The Writer's Modus Operandi: Deconstruction of the Poetic Creative Act from the Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's Essay The Philosophy of Composition

Abstract

Edgar Allan Poe´s intricate theory about the process of literary creation is noted for two essential points: firstly, a literary work of art must create a unity of effect on the reader -the single preconceived effect -, to be considered successful; secondly, the production of this single effect should not be left to the hazards of accident or inspiration, but should the minutest detail of style and subject be the result of rational deliberation on the part of the writer, what emphasizes the symbiosis of the poetic creation with the creator's mental faculties as opposed to the romantic aesthetic that faced it as a purely intuitive phenomenon (Silva: 1967). In poetry, the single preconceived effect must arouse the reader´s sense of beauty, since it constitutes "the province of the poem" (Poe 2016: 38), an ideal that the author associated with melancholy, strangeness and loss; in prose, this effect should be one revelatory of some truth, as in works evoking terror, passion or horror. Thus, having as a starting point The Philosophy of Composition (1846), we illustrated the modus operandi of the writer, that is, a methodical way of operating on the literary creation which Poe describes "with the precision and rigid sequence of a mathematical problem" (ibidem: 36), using as example the multiple steps involved on the elaboration of his poem "The Raven". In order to explicit the underlying theory about the process of artistic creation on Poe´s aforementioned essay we also studied the following elements: extent, method and the unity of effect, and casted distinct perspectives that emerged over time in this field of literary studies.