Painted portrait of Edgar Allan Poe with dark tousled hair and a heavy moustache, in a black coat and loose cravat, against a slate teal ground

Portraits · Poets · VIII of XIV

Edgar Allan Poe

1809–1849 · Poet

…the work proceeded, step by step, to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem.

No one point in its composition is referrible either to accident or intuition - the work proceeded, step by step, to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem.

Edgar Allan Poe · The Philosophy of Composition, 1846
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Edgar Allan Poe wrote this in The Philosophy of Composition, published in April 1846, a year after The Raven made him famous. He claimed nothing in the poem was left to accident: its length, its tone, its refrain "Nevermore" were each worked out in turn.

Many readers doubt it went quite so neatly. It is still one of the boldest accounts of how a poem is made.

'The Philosophy of Composition', Graham's Magazine, vol. 28, no. 4 (Philadelphia, April 1846), p. 163.

The originals

Daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe with dark tousled hair and a moustache, in a loose cravat
The likenessDAGUERREOTYPE BY W. S. HARTSHORN · 1848Our portrait is painted after it.Public domain (1848 daguerreotype, first published 1880; Library of Congress copy; Commons tags it PD).
A printed magazine page in two columns headed The Philosophy of Composition, by Edgar A. Poe
The Philosophy of CompositionThe essay as first printed, in Graham's Magazine, Philadelphia, April 1846. In it he takes The Raven apart, step by step."The Philosophy of Composition", Graham's Magazine, vol. 28, no. 4 (Philadelphia, April 1846), first page. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.