MINISTRYOF HIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIAL EDUCATION
OFTHE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
GULISTANSTATE UNIVERSITY
TheEnglish and Literature Department
Qualificationwork on speciality
Englishphilology on the theme:
“Artistic peculiarities of short stories by E.A. Poe””
NumanovGolib’s qualification work
on speciality5220100,
Supervisor:Tojiev Kh.
Gulistan-2006
Contents
I. Introduction.
1.1 Review of the theme.
1.2 National Beginning inAmerican literature and Edgar Poe as one of its beginners
II. MainPart
2.1 Edgar Poe’s creativelife
2.2 Edgar Poe and Americanshort story
2.3 Israfel
2.4 Annabell Lee
2.5 Characteristics ofEdgar Poe’s short stories
2.6 Detective stories.“The Cask of Amontillado”
2.7 Fantastic stories. E.Poe’s Heroes
ІІІ Conclusion.
3.1 Edgar Poe’s artistic manner
IV. Bibliography.
Introduction
1.1Review of the theme
Myqualification work is devoted to the creative life and work of great Americanwriter Edgar Allan Poe, the theme of which is “Artistic peculiarities of shortstories by Edgar Poe”. This theme is chosen for investigation because of itsimportance for learning English language. In the process of learning Englishthe learning of the literature of exact country is very important. Alongsidewith English literature we must know American literature, which developed onthe basis of English one. From the history of the English language we know thatEnglish penetrated America through British conquering of this land. Edgar AllanPoe was one of the pioneers of national beginnings in American literature, hemade a great contribution to the development of American literature, and heentered the literature as a poet, critic and wonderful short story-teller. Tomy mind his creative activity is worth of paying attention to and the giventheme is actual for investigation.
The actualityof the theme is also that because of Edgar Poe’s manner of writing. It is hisshort stories-defective, fantastic, stories of horror – all of them, whichattract the readers by their peculiar effect. Judging by Edgar Poe’s words heprevered “commencing with the consideration of effect”, he wanted to impressthe reader, he had a specific skill of constructing his stories, and that’s whyhe called his short stories “Tales of Grotesques and Arabesque”. [1]
My work isaimed to investigate and to show the characteristic features, the artisticpeculiarities of Edgar Poe’s short stories, how the author managed to write thestories of different genres. By analyzing some stories and on their examples, Itried to show their characteristic features. As the object of investigation Ihave analyzed the following stories: from the series of detective stories Ichose the story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, and “The Gold bug”, ashorrible stories I took “ The Tell – Tale Heart”, “ The Cask of Amontillado”,and “the Fall of the House of Usher” The scientific novelty of my work is thatit provides the rich information about Edgar Poe’s creative life and his works.Analyzing the above mentioned stories I proved once more Edgar Poe’s skill totell stories which thrill readers both with fear and humor.
1.2 National Beginning in American literature andEdgar Poe as one of its beginners
The work isalso of great practical value. It can be used in practice as educationalmaterial for further learning not only American literature but our nationalliterature, we can compare Edgar Poe’s artistic manner of writing detectivestories with Sherlock Home’s, Aghatha Christy or our Uzbek writer Tahir Malik –well known with his “Shaytanat”.
My workconsists of three parts and bibliography. The first part contains the generalreview of the theme and some information about national beginnings in Americanliterature, as Edgar Poe was one of the pioneers in the formation of Americanliterature.
The secondpart includes items concerning Edgar Poe’s creative life, his poetry and thedevelopment of American short story.
The item aboutcharacteristics of Edgar Poe’s “Tales of Grotesque and Arabesque”, where I madethe analysis of his stories of horror, detective and fantastic stories.
In conclusionI summed up the work paying attention to Edgar Poe’s artistic manner, and theimportance of his creative activity for the world literature.
The use ofEdgar Poe’s short stories in original helped me with revealing theircharacteristic features. Besides I have used Hervi Allen’s recollections aboutEdgar Poe’s, Published in the book “Splendid people’s life”, M. 1984 issue 14and Professor F. Cowles Strickland’s recollections about Edgar Poe. I alsofound interesting remarks about Edgar Poe’s activity in the article by M.Urinov. In Highlight of American literature I found the rich information aboutNational beginnings and short stories in American literature.
Many writerspaid attention to Edgar Poe’s works, such as Nikolukin in his book “Edgar Poe,H. W. Krutch. “Edgar Allan Poe”. “A study in genius New York”. 1926. EdgarAllan Poe, His writing and influences, New York 1974.
The use of thematerial from Internet helped me to enrich my work with the informationconcerning Edgar Poe’s creative activity and characteristics of his works.
Main part
2.1Edgar Poe’s creative life
Edgar AllanPoe is certainly one of the best known and most popular of American writers.His stories are read by children, probed with the tools of psychoanalysis bycritics, and transformed into films. His poems, notably “The Raven”, “To Helen”and “Annable Lee”, are widely anthologized. And his critical notion that a poemshould be readable in a single sitting so as not to mute its single effect is afamiliar critical principle. More importantly, Poe’s poetic theories, outlinedin such pieces as “The Poetic Principle”, “The Rationale of Verse” and “ThePhilosophy of Composition, had a profound influence on the French symbolistmovement.
Before hebecame a famous poet and short- storey writer, Poe was known as a journalistand magazine editor. He wrote numerous reviews about works now forgotten whileproducing his own memerable tales and poems. And though he never realized hisdream of founding a literary magazine of his own, be contributed to many,including those he edited. Aa a writer for popular periodicals like the “Broadway Journals” and Graham’s “ Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine”, and as aneditor of literary periodicalssuch as the “ Southern Literary Messenger” Poecame to understand very well the audiences who read his work. He aimed hiswork, as he wrote, “ not above the popular, or below the critical, taste”turning the fictional conventions of his own time to odd account. In tales suchas “ Ligeia” and “ The Fall of the House of Usher”, for example he put hispersonal stamp on the gothic horror story. He remodeled the tale of explorationin works like “ A Descent into theMaelstorm”, and he developed the genre of thedetective story, or “ tale of racionation” as he called it, with such storiesas “ The Gold Bug”, “ The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, and “ The PurlionedLetter”. Still another genre he touched on was science fiction with hisfantastic story” The Balloon Hoax”. As various as was Poe’s genius and asvaried as were the fictional subgenres he worked in, one element of his workremains consistent: his concern with the workings of the human mind.
Writers asdiverse as Bandelaire and Dostoevsky admired Poe’s work. Bandelaire, whotranslated many of Poe’s tales, in fact, acknowledged Poe’s influence bywriting that if Poe hadn’t existed Bandelaire would have had to invent him.Dostoevsky was unstiuting in his praise of Poe’s revelations of minds at warwith thenselves. Although Dostoevsky’s own explorations of extreme states ofconsciosness and his dramatic depictions of behavior honed by guilt are moreambitious and monumental than Poe’s sketches and tales, the Russian writer felta kindship with Poe.
