Goga Tașcu, LUC – Limba și literatura engleză, anul 3, gr.

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E. A. Poe,”The Raven” – handout

”Most writers – poets in special – 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.” (E. A. Poe, ”Philosophy
of composition”, 1846)

”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 pecision
and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem.” (E. A. Poe, ”Philosophy of composition”,
1846)

”What we term a long poem is, in fact, merely a succession of brief ones – that is to say, of brief
poetical effects...” (E. A. Poe, ”Philosophy of composition”, 1846)

”And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting,

still is sitting
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,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws
his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating
on the floor
Shall be lifted — nevermore!”

(E. A. Poe, ”The Raven”, 1845)