EP&M Online Essay
On “The Poetic Principle”
essay by
Edward Zuk
One of the most influential – and therefore one
of the most dangerous – essays in American literature is Edgar Allan Poe’s
“The Poetic Principle.” I have chosen the word “dangerous” carefully.
In literature there are shifts in taste that are too successful, ideas that
triumph too completely, arguments that become so widely accepted among poets
and critics that they are no longer argued for, but instead appear to be
common sense. These ideas spread throughout the literary culture, shaping
poems without their authors being fully aware of why their works take a certain
form or why some ways of writing seem to be modern or natural while others
seem artificial or outdated. The ultimate effect of these received
ideas may be benign or malignant, leading to the writing of good or bad poems,
but they always limit poetry by forcing it into certain directions to the
exclusion of others. Due to their influence promising projects are
laid aside or left undeveloped, and worthy poems that fail to conform to
the prevailing biases are ignored or ridiculed until a later generation comes
along to resurrect them.
“The Poetic Principle” is an essay that has permeated our poetic unconscious
so completely that we are no longer aware of its influence. When it
first appeared, it must have seemed like an original, though curious and
contrarian, work. In the years after the major Romantic poets had staked
their reputations on long poems like Wordsworth’s The Excursion or
Keats’s Hyperion fragments, Poe argued that “a long poem does not
exist.” In the decade before Tennyson published his summary of his
age’s philosophical doubts and Christian faith in In Memoriam, Poe
maintained that “with the Intellect or with the Conscience, [poetry] has
only collateral relations.” And, long before such ideas became commonplace,
Poe believed that poems should be built on intensity, unity of effect, and
the immediacy of the poet’s impressions.
But if “The Poetic Principle” failed to shape the poetry of the nineteenth
century, it did define the taste for the type of poem that would fill the
pages of literary journals in the twentieth: the short lyric that culminates
in a single emotional effect, whose subject matter is either an idealized
nature or the author’s reflections and impressions. It may seem strange
to attribute the typical modern poem to Poe, whose own poetry does not resemble
the short, confessional lyric in the least. Yet today “The Poetic Principle”
reads like a rationale for modern taste. Other revolutions would establish
free verse, colloquial language, and confessional subject matter as the basis
for the majority of American verse. But it was Poe who first argued
for the superiority of the short poem, denied the worth of any long poem
not constructed as a series of linked fragments, and tilted the subject matter
of poetry toward the impressionistic lyric.
To review the major arguments of “The Poetic Principle” is to see the extent
of its effects on contemporary poetry. The following is a summary of
Poe’s major positions that have influenced recent poets (I have omitted other
arguments whose influence has long passed, like the call for a “pure poetry”
that resembles music):
1. A suspicion of the long poem. In his opening paragraph,
Poe states that “I hold that a long poem does not exist,” that “the phrase,
‘a long poem,’ is simply a flat contradiction in terms.” The demand
that a poem be short (but not so short as to “degenerate into mere epigrammatism”)
is Poe’s first criterion for poetic excellence; at one point of his essay
he asserts that poem should be able to be read at one sitting, or roughly
half an hour. “The ultimate, aggregate, or absolute effect of even
the best epic under the sun, is a nullity” he writes, so that epics become
“artistic anomalies.” Poe is so certain of the triumph of the shorter
poem that he states that “it is at least clear that no very long poem will
ever be popular again.”
2. Intensity as the sole effect of a poem. Poe regards
intensity as the key to aesthetic judgement. “A poem deserves its title
only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul,” he argues, adding that
“the value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement.”
A “cool, calm, unimpassioned” mood, Poe writes, is “the exact converse of
the poetical”; a poem is “a wild effort”; music is the “most entrancing of
the Poetic moods” when “we find ourselves melted into tears”; in poetry “we
are often made to feel, with a shivering delight”; poems struggle to relay
“that pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating, and the
most intense.” Long poems fail because “that degree of excitement which
would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout
a composition of any great length. After a lapse of half an hour, at
the very utmost, it flags – fails – a revulsion ensues – and then the poem
is, in effect, and in fact, no longer such.”
3. Unity of effect. To help create a poem’s intensity,
Poe calls for a unity of effect, or a “totality of effect or impression,”
in which the merits or atmosphere of one section will not be at odds with
that of another, lesser section. For Poe this principle is “that vital
requisite in all works of art.” Since any reading of Paradise Lost
involves “a constant alteration of excitement and depression,” Milton’s poem
leads to a “nullity” in terms of its “absolute effect.” Poe argues
that reading the books of an epic in a different order would lead to a different
reaction from the reader, again revealing the failure of the long poem, this
time in its inability to produce a single impression. The appreciation
of an epic, Poe argues, is possible only when “we view it merely as a series
of minor poems,” each capable of producing one impression on the reader.