Poe’s life wasas tormented as the minds of his stories narrators. He was born to itinerantactors in Boston. His father died when he was a year old and his mother a yearlater. Edgar was and his brother and sister were taken as foster children intothe Rome of a Richmond tobacco merchant, John Allan. Poe was educated inEngland and at the University of Vifginia, where he was provided withinsafficient funds for food, books, and clothing by John Allan. Living amongwealthy young men, Poe resorted to gambling, wich further worsened hisfinancial situation and contributed what was an already seriously strainedrelationship with his foster father, who disapproved of his literaryambitions. The upshot was that Poe withdrew from the university and was left tomake his own way as an author.
In 1837 hemoned his familyfrom Baltimore to New York, where he published his onlyfull-length fictional work, “ The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym”. In 1840 hepublished his “ Tales of the Grotesqu and Arabesque” (1840). Poe borrowed theterms “ grotesque” and “ arabesque” from the Romantic poet and novelist SirWalter Scott, and meant them to suggest the terror associated with the bizarreand the beautiful associated with the poetic. He also meant to suggest thatboth elements were present in many stories in his collection.
“The Fall ofthe House of Usher” is among Poe’s most famous and most accomplished tales. Thehouse that falls is both the literal Usher habitation and the family itsignifies. The house also represents the mind of Roderick Usher. In its densityof detail, bizarre events, and uncanny tone, the story suggest gothic fiction.In its psychological richness and fainted family history, it reaches back toGreek tragedy.
“The Cask ofAmontillado” examplifies Poe’s genius at displaying a mad narrator whose intentis to convince his listeners of his sanity. Perhaps Poe’s best- known exampleof this type is the narrator of “ The Tell- Tale Heart”. But “ The Cask ofAmontilado” is an even richer story, with Poe pulling out all the stops indisplaying multiple ironies while his narrator fels compelled to tell somebodyof the perfect murder he committed fifty years before. The question is why hetells this tale after so many years.
In “ThePurloined Letter” Poe gives way to his bent for stories of crime andpunishment, this time from the outside point of view of the detective ratherthan from inside the criminals mind. Rather than considering what he would havedone in like circumstances, the detective, Monsieur Dupin, must try to thinkthe way the criminal thought, which is precisely what he does en route to tosolving the case. The story celebrates Poe’s appreciation of the rational mindand contains a number of examples of riddles and games in which Poe delighted.It also ends with an elaborate puzzle built on a complex literary allusion,which contains the key Poe uses to unlock the inticacies of the story’s plot.
Poe’sfictional performances delighted audience in his own time continue to engageand intrigue readers today. Even though his style is ornate and his languagefar from colloquial, he remains a most readable writer, largely because hebuilds suspense, creates atmosphere, and probes the psychological complexitiesof his characters’ minds and hearts. If it is the horror of his stories thatfirst draws readers in, it is Poe’s psychological richness and his control oftone that continue to bring them back for repeated readings of some inmatchablestories.
Americanliterature cannot be captured in a simple definition. It reflects the manyreligious, historical and cultural traditions of the American people, one ofthe world’s most varied populations. It includes poetry, fictions, drama andother kinds of writing by authors in what is now the United States. It alsoincludes miswritten material, such as the oral literature of the AmericanIndians and folk tales and legends. In addition, American literature accountsof America written by immigrants and visitors from other countries, as well asworks by American writers, who spent some or all of their lives abroad.
Americanliterature begins with the legends, myths and poetry of the American Indians,the first people to life in what is now the United States. Indians legendsincluded stories about the origin of the world, the histories of varioustribes, and tales of tribal heroes.
The firstAmerican literature was neither American nor really literature. It was notAmerican because it was the work mainly of immigrants from England. It was notliterature as we know it in the form of poetry, essays, or fiction but ratheran interesting mixture of travel accounts and religious writings.
The earliestcolonial travel accounts are records of the perils and frustrations thatchallenged the courage of America’s first settlers.
The purpose ofthe first writers was to attract dissatisfied inhabitants of the Old Worldacross the ocean to the New. As a result, their travel accounts became a kindof literature to which many groups responded by making the hazardous crossingto America. The earliest settlers included Dutch, Swedes, German, French, Spaniards,Italians, and Portuguese, of the immigrants who came to America in the firstthree quarters of the seventeenth century, however, the overwhelming majoritywas English.
The Englishimmigrants who settled on American’s northern seacoast, appropriately calledNew England, came in order to practice their religion freely. They were eitherEnglishman who wanted to reform the Church of England or people who wanted tohave an entirely new church. These two groups combined, especially in whatbecame Massachusetts, came to be known as “Puritans”, so named after those whowished to “purify” the Church of England.
The Puritansfollowed many of the ideas of the Swiss reformer John Calvin.
Through theCalvinist influence the Puritans emphasized the then common belief that humanbeings were basically evil and could do nothing about it; and that many ofthem, though not all, would surely be condemned to hell.
Over the yearsthe Puritans built a way of life that was in harmony with their somberreligion, one that stressed hard work, thriff, piety, and sobriety. These werethe Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest American writingincluding the sermons, books, and letters of such noted Puritan clergymen asJohn Cotton and Cotton Mather. During his life Cotton Mather wrote more than450 works, an impressive output of religious writings that demonstrate that hewas an example, as well as an advocate, of the Puritan ideal of hard work.During the last half of seventeenth century the Atlantic coast was settled bothnorth and south. Colonies still largely English were established. Among thecolonists could be found poets and essayists; but no novelists. The absence ofnovelist is quite understandable: the novel form had not even developed fullyin England; the Puritan members of the colonies believed that fiction ought notto be read because it was, by definition, not true.
The Americanpoets who emerged in the seventeenth century adapted the style of establishedEuropean poets to subject matter confronted in a strange, new environment. AnneBradstreet was one such poet, who was born in educated in England. She bothadmired and imitated several English poets. Another important colonial poet,who achieved wide popularity was Michael Wigglesworth.
Twentiethcentury literary scholars have discovered the manuscripts of a contemporary ofWigglesworth named Edward Taylor, who produced what is perhaps the finestseventeenth century American verse. Taylor never published any of his poetry.In fact, the first of Edward Taylor’s colonial poetry did not reach print untilthe third decade of the twentieth century.
As the decadespassed new generations of American born writers became important. Boston,Massachusetts, was the birthplace of one such American born writer. His namewas Benjamin Franklin. The practical world of Benjamin Franklin stands in sharpcontrast to the fantasy world created by Washington Irving. Named after GeorgeWashington, the first president of the United States, Irving provided a youngnation with humorous, fictional accounts of colonial past.
Anotherwriter, James Fennimore Cooper, contributed two of the great stock figures ofAmerican mythology: the daring frontiersman and the bold Indian. Cooper’sexciting stories of the American frontier have won a large audience for hisbooks in many parts of the world.
While prosewas contributing to development of an American mythology, the first poetry inthe United States was also being written; Philip Freneau, one of the firstpoets of the new nation, wrote in a style which owed something to Englishmodels. If Freneau can be considered one of America’s first great nationalistpoets, William Cullen Bryant merits a claim to being one of America’s firstnaturalist poets.
We can’t helpsaying about such notable poets as Edgar Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, whocontributed American literature with their prose and verse.
