The Philosophy of Composition

Edgar Allan Poe’s essay “The Philosophy of Composition” first appeared in Graham’s Magazine in 1846. A year earlier, his poem “The Raven” made him a celebrity. In the essay, Poe describes the process he claims to have followed in writing that poem. The essay illustrates Poe’s aesthetic principles according to which a poem must have a certain length, “unity of effect,” and connection among its elements. It also presents his ideas concerning beauty in poetry and a commentary on versification. The current guide refers to the reprint of the essay in The Portable Edgar Allan Poe, published by Penguin Books in 2006.

Poe starts by noting that the novelist William Godwin wrote Caleb Williams backward, first imagining his hero in a tangled situation and then writing how the hero got there. Poe says that, before beginning to write, a writer must think of the outcome or “denouement” of the plot, which will allow him to create a causal connection between the incidents. When Poe writes, he decides the effect he wants to produce and then he goes back, choosing the incidents and tone best suited to produce that effect. Poe argues that most writers do not like to share their writing process because they want the public to believe they write “by a species of fine frenzy” (544).