4. The elevation of Beauty over Truth. Poe argues that
a poem should express a “Poetic Sentiment” rather than morality or truth.
Truth has only a minor role in poetry because it demands a “cool, calm, unimpassioned”
mood that is alien to any poem, which should be passionate and intense.
This conflict leads to a “radical and chasmal differences between the truthful
and the poetical modes of inculcation.” In addition, the belief that
a poem should have a moral point is “a heresy too palpably false to be long
tolerated.” In place of truth or morality, Poe writes, poetry deals
with the beautiful and the sublime, with emotional categories rather than
with rational or ethical ones. “Its sole arbiter is taste,” and “with
the Intellect or with the Conscience, it has only collateral relations.”
Truth or calls to duty may have a role in a poem, but only if “the true artist
will always contrive to tone them down in proper subjection to that Beauty
which is the atmosphere and the real essence of the poem.”
5. The dominance of the lyric. At the end of “The Poetic
Principle,” Poe provides a list of “simple elements” that invoke “the true
poetical effect.” To be understood, this list needs to be read in full.
The poet:
recognises the ambrosia which nourishes his soul in the
bright orbs that shine in Heaven, in the volutes of the flower, in the clustering
of low shrubberies, in the waving of the grain-fields, in the slanting of
tall eastern trees, in the blue distance of mountains, in the grouping of
clouds, in the twinkling of half-hidden brooks, in the gleaming of silver
rivers, in the repose of sequestered lakes, in the star- mirroring depths
of lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs of birds, in the harp
of Æolus, in the sighing of the night-wind, in the repining voice of
the forest, in the surf that complains to the shore, in the fresh breath
of the woods, in the scent of the violet, in the voluptuous perfume
of the hyacinth, in the suggestive odour that comes to him at eventide
from far-distant undiscovered islands, over dim oceans, illimitable
and unexplored. He owns it in all noble thoughts, in all unworldly
motives, in all holy impulses, in all chivalrous, generous, and self- sacrificing
deeds. He feels it in the beauty of woman, in the grace of her step,
in the lustre of her eye, in the melody of her voice, in her soft laughter,
in her sigh, in the harmony and rustling of her robes. He deeply
feels it in her winning endearments, in her burning enthusiasms, in her gentle
charities, in her meek and devotional endurances; but above all, ah,
far above all, he kneels to it, he worships it in faith, in the purity,
in the strength, in the altogether divine majesty of her love.
Setting aside the Poe’s romanticism, we see that this list reveals three
main subjects for poetry: nature, noble human motives and actions,
and love. The subjects of nature and love push poetry toward the lyric.
While narrative poetry is allowed for in the “deeds” that Poe mentions, the
emphasis on the poet’s reactions (“he recognizes,” “he perceives,” “he owns,”
“he feels”) suggests that he had lyric meditations on noble deeds, rather
than a narrative description of them, in mind.
Over time, these ideas have become accepted as the proper way to write a
poem, in effect determining the poetic landscape. Dana Gioia, in “The
Dilemma of the Long Poem,” imagined an observer surveying modern American
poetry and finding only these types:
The panoply of available genres would seem reduced to
a few hardy perennials that poets worked over and over again with dreary
regularity – the short lyric, the ode, the familiar verse epistle,
perhaps the epigram, and one new-fangled form called the “sequence,”
which often seemed to be either just a group of short lyrics stuck
together or an ode in the process of falling apart. Amid this
myriad of shorter work he would see only a few poems longer than six or seven
pages – most of them massive and complex undertakings running many
times the length of the average thin volume . . . they were mostly difficult,
allusive works not governed by a narrative or expository structure.
In other words, poetry has been reduced to a variety of shorter lyrical forms
and longer poems conceived as a series of connected lyrics, precisely those
forms championed by Poe. The defining feature of this poetry, and of
Poe’s poetic taste, lies in its rather severe limitations. “The Poetic
Principle” foresees and justifies that narrowing of poetic range which took
hold of the twentieth century, that conception of poetry which encouraged
poets to limit themselves to a few well-used lyric types striving for intense,
emotional effects.
For Expansive poets, the restriction of sensibility that Poe pioneered has
been a disaster. The five principles that I have summarized above helped
banish the satire, epic, folk ballad, light verse, and witty epigram from
the poetic canon. The narrative long poem, in spite of its distinguished
history of both popular and critical success, also disappeared with the rise
of the shorter lyric. The revival of these genres, of course, lies
at the heart of the Expansive movement’s project. As a result, Expansive
poets will read “The Poetic Principle” with skepticism, even with cynicism.