The earliestwriting in America considered of the journals and reports of European explorersand missionaries. These early authors left a rich literature describing theirencounters with new lands and civilization. Beginning from these early timesthe American literature has been developing up to date. Such well-known writersand poets as Edgar Poe, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher-Stowe,Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway and others became the pride notonly of the American literature but of the whole world literature as well. Asany other literature, the American literature reflected all historical eventsthat took place in the world. The American literature suffered differentperiods: romanticism, realism, modernism etc.
The period of40s-90s is the period of late romanticism in the literature of the USA. Itcoincides with the creative work of Edgar Allan Poe, who is considered to beone of the pioneers of National American literature.
2.2Characteristics of Edgar Poe’s short stories
The Americanpoet Edgar Allan Poe, was also a master of the prose tale. A gifted, tormentedman, Poe thought about proper function of literature for more than any of hispredecessors, with the result that he became the first great American literarycritic. He Developed a theory of poetry which was in disagreement with whatmost poets of the mid-nineteenth century believed. Unlike many poets, Poe wasnot an advocate of long poems. According to him, only a short poem couldsustain the level of emotion in the reader that was generated by all goodpoetry. Besides Poe worked as an editor and contributor to magazines in severalcities. He unsuccessfully tried to found and edit his won magazine, which wouldhave granted him financial security and artistic control in what he considereda hostile literary marketplace.
Poe was nevera good businessman but he was a good editor. His writing as a critic wasespecially well known. For Poe was not only a man with a fine mind who was agood writer; he had very clear opinions about the art of writing and had nofear at all about publishing those opinions. If he didn’t like a book or a poemor a story he cut it and the writer into pieces with his words.
During hislifetime, Poe made many enemies through his challenge to moralistic limits onliterature, his confrontation with the New England literary establishment, andhis biting critical style. Some readers too easily identified Poe with thementally disturbed narrators of his tales, a belief reinforced by RufusGriswold, Poe’s literary executor. Griswold wrote a malicious obituary andmemoir of Poe that combined half-truth and outright falsehoods about Poe’spersonal habits and conduct. Griswold portrayed Poe as envious, conceited,arrogant, and bad-tempered. Griswold’s portrait severely damaged Poe’sreputation and delayed a serious consideration of the writer’s place inAmerican literature. But Poe’s later rediscovery by the French poets CharlesBaudelaire, Stephane Mallarme, and Paul Valery helped restore his reputation.
But was he?Poe was born in Boston in January of 1809 the son of traveling actors. Hisfather deserted the family. After his mother died in 1811, Poe becomes a wardof John Allan, a wealthy Richmond merchant. The Allan family lived in GreatBritain from 1815 to 1820 before returning to Richmond. In 1826, Poe enrolledat the University of Virginia. There he acquired gambling debts that John Allanrefused to pay. Eventually, Poe was forced to withdraw from the university.
Poe’srelationship with Allan deteriorated, and the young man enlisted in the USAarmy in 1827. During the same year, Poe’s first book was published. Its titlewas “Tamerlane and other Poems”, by “a Bostonian”. While waiting for anappointment to the US Military Academy, Poe published his second volume ofpoems: “All Araaf, “Tamerlane”, and “Minor poems”(1829). Both collections showthe influence of the English poet Lord Byron. In 1830, Poe entered the US. MilitaryAcademy at West Point, N. Y., where he excelled in the4 study of languages. Buthe was expelled in 1831 for neglecting his duties.
Poe’s “Poems”(1831) contained two important poems “to Helen” and “Israfel”. He began topublish tales in the early 1830’s while living with his aunt Maria Clemm andher daughter Virginia. Poe suffered financial difficulties, especially afterbeing ignored in John Allan’s will. He received help from American novelistJohn P. Kennedy in winning an editorial post with the “southern literarymessenger” in Richmond. In 1836, Poe married Virginia Clemm, his 13year oldcousin. For the “Messenger”, Poe contributed reviews, original or revised poemsand stories, and two installments of “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym”.
Poe producedseveral of his finest tales in the late 1830’s, including “Ligeia”, “The Fallof the House of Usher”, and “William Wilson”. These and other stories wereincorporated into “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque” (1834). In 1841, hebecame an editor of “Graham’s Magazine”, to which he contributed “The Murdersin the Rue Morgue”.
Poe wongreater recognition with “The God Bug” (1843), a prize winning tale that appearedin Philadelphia’s Dollar Newspaper. The poem “ The Raven” (1845) made himfamous. Two more collections “ Tales” and “ The Raven and the other Poems”,appeared in 1845. Early in 1845, Poe antagonized many people with a scathingcampaign against the popular. American poet Henry Wadworth Longfellow forsupposed plagiarism. At a public appearance in Boston later that year, Poeadmitted to being drunk, which further alienated the public.
Poe’s lateryears were colored by economic hardship and ill health. Nevertheless, hepublished the story “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846), “The Philosophy ofComposition” (1846), and part of his “Marginalia”, a collection of criticalnotes written for various periodical during the 1840’s.
Virginia Poedied of tuberculosis in 1847, after five years of illness. Poe then sank intopoor health, and his literary productivity declined. In the middle and late1840’s, he sought to support himself as a lecturer. His lecture on “TheUniverse” was expanded into Eurika: A Prose Poem(1848), which explores themysteries of the Universe.
In 1849, Poebecame engaged to marry the widowed Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton, his boyhoodsweetheart. On his way to bring Mrs. Clemm to the wedding, Poe stopped inBaltimore. On October 3, he was found semiconscious and delirious outside atavern used as a polling place. The cause of his death four days later waslisted as “congestion of the brain”, though the precise circumstances of hisdeath have never been fully explained.
As professorF. Cowles Strickland shard, that Edgar Poe drank too much, that he learned howto drink; the trouble is that he didn’t. Most men did not drink badly ofanother man just because he drank; but if the man didn’t know how to drink ifhe drank too much or at the wrong time of day or in the wrong place then menfelt that drinking was wrong. Poe was one who didn’t know how. But he didn’tdrink all the time. If that had been true he could no have written anything.There were long periods when Poe didn’t drink at all; but there were otherperiods when he felt he couldn’t continue to exist without drinking. Thus Poe,created trouble for himself. This is not the only example of how Poe did thewrong thing, knowing that it was the wrong thing. Apparently it was a part ofhis character to do so. Poe recognized this problem in himself. In his story“The Black Cat” he wrote;
“Who has not,a hundred times, found himself doing wrong, doing some evil thing for no otherreason than because he knows he should not? Are not we humans at all timespushed, ever driven in some unknown way to break the lay just because weunderstand it to be the law?”[2]
Poe had liveda hard life, and during most of that life the dreams he dreamed remained onlydreams. He drank to escape from the troubles of the real worlds. He escapedinto his dream world in his poems and in many of his finest stories. Poehimself said that he was a dreamer. Think, he said, think of that moment whenyou are about to go to sleep, but are mot yet sleeping. You dream strange dreams.If you go to sleep you forget them. Poe claimed that he could come near tosleeping and then call himself back to the real world, remembering the dreamsof the half world from which he had just come. These, he said, were thematerials of some of his writings. If he said it, we may believe that it istrue. But in addition to that, he filled his poems and his stories with thedreams he dreamed when not asleep yet. Poe began his career as a poet andcomposed or revised poems throughout his career. A tone of amused distance canbe detected even in poems that critics consider serious. However, theseelements coexist with themes that are more typical of the Romantic Movement,such as dreams and nightmares.
