Most writers - poets in especial - 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.
Interpretation
Writers, especially poets, often want their creative process to appear mysterious and inspired rather than methodical.
Edgar Allan Poe highlights the romanticized notion among writers, particularly poets, that their creative work stems from a spontaneous burst of inspiration or 'fine frenzy.' They fear that revealing the mundane processes behind their writing might diminish the perceived magic and beauty of their art, suggesting a tension between artistic expression and the public's understanding of that process.
In practice
In a discussion about the creative process during a literary event.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
Thank Heaven! The crisis /The danger is past, and the lingering illness, is over at last /, and the fever called ''Living'' is conquered at last.
I wish I could write. I get these ideas but I never seem to be able to put them in words.
My father was an artist. When life was harder and he couldn't get jobs, he painted houses, but he was artistic. When I went to see his work, it was special. Somewhere along the line, I felt I was special. I didn't know why.
The best prose is written by authors who see their universe with a poetβs eyes.
Museums and bookstores should feel, I think, like vacant lots - places where the demands on us are our own demands, where the spirit can find exercise in unsupervised play.
I don't believe that a lot of the things I hear on the air today are going to be played for as long a time as Coleman Hawkins records or Brahms concertos.
I swear fearfully at the conventions of the stage.
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