the necessity- 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.
We commence, then, with this intention.
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- for, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and everything
like totality is at once destroyed. But since, ceteris paribus, no poet can afford to dispense with
anything 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- 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- a succession of poetical
excitements interspersed, inevitably, with corresponding depressions- the whole being deprived,
through the extremeness of its length, of the vastly important artistic element, totality, or unity of
effect.
It appears evident, then, that there is a distinct limit, as regards length, to all works of literary art-
the limit of a single sitting- 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- in other words, to the excitement or elevation-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- this, with one
proviso- that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for the production of any effect
at all.
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- a length of about one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred
and eight.
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- the point, I mean, that Beauty is the