As it wasmentioned, Poe’s creative life coincides with the period of Romanticism inAmerican literature, and this was the age of Romanticism in Europe. AndAmerican still considered Europe to be the best source of new ideas. One of themost important Romantic ideas was the escape from reality, poems and storiescould take people out of real life into a dream world where they felt and sayand heard things that never were and never will be.
And besides,it was the time, when the United States went through some of the greatestchanges in its history of the 19th century it was still mainly acountry of farmers. Trade and manufacturing were growing more important witheach decade but it was not until the 1870’s that a majority of Americans weremaking a living in non-farming occupation. In the middle of the century Negroslavery was still fact of American life. But after Civil War the nation entereda period of vast commercial expansion. Railroads Stretched form one end of thecountry to the other. Factories were built. Cities grew bigger. Fortunes weremade. Edgar Poe was against the business, which was made mot to the favor ofthe country, he was a son of his century and an American patriot and tried torise the American people’s level of beauty and to prove that the poetry mightexist in America. He wrote about it in his article “Poets and American Poetry”.He didn’t separate himself from that that created railways, factories, he said“we” about “all” who could create both a locomotive and poetry.
Poe handledsuch material through images and tropes designed to signify uncertain states ofconsciousness represented as lakes, seas waves, and vapors.
Nearly allPoe’s criticism on poetry was written for the magazines for which he worked.Although the pieces were published intermittently, they reflect a remarkablecoherent self-conscious view of poetry and the creative process. Poe wrote “ThePhilosophy of Composition” to explain how he composed “The Raven”. The essayopposes the romantic assumption that the poet works in a “fine frenzy” of pureinspiration. Instead, Poe wrote a carefully deliberate account of poeticcreation. The essay analyses the central role of “effect” the conscious choiceof an emotional atmosphere that is more important than incident, character, andversification. Poe also offered his famous pronouncement that the death of abeautiful woman is the most poetical topic in the world. In “The PoeticPrinciple” (1850).
Poe clamedthat poetry works to achieve an elevating exciting of the soul, an emotionalstate that could not be long sustained. He further declared that a long poem isa contradiction in terms.
Poe believedthat a poem’s emotional impact was enhanced by music or “sweet sound”. He thusdevoted considerable attention to techniques of versification, especially inhis essay. “The Rationale of Verse” (1848)
Poe’s “SonnetTo Science”(1829) subtly shows how beauty is destroyed by the coldness of themodern scientific intellect. “To Helen”(1831) is a brilliant example ofprecision and balance and perhaps Poe’s classic poetic statement on theidealization of women.
Despite itstheatrical effects and stylistic flaws, “The Raven” (1845) is Poe’s best-knownpoem and one of the most famous works in American literature. If treats hisfavorite theme, the death of a beautiful woman.
This themealso appears in “The Sleeper” (1841) and “Ulalume” (1847). In all three poems,Poe chose elaborate musical and metrical effects, aspects of his verse thathave been widely criticized and parodied.
Reflecting hisinterest in musical effects, Poe made no rigid distinction between music andpoetry. “Eldarado” (1849), which originated as a song of the American Westabout the California gold rush, is an outstanding example. Poe went beyond thepoem’s topical mature. The theme is universalized, as a knight learns that thetrue Eldarado is a wealth beyond this world.
The brillianceof Poe can be seen in the two poems “Israfel” and “Annabel Lee”. The poems areas melodious as Bryant’s but more dramatic in their effects. “Israfel” is Poe’spoetic apology for himself, while “Annabel Lee” mourns the death of a beautifulgirl, a recurring subject in Poe’s writing.
One of themost remarkable things about the pair of poems is their melody. They aresinkable, not as a popular or concert song is, but with a wild kind of wordmusic. As we read these lines, aloud or to ourselves, we will probably be ableto understand why Poe was considered so skillful a poet. The rhythms of “Israfel”are rapid; the lines move fast. The beat is strong and skillfully varied. Thevowel sounds are higher than in ordinary writing, helping to make the voicethat reads them sound like a musical instrument such as the harp.
It is worthnothing that the above mentioned poems have nothing to do with America. Unlikethose of some of his contemporaries, Poe’s subjects and themes were eitheruniversal or exotic. He had little interest in the topical or everydayoccurrences, seeking instead to avoid factuality or logical clarity that wouldmake a poem understanding to the common intellect. For the most part, Poe’spoems do not truly illuminate they are not expected to have plot. Hecontinually emphasized estrangement, disappearance, silence, oblivion, and allideas which suggest nonbeing. If was the idea of approximating nothingness thatmost excited him in his own poetry and that of other poets.
Here below Iwant to present Edgar Poe’s two selections.
Selection 1
In the motto,taken from the Koran, Poe took a few liberties with the description of Israfelby adding the words, “Whose heart strings are a lute”. The words were probablysuggested by a passage in a poem, “Le Refus” by the French poet, Beranger(1780-1857). The song embodies Poe’s wish for a beauty superior to that ofearth, more approaching the divine. The final stanzas voice the poet’s despairat the restritions of his environment. The poem first appeared in Poe’s Poems(1831) and was carried several times in later editions.
2.3Israfel
“And the angelIsrafel, whose heart-
Strings are alute, and who has the
Sweetest voiceof all God’s creatures,”-
Koran.
In Heaven aspirit doth dwell
“Whoseheart-strings are a lute”,
None sing sowidely well
As the angelIsrafel,
And the giddystars (so legends tell),
Ceasing theirhymns, attend the spell
Of his voice,all mute.
Totteringabove
In her highestnoon,
The enamoredmoon
Blushes withlove,
While, tolisten, the red Levin
(With therapid Pleiades, even,
Which wereseven,)
Pauses inHeaven.
And they say(the starry choir
And the otherlistening things)
ThatIsrafeli’s fire
Is owing tolyre
By which hesits and sings-
Of unusualstrings.
But the skiesthat angel trod,
Where deepthoughts are a duty,
Where Love’sgrown-up God,
Where theHouri glances are
Imbued withall the beauty
Which weworship in a star
Therefore,thou art not wrong,
Israfel, whodespisest
Anunimpassioned song;
To thee thelaurels belong,
Best bard,because the wisest!
Merrily live,and long!
The ecstasiesabove
With thyburning measures suit-
Thy grief, thyjoy, thy hate, thy love,
With thefervor of thy lute-
Well may thestars be mute!
Yes, Heaven isthine; but this
Is a world ofsweets and sours;
Our flowersare merely-flowers,
And the shadowof thy perfect bliss
Is thesunshine of ours.
