The essay “Philosophy of Composition” written by Edgar Allan Poe is nothing more than

a step by step description about the way Poe wrote the poem “The Raven”. Poe states that the
process of writing should consist of the following steps: the plot; impression; the tone, the
structure, the right words, the characters, and how the poem would begin and where it would
end. Listing all these steps, it reminds me of the way Aristotle in “Poetics” divides tragedy into
six different parts: mythos (plot), character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle. Despite the
fact that both authors lived in a different time, they have a lot in common, like the plot,
characters, thoughts. However, Aristotle added diction along with the spectacle and the melody
to offer joy for the public. On the other hand, Poe included a new aspect of knowing what he
wants the poem to begin and to end, in order to create clear images in someone’s mind, that’s
why he considers himself to be a poet. Having on one side the Aristotle and Poe, who explains
how poetry should be, we have Plato who was against the poetry, and poets. He dismissed from
the perfect city of the Republic such poets like Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and many more
because in his opinion they generated the wrong kind of poetry. Plato states that in his perfect
city should be authorized only hymns to the Gods and the praises of notorious men. If to look at
the ideas of Emerson regarding the literature, who was a sort of against the ideas of Poe, it
should be said that Emerson criticizes poets who had an addiction to opium, wine, tobacco. In his
mind, a poet should have a clean and chaste body in order to create divine art. Moreover, as we
have seen above in the Poe and Aristotle, both of them pay attention to the plot or the thoughts in
a poem, and Emerson is doing the same thing, he draws attention to the content in a poem, rather
than of rhyme, meter. Another aspect of Emerson’s critic is that he believes in the relationship
between nature and God and that the main purpose of any author is to disclose this sublime
vision.

From my personal standpoint, all the similarities in the process of writing presented
above are linked to the idea of Barthes, that the writer can only imitate something that has
already been created long ago, that’s why it is never original. The author’s power is to mix
different ideas of others, and maybe to add something that hasn’t been mentioned. Regarding all
the differences in the process of writing, I think that this happens because writers live on
different surfaces, whether we are talking about the education, time, struggles, addiction, and
many more. All of this is connected in the process of forming a new way of writing. Some
writers love to convey meaning about love, nature, and God because they were influenced by this
all, on the other hand, someone may write about death, addictions, because he has witnessed only
destruction, pain, and suffering.