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 anything here said, that passion, or even truth, may not be introduced, and even profitably
introduced, into a poem for they may serve in elucidation, or aid the general effect, as do
discords in music, by contrast- 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.
Regarding, then, Beauty as my province, my next question referred to the tone of its highest
manifestation- 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.
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- some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn. In
carefully thinking over all the usual artistic effects- or more properly points, in the theatrical
sense- 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- both in sound and thought. The pleasure is deduced solely from the sense
of identity- of repetition. I resolved to diversify, and so 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- the refrain itself remaining for the most part, unvaried.
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.
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.
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
pre-determined 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.
The next desideratum was a pretext for the continuous use of the one word 'nevermore.' In
observing the difficulty which I had 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
preassumption that the word was to be so continuously or monotonously spoken by a human
being- 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,