If I coulddwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt,and he where I,
He might notsing so wildly well
A mortalmelody,
While a boldernote than this might swell
From my lyrewithin the sky”
Selection 2
This poem,which was the last on Poe wrote, is believed by many critics to be anidealization of his wife, Virginia Clemm, who died in 1847. It was publishedposthumously in the New York “Tribune” of October 9, 1849. In six stages of alternating four and three stress line, the poem has been called “theculmination of Poe’s lyric style in his recurrent theme of the loss of abeautiful and loved woman”
2.4Annabel Lee
“It was manyand many a year ago,
In a kingdomby the sea,
That a maidenthere lived whom you may know
By the name ofAnnabel Lee;-
And thismaiden she lived with no other thought
Than to loveand be loved by me.
She was achild and I was a child,
In thiskingdom by the sea,
But we loved witha love than was more than love-
I and maAnnabel Lee-
With a lovethat the winged seraphs of Heaven
Covered herand me.
And this wasthe reason that, long ago,
In thiskingdom by the sea,
A wind blewout of a cloud by night
Chilling myAnnabel Lee;
So that herhighborn kinsmen came
And bore heraway from me,
To shut her upin a sepulcher
In thiskingdom by the sea.
The angels,not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envyingher and me:
Yes! That wasthe reason (as all men know:
In thiskingdom by the sea)
That the windcame out of the cloud chilling
And killing myAnnabel Lee.
But our loveit was stronger by far than the love
Of course whowere older than we-
Of many farwiser than we-
And neitherthe angels in Heaven above
Nor the demonsdown under the sea,
Can everdissever my soul from the soul
Of thebeautiful Annabel Lee:
For the moonnever beams without bringing me dreams
Of thebeautiful Annabel Lee;
And the starsnever rise I see the bright eyes
Of thebeautiful Annabel Lee;
And also, allthe night ride, I lie down by the side
Of my darling,my darling, my life and my bride,
In hersepulcher there by the sea-
In her tomb bythe side of the sea”.
Now what EdgarPoe wrote about himself in his “The Philosophy of Composition”,
“There is aradical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a story. Eitherhistory affords a thesis or one is suggested by an incident of the day or, atbest, the author sets himself to work in the combination of striking events toform merely the basis of his narrative designing, generally, to fill in withdescription dialogue, or authorial comment, whatever crevices of fact, oraction, may, from page to page, render themselves apparent. I prefer commencingwith the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view for heis false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so readilyattainable a source of interest I say to myself, in the first place, of theinnumerable effects, or impressions of which the heart, the intellect, or (moregenerally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall, I, on the presentoccasion, select?” Having chosen a novel, first, and secondly, a vivid effect,I consider whether, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident andtone afterward looking about me (or rather within) for such combinations ofevent, or tone, as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect.
The strictsubordination of artistic means to poetic conception created the beauty andharmony of Poe’s verses, which made Bodler admire, and Rahmaninov compose musicfor Poe’s “Bell”, and Valeriy Brussov the translator of Poe’s poems doinvestigations about the greatest poet of New America, whom he considered to be“A hopeless realist”
Edgar Poe andAmerican short story.
Whiledescribing Edgar Poe’s creative activity we can’t help mentioning about theAmerican short story development of the 19th century, as it was thetime when the writer created his best short stories, when readers were enjoyedby his highlights.
From the beginningof time, man has been interested in stories. For many thousands of yearsstories were passed from generation to generation orally, either in words or insong. Usually the stories were religious or national in character.
There weremyths, epics, fables, and parables. Some famous examples of story-telling ofthe Middle Ages are “A thousand and one nights”, Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”and Boccachio’s “Decameron”.
Perhaps it canbe said that the short story is well suited to American style of life andcharacter. It is brief (If can be read usually in a single sitting). It ifconcentrated (The characters are few in number and the action is limited).
Dr. J. BergEsenwein in his book “writing the short story” defines the short story asfollows:
“A short storyis a brief imaginative narrative, unfolding a single predominating incident anda single chief character; it contains a plot, the details of which are socompressed, and the whole treatment so organized, as to produce a singleimpression”.
A good shortsstory should (1) narrate an account of events in a way that will hold thereader’s interest by its basic truth; and (2) it should present a struggle orconflict faced by a character or characters. The plot is the narrativedevelopment of the struggle as it moves through a series of crises to the finaloutcome. The outcome must be the inevitable result of the traits of thecharacter involved in the struggle or conflict.
The shortstory is the literary form to which the United States made early contributions.In fact, early in 19th century America, the short story reached asignificant point in its development. Three American writers were responsiblefor this development; Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, and Edgar AllanPoe. It was the latter who defined the literary form in his review ofHawthorne’s “Twice-Told Tales”.
In his review,Poe asserts that everything in a story or tale every incident, everycombination of events, every word must aid the author in achieving apreconceived emotional effects. He states that since the ordinary novel cannotbe read at one sitting, it is deprived of “ the immense force derivable fromtotality.” For Poe the advantage of the short prose narrative over the novelwas that it maintained unity of interest on the part of the reader, who wasless subject to the intervention of “wordily interests” caused by pauses orcessation of reading as in the case of a novel.
“In the brieftale, however, “ Poe states, “the author is enabled to carry out the dullnessof his intentions, be it what may, During the hour of perusal the soul of thereader is at the writer’s control. There are no external or extrinsicinfluences resulting from weariness or interruption”.
Poe felt thatthe writer of short stories should conceive his stories with deliberate care inorder to achieve “ a certain unique or single effect”, beginning with theinitial sentence of the story. According to Poe, the short story writer shouldnot form his thoughts to accommodate his incidents, and thereby destroy thepossibility of establishing the pre-conceived single effect, so mush desired.
Poe’s chiefwork, thus, was done as a critic. But it is for his stories that he rememberedtoday, and for some pf his poems, especially “The Raven”. These were thewritings people liked best in his own time. Poe wrote his stories with so muchskill, that they seemed real, at least for a few minutes until the readerreached the end of the story and dropped back into the cold reality of hiseverybody life. Poe himself stated that he wrote horror stories because thatwas what people wanted to read. He wrote them because he knew they would bringhim fame. And they did.
While theenormous popularity of Edgar Allan Poe’s famous short stories and poemscontinued highlight his creative brilliance, Poe’s renown as the master ofhorror, the bather of the detective story, and the voice of “The Raven” issomething of a mixed blessing. Today, Poe is known, read and appreciated on thebasis of a comparatively narrow body of work, roughly a dozen tales of half asmany poems. For the novice reader, these favored texts offer easy (but stillchallenging access to Poe’s most exemplary writing, entry into his uniquelyterrifying world, and intriguining connections to facets of their author’stragically disordered life. The total effect of all this is compelling, and Poehimself would certainly approve. He wrote for the masses, using his learnedartistry to reach the common people of his day and to then elevate their mindswhile intensifying their emotional reactions, Poe was not averse to thecommercial sensationalism either; he wrote several “hoaxes” as news and latercapitalized on his personal notoriety for bookings on the foremost literarystars in the firmament of popular American culture. A century and half afterdeath, Poe is instantly identifiable, stands without rival, and remainsimmensely enjoyable. In his normal frame of mind, at least, Poe would have beendeeply amused by the widespread adulation and fame he has enjoyed in posterity.