In reply to Poe’s arguments, an Expansive poet might point out the following:
1. By sacrificing the very short and long poem, Poe has
restricted the possible range of poetry. Contrary to Poe’s prejudice,
there would seem to be nothing objectionable about the epigram that would
make “mere epigrammatism” into an insult. And, when it comes to the
long poem, Poe’s prediction that “no very long poem will ever be popular
again” has proven to be spectacularly wrong. Long narratives such as
Longfellow’s Evangeline and The Song of Hiawatha were wildly
popular late in the 19th century, as were E. A. Robinson’s Arthurian poems
early in the twentieth. When Poe’s taste triumphed at last and extended
works were written as a series of lyrics, the long poem did indeed wane in
popularity, but the Expansive movement managed to resurrect it by reviving
the book-length narrative. Vikram Seth’s novel in verse, The Golden
Gate, was one of the most widely-read poems of the 1980’s.
2. While some poems do produce a feeling of intensity,
many do not. Light verse, for example, cannot be described as intense,
and the pastoral and verse epistle strive for other effects. Juvenalian
satire may be intense, but Horatian satire aims for urbanity and wit.
Verse comedies are, for the most part, alien to feelings of intensity since
laughter tends to dissipate tension rather than to increase it. Meditations,
whose mood tends to be one of thoughtfulness, also lie outside of Poe’s taste.
In fact, only a few of the recognizable modes of poetry have intensity as
their proper aim. A more catholic taste, which most readers share,
effectively refutes Poe’s argument about the central importance of intensity
to poetry.
3. Poe’s demand for a unity of effect is an artificial
one. Few critics besides Poe have maintained that a long poem should
be “devoutly admired throughout” equally in all its parts. Nor is it
clear that a unity of impression is desirable. Audiences welcome the
chance to experience a wide variety of moods, some of greater or lesser intensity,
as the continued popularity of Shakespeare’s plays reveal (Shakespeare’s
art, one can say with little exaggeration, is based on contrasts).
Feeling “a constant alternation of excitement and depression” is not a fault,
but a pleasure in itself. In fact, denying the ability of an author
to vary the mood and intensity within a work would destroy some of the greatest
scenes in literature. The quiet ending of Paradise Lost rises
to the sublime because of the contrast with the grand actions that precede
it, and the porter scene in Macbeth would be average comedy if it
did not follow Duncan’s murder. Few readers would want to view these
scenes as shorter, independent poems to maintain their unity of impression.
The contrast, they intuit, is the secret of their power.
4. Few would deny that aesthetic pleasure is one of the
goals of poetry, or that beauty and the sublime have an important role to
play in aesthetics. But it is not clear that truth and morality play
a secondary role in poetry, since it is nearly impossible in practice to
separate the beautiful from the true or the good. An appreciation of
a satirical poem, for example, relies on the reader’s ability to recognize
and acknowledge the truth of its attack. If a person believed that
all citizens are paragons of virtue, Pope’s witticism that during court cases
“wretches hang, that jurymen may dine” would seem like mere perverseness.
In philosophical or meditative poetry, it is difficult to judge how much
of a line’s effect is due to its meaning, and how much is due to art.
Dante’s inscription over the gates of Hell, FECIMA LA DIVINA PODESTATE, LA
SOMMA SAPЇENZA E ’L PRIMO AMORE (“My Maker was Divine Authority, The
Highest Wisdom, and the Primal Love” in Allen Mandelbaum’s translation) is
a sublime moment in poetry. But are these lines powerful because of
Dante’s verbal art, or because the thought itself is sublime?
5. Excluded from Poe’s list of poetical subjects are verbal
wit, criticisms of society, an exploration of the darker parts of the human
psyche, laughter at human folly, religious doubt, evil, most of the events
from history, ethical questions, science, politics, and so on. These
omissions are enough in themselves to show the limitations of Poe’s ideals.
In crafting these replies to Poe’s arguments, I have tried to reveal the
extent that the ideals of plurality and exploration are realized in Expansive
poetry. By advancing a taste for a single type of poetry to the exclusion
of many others, and by arguing for the poetical principle rather than a poetic
principle, Poe helped to create a taste for intense lyric poetry while denigrating
other types of verse. It is to the credit of the Expansive movement
that its poets quickly recognized this problem and worked towards reviving
those genres that had been set aside. In doing so, they have started
the process of over-turning the current prejudice in favour of shorter poetry
or the long poem written as a series of fragments. As their movement
has grown, Poe’s ideas have slowly loosened their hold on contemporary poets,
allowing for the exploration of other modes and genres. What has emerged
is a belief in the desirability of a variety of forms and a plurality of
aims, a conviction of the necessity of utilizing the full range of poetic
techniques and genres. I for one hope this sea-change in our poetry
will prove to be permanent.
Edward Zuk
Edward Zuk of Surrey, British Columbia is a widely-published critic whose
last appearance on Expansive Poetry & Music Online was in "Easy Poetry."