CHAPTER IV
The Poet
I
In Poe's Philosophy of Composition he barely mentions two details of technique that are as central in his art as any two that he discusses. You remember that the lover in The Raven first hears a rapping, that he thinks it is at the door, that he throws open the door, that he then thinks the rapping is at his window, and that only in the seventh stanza is the mystery solved and the Raven admitted. This delay, says Poe, "originated in a wish to increase, by prolonging, the reader's curiosity." He might have added that in every story that he had written the same psychology is in evidence. A mystery is about to be cleared up, a discovery is about to be made, a crime is about to be committed, but the final happening is preceded by a skilfully laid series of approximations. Not only does Poe thus "increase, by prolonging, the reader's curiosity;" he so intensifies the reader's suspense that the ultimate happening is not only a satisfaction to the intellect but a balm to the feelings.
In A Descent Into the Maelström Poe says: "We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying rather than floating, getting gradually more and more into the middle of the surge, and then nearer and nearer to its horrible inner edge." Poe is the artist of the proximate on its way to the ultimate.
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