The rub isthat we may be temped to stop here and neglect the breath and he depth of Poe’scontributions to western Literature. Poe, in fact, wrote nearly seventy shortworks of fiction. He duly credited with creating the detective story genre andwith transforming the Gothic mystery tale of the Romantic period into themodern horror or murder stories centered in the outlying regions of human mindand experience. But he also wrote several comic and satirical pieces, literaryparodies, sketches, and experimental stories, including “A Descent into theMaelstone” and his novella “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym”. His mostfamous poems “The Raven”, “Ulalume,” “The Bells”, “The City in the Sea” wereenormously influential. These famous verses were behind a powerful wave ofenthusiasm for Poe that arose among the leading writers of Europe during hisown lifetime, spread there of the around the word, and was sustained throughthe “discovery” of existential “human condition” themes in his short storiesgenerations later.
2.5Characteristics of Edgar Poe’s short stories
“Tales ofGroteque and Arabesque” his first collection of short stories Edgar Poe titled“Tales of Grotesque and Arabesque”. The title of the work makes the readerenter the field of fantasy, created by the writer. Edgar Poe’s stories areGrotesque and Arabesque indeed. As W. Shakespeare said “who will name the childby his right name”, whether he is a man or a work of art? Evidently, it is thechild’s parent or author who is able to do it best, when we speak about thework of art. But both the parent and the author has not only the nation of thechild they produced, but their own mysterious idea, their own wish, and theirown hopes. Groteque and Arabesque – is an exact name, but it is more theoutward appearance, the way and manner than the gist of the phenomenon. Someauthors and critics call Edgar Poe’s stories “horrible” ones. But we cancertainly call them “tales of mystery and horror”
The famousRussian writer M. Dostoevsky, said about Edgar Poe’s “strangeness” hisGrotesque and Arabesque: “If is Edgar Poe, who is extremely strange, thoughwith the great talent”. Sometimes it seems that this or that Poe’s grotesquewas written in the traditional spirit of Gothic novel, in spirit of genre of“mystery and horror” and then it occurs that it is parady to him. The realexample of this is the story “Sfinx”:
A man camefrom New York to the place of his relative and lives in a separate comfortablecottage on the bank of Gudzon River. One day, on the sunset of a hot day, hewas sitting at the open window, which overlooked the beautiful bank of theriver and the distant hillside. And suddenly he saw there something incredibleawful monster descending fast from the top and soon disappear in the thickforest at the foot. If was a huge monster, and the most surprising thing wasthe picture of its “skull scarily of half of a chest” Before it disappeared, ithad uttered “unexplainable sorrowful” sound, and the man, who was telling thestory, bell on the ground without feeling. The story about mystery and horror,and at the same time at the next page exposure of “the trick”, that is theexplanation: how such an awful monster appeared before the story-teller. Itoccurred that it was only some kind of an insect “sfinx dead head”, whichinspired the people superstitious horror with its sad squeaking and also withthe emblem of death on its chest.
The insect gotinto a cobweb, which was made by a spider behind the window and the eyes of thesitting man at the window, designed it to the bold slope of a distant hill.
“Fear haslarge eyes”, the image of the monster illusion created by the psychologicalstate of the story-teller, sharpened with the horror the epidemic of cholerawas being rife in New York, “the disaster was spreading” and “in the winditself, when it was flowing from the South… a stinking breath of death wasimagined” (The real event of the beginning of 30y of the 19thcentury was reflected in “sfinx” it was the epidemic of cholera in New York,spread in Europe. )
“Sfinx” isboth “a horrible “ story and a parody, there is essential for Edgar Poe motiveof the social satire expressed, as though by the way, in the sharp form ofappreciating the real American democracy. The story teller’s relative, whose“serious philosophical mind was far away from fantasy” pointed out the idea,that the investigation mistakes come from human mentality to underestimate orto overestimate the importance of the object which was investigated because ofwrong defining his distant. For instance, he said in order to value in a rightway the influence, which the real democracy may have on the humanity, it’snecessary to take into consideration for how long distance the epoch when wemay carry out this influence. Dostoevsky pointed out one peculiars feature inEdgar Poe, which differs him from other writers it is his power of imagination.
There is onepeculiar feature in his imagination, which we never have met in other writers thepower to describe everything in full details, which is able to make the readerbelieve the possibility of event even if it is impossible or has never happenedyet. His power of imagination made Edgar Poe mystification widely the readerwith great success. The example of such mystification is Edgar Poe’s “Storywith Air Ball” in which the fiction about the flight of the air ball fromEurope to America turned out to be so real, that it challenged sensation. EdgarPoe could tell about the state of human soul with surprising power, very oftenthe soul full of horror, which Edgar Poe felt himself.
Edgar Poe isthe creator of wonderful satirical grotesque in which he laughed atunchangeable and impatient for him human defects. The action of the story “Fourbeast in one” (1836) takes place in bible time, but the ideas expressed by theauthor is modern. Poe describes satirically cowardice and nonentity of theevilest and the basest characteristic. He opposes the wild whims and cruelty ofdespots, the intentions of cretins to humiliate and insult human dignity ofsurrenders and his own too. The most characteristic that wild despots arepresented in Edgar Poe’s story in beasts’ masks.
The American“businessman” in Poe’s description is a self-satisfied blockhead and nonentity;he hates gifted and talented people. The author picked carefully comic detailswhile creating the grotesque image of a businessman.
Poe’s comicscope is very wide from ruthless satirical grotesque to soft and inoffensivehumor. There are much vigor and reckless and high spirits in Poe’s comicstories; a smart joke makes dance even 80-years old of aged old woman.
Horriblestories.
Poe publishedover seventy short stories in his short life. His best short stories deal witheither logical reasoning, as in his defective stories, or terror, as is thecase of “The Cask Of Amontillado”.
Poe’s tales ofterror are perhaps, more widely known to the general reader than his defectivestories.
Poe’s shortnarrative prose style as found in the two categories characteristic of hisfiction has widely influenced the form and purpose of the short story, not onlyin the United States, but also around the world.
“The Cask ofAmontillado” (Together with “The Tell –Tale Heart”) best illustrates Poe’sterror stories and the clarify with which he develops his own method. Everyword in his short story contributes towards the single effect of terror whichthe story conveys. To these two stories we also may add “The Fall of the Houseof Usher” (1839). The story is a portrait of a suffering artist isolated fromthe tides of life. Subtle psychological meanings can also be found in “Ligea”,“the Black Cat”, and “William Wilson”. In all these tales, bizarre andfrightening details and events conceal Poe’s subtle probing of the warfare heobserved in the human soul.
In “The Caskof Amontillado” we may recognize the actual experiences of Poe. From the firstEdgar Poe story a person reads, the seed is planted that grown into thequestion of whether or not the author was as twisted as his stories. Historicalaccounts of the man and his life show that he was raised by the Allan familyafter his parents death and historical accounts present him as being brought upin a series of private schools and relative comfort. He was a gambler, a heavydrinker, and an alleged drug addict. He was what would have been referred to inthe Victorian age as a near-do-well.
In his stories“The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” Edgar Poe analyze with thegreat exactness the change of killer’s psychology, that reckless moving fromwild gladness to indescribable fear and despair. The author describes the awfulscenes of murder without any secrets and not concealing all details.
Here now,let’s observe the scene of murder, which the teller had planned before hand inthe story “The Tell-Tale Heart”. The teller wasn’t a mad man, because a mad mancannot plan. The whole week he had fun truing to kill his victim and only onthe eighth day he did it.
“During allthat week \was as friendly to the old man as \could be and warm, and loving.
Every nightabout twelve o’clock slowly opened his door. And when the door was opened wideenough put my hand in and then my head. In my hand \held a light covered overwith a cloth so that no light showed. And I stood there quietly. Thencarefully, I lifted the cloth, just a little, so that a single, then smalllight fell across that eye. For seven night\did this, seven long nights, everynight at midnight. Always the eye was closed, so it was impossible for me to dothe work. For it, it was not the old man I felt I had to kill; it was the eye,his Evil Eye. And every morning \went to his room, and with a warm, friendlyvoice \ asked him how he had slept. He cold not guess that every night, just attwelve, I looked in at him as he slept.
The eighthnight I was more than usually careful as I opened the door. The hands of aclock move more quickly than did my hand. Never before had \felt so strongly myown power; I was now sure of success.
The old manwas lying there no dreaming that I was at his door. Suddenly he moved in hisbed. You may think I became afraid. But no. The darkness in his room was thickand black. I knew he could not see the opening of the door. I continued to pushthe door, slowly, softly. I put in my hand, with the covered light. Suddenlythe old man sat straight up in bed and cried, “who’s there???!”
I stood quitestill. For a whole hour \did not move. Nor did hear him again he down in hisbed. He just sat there, listening. Then \heard a sound, a low cry of fear whichescaped from the old man. Now \ knew that he was sitting up in his bed, filledwith fear; I knew that he knew that I was there. He did not see me there. Hecould not hear me there. He felt me there. Now he knew that Death was standingthere.
Slowly littleby little, I lifted the cloth, until a small, small light escaped from under itto small light escaped from under it to fall upon – light escaped from undereye! It was open wide, wide open, and my anger increased as it looked straightat me. I could not see the old man’s face. Only that eye, that hard blue eye,and the blood in my body became like ice.
Have I nottold you that my hearing had become unusually strong? Now I could hear a quick,low soft sound, like the sound of a clock heard through a wall. It was beatingof the old man’s heart. I tired to stand quietly. But the sound grew louder.The old man’s fear must have been great indeed. And as the sound grew louder myanger became greater and more painful. But it was more than anger. In the quitenight, in the dark silence of the bedroom my anger became fear for the heartwas beating so loudly that I was sure some one must hear. The time had come! Irushed into the room crying “Die! Die!” The old man gave a loud cry of fear asI fell upon him and held the bedcovers tightly over his head. Still his heartwas beating; but I smiled as I felt that success was near. For many minutesthat heart continued to beat. I took away the bed-covers and held my ear overhis heart. There was no sound. Yes he was dead! Dead as a stone. His eye wouldtrouble me no more![3] But the process of murderwasn’t over yet. The author describes how cruelty the killer dealt with thedead body of the old. He wrote: “You should have seem how careful I was to putthe body where no one could find it. First I cut off the head, then the armsand the legs. I was careful not to let a single drop of blood fall on thefloor. I pulled up three of the boards that formed the floor, and put thepieces of the body there. Then I put the boards down again, carefully, socarefully that no human eye could see that they had been moved”[4]The killer thought that nobody would know about the murder, he was glad, thathe wouldn’t be punished, but was his fear and horror that were the threat ofrevealing the murder. And that happened: “ My head hurt and there was a strangesound in my ears. I talked more, and faster. The sound became clearer” suddenlyI knew that the sound was not in my ears, it was just inside my head. At thatmoment I must have become quite white. I talked still faster and louder. Andthe sound too became louder. I was a quick, low, soft sound, like the sound ofa clock hear through a wall, a sound I knew well. Louder, louder, I stood upand walked quickly around the room I pushed my chair across the floor to makemore noise, to cover that terrible sound. I talked even louder. And still themen sat and talked, and smiled. What it possible that they could not hear?
No! Theyheard! I was certain of it. They knew! Now it was they who were playing a gamewith me. I was suffering more than I could fear, from their smiles, and fromthat sound louder, louder, and louder. Suddenly I could fear it no longer. Ipointed at the boards and cried, “Yes! Yes, I killed him. Pull up the boardsand you shall see! I killed him. But why does his heart not stop beating? Whydoes it not stop!?”
The same pagesof made murder we can see in the story “The Cat of Amontillado”. The maincharacter of the story decided to kill his friend if we may say so, namedFortunato, because he as the hero said “had hurt him a thousand times and hesuffered quietly.” So, he promised himself that he would make him pay for that,that would have revenge. Fortunato was a strong man, a man to be feared but hehad one great weakness; he liked to drink good wine; and indeed he drank muchof it. It happened, once that our hero met him in the street and he decided totreat him the wine Amantillado, and then to make his horrible murder, he tookhim to very strange and horrible place, where were only cold stone walls andterrible darkness.
It was reallya very terrible place. “Fortunato looked uncertainly around him, trying to seethrough the thick darkness which pushed in around us. Here our brightly burninglights seemed weak indeed. But our eyes soon became used to the darkness. Wecould see the bones of the dead lying in the large piles along the walls. Thestones of the walls were wet and cold” [5] In this terrible placeour hero killed Fortunato. He bricked up him with stones, at last he headrevenge, and again that fear accompanied the killer: “I heard no answer.Fortunato” I cried “Fortunato”. I heard only a soft, low sound, a half-cry offear. My heart grew sick; it must have been the cold. I hurried to force thelast stone into its position. And I put the old bones again in a pile againstthe wall. For half a century now no human hand has touched them. May he rest inpeace!
2.6Detective stores “The Cask of Amontillado”
Edgar Poe’s“The Cask of Amantillado” is the story of revenge. Among those who have readthe timeless classic “The Cask of Amantillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, some havecome away disliking the story because of the speaker’s cruel act of revengeagainst Frotunato. This opinion is, indeed warranted for such a portrayal ofdelicious wickedness, however, it is important for the reader to consider thefact that Poe penned that story as a direct reflection of all things thatbrought him misery. The writer discusses how throughout his life, the authorwaged war against a multitude of overpowering entities that served to influencehim in a distinctly negative manner, among them being that of alcoholism,vanity, greed and pride. Besides the element of revenge, here we can see anextremely tightly women story and how this story was a commentary by Poe on hisdisclaim of the aristocracy and all that they stood for, as well as hispersonal belief in the cruelty of society.
To Edgar Poe’sterror stories we also may refer “ The Tall of the House of Usher”. Here we seethe ways in which Edgar Poe’s own background experiences, and personal beliefsare reflected. In this story the author employed literary parallels and dualismto connect events, characters and sense. The writer argues that the house isactually personified and as it gradually collapses so does the family within.The madness of an aristocrat old stock is described as the extreme subtlety ofhuman abilities and feelings, as the result of culture, which embarked on thestage of degradation. The terror is defined by psychological state of the hero:“In his manner I saw at once, changes came and went; and I saw at once, changescame and went; and I soon found that this resulted from his attempt to quiet avery great nervousness. His actions were first too quick and then too quiet.Sometimes his voice, slow and trembling with fear, quickly changed to a strong,heavy, carefully spaced, too perfectly controlled manner. It was a familysickness he said, and one from which he could not hope to grow better but itwas he added at once, only a nervous illness which would without doubt soonpass away. It showed itself in a number of strange feelings. Some of these, ashe told me of them, interested me but were beyond my understanding; perhaps theway in which he told me of them added to their strangeness. He suffered muchfrom a sickly increase in the feeling of all the senses; he could eat only themost tasteless food; all flowers smelled too strongly for his nose; his eyeswere hurt by even a little light; and there were few sounds which did not fillhim with horror. A certain kind of sick fear was completely his master. I fearwhat will happen in the future, not for what happens, but for the result ofwhat happens. I have indeed, no fear of pain, but only fear of its result ofterror! I feel that the time will soon arrive when u must lose my life, and mymind, and my soul together, in some last battle with that horrible enemy;“FEAR”[6]. The reader is shocked byamazing conciseness revealing of the cram, made by Roderick Usher and suddencollapse of the ancient house took place at so the same time. The story beginswith the narrator riding toward the estate of a friend from childhood. Whiledescribing the house, the place where the Ushers live, the writer alreadyreminds about that light crack on the background of the building and at the endhe shows how it collapses. Here is the picture, which the narrator watched: “ Iagain looked up from the picture of the house reflected in the lake to thehouse itself. A strange idea grew in my mind an idea so strange that I tell itonly to show the force of the feelings which laid their weight on me. I reallybelieved that around the whole house, and the ground around it, the air itselfwas different. It was not the air of heaven. It roe from the dead, decayingtrees, from the gray walls, and the quite lake. It was a sickly, unhealthy airthat I could see, slow moving, heavy and gray. Shaking off from my spirit whatmust have been a dream, I looked more carefully at the building itself. Themost noticeable thing about it seemed to be its great age. None of the wallshad fallen, yet the stones appeared to be in a condition of advanced decay.Perhaps the careful eye would have discovered the beginning of a break in thefront of the building, a crack making its way from the top down the wall untilit became lost in the dark waters of the lake.[7] And at the endof the story the author shows how the storm fell on the house: “The storm wasaround me in all its strength as I crossed the bridge. Suddenly a wild lightmoved along the ground at my feet, and I turned to see where it could have comefrom, for only the great house and its darkness were behind me. The light wasthat of the full moon, of a blood-red moon, which was now shining through thatbreak in the front wall, that crack which I thought I had seen when I first sawthe place. Then only a little crack, it now widened as I watched. A strong windcame rushing over me the whole face of the moon appeared. I saw the great wallsfalling apart. There was a long and stormy shouting sound and the deep blacklake closed darkly over all that remained of the “House of Usher”. So was theend, the fall not of only the house, but the fall of the family, which was avery old one, and had long been famous for its understanding of all the artsand for many quiet acts of kindness to the poor, and besides had never been alarge one, with many branches. The name had passed always from father to son,and when people spoke of the “House of Usher”, they included both the family andthe family home.[8]
2.7Fantastic stories. E .Poe’s Heroes
Edgar Poe’sheroes are capable to realize even the most critical circumstances. Forexample, Roderick Usher, was deadly frightened by the murder he made, butnevertheless with mathematical exactness he realized the scene which took placein the vault, Usher and his sister were buried alive by himself. Edgar Poe dealwith the subject of death in his short stories. Almost in each Poe’s story wesee death of course, the stories which deal with death can’t be funny, they areagain horrible, awful, full of sorrow and disappointment.
For example iftake such story as “The mask of the red death”. The name of the story tells foritself. And now how the author describes some moments connected with death:“The Read Death had long been feeding on the country. No sickness had ever beenso deadly so great a killer or so fearful to see. Blood was its mark – theredness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains and a sudden feelingthat the mind was rushing in circles inside the head. Then there was bleedingthrough the skin, though it was not cut or broken and then death! The brightred spots upon the body and especially upon the face of the sick man made othermen turn away from him, afraid to try to help. And the sickness lasted, fromthe beginning to the end, no more than half an hour”!
Alongside withdeath in Poe’s stories we can see fear walking decide it. We may observed thefollowing picture of fear in the story of William Wilson. The coldness of icefilled my whole body. My knee trembled, my whole spirit was filled with horror.I moved the light nearer to his face was this-this the face of William Wilson?I saw indeed that it was, but I trembled as if with sickness as I imaginedthat it was not. What was there in his face to trouble me so? I looked, and mymind seemed to turn in circles in the rush of my thoughts. It was not like thissurely not like this that he appeared in the daytime. The same name, the samebody; the same day that we came to school! And then there was his use of my wayof walking, my manner of speaking! Was it, in truth, humanity possible thatwhat I now saw was the result and the result only of his continued efforts tobe like me? [9]
Filled withwonder and fear, cold and trembling, I put out the light. In the quite darknessI went from his room and, without waiting one minute, I felt that old schooland never entered it again!
The samepicture we can see in the story “The tall of the House of Usher”, and it isfear, which makes Roderick Usher feel ill, which is his main with which he isfighting; “Roderick Usher, whom I had known as a boy, was now ill. When Iarrived I felt something strange and fearful about the great old stone house,about Usher himself. He appeared not like a human being, but like a spiritthat had come back from beyond the grave. It was an illness, he said, fromwhich he would surely die. He called his sickness fear. “I have”, he said “nofear of pain, but only the fear of its result lose my life, and my mind, and mysoul, together in some last battle with that horrible enemy: “FEAR!”
Edgar AllanPoe considered his method of describing the events in such way, that could haveeffect, that could impress the reader. Perhaps that’s why he chose such colorsas black, dark, red blood, violent etc.
Death isemerges as a main heroine in his stories. And that’s why all his stories arecalled the stories of horror.
Detectivestories
A critic whowas capable alike of extreme partiality and extreme severity, a poet whoprofoundly affected the development of French verse, a master of the shortstory, whose “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque” are among the triumphs ofromantic horror, he also launched the American detective story upon itscheckered career with yarns like “ Murder in the Rue Morgue” (1843).
Edgar Poe’sthree stories “The murder’s in the rue morgue”, “The Mystery of Marie Roget”(1842) and “The Purloined Letter” show how Poe’s work set the standard for thedetective genre. Besides we may include here his story “The Gold Bun” whichconsidered to be the most popular among the readers. One of the his maincharacters in defective stories is Duplin; The writer gave him everything thathe wanted to do. He is a clever smart and talented person. He constantly trainshis mind, works out his own method, which helps him to guess any mystery ofcourse he has common features with other Edgar Poe’s detective heroes asLegran, Arthur Gordon Pim. Hance Pyall. Duplin combined all features,everything in details in mathematical accurate calculations, in order of thefacts, in intuitions of an analytics who proves the hypothesis. If we comparetwo Poe’s stories “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter”with one of Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” we’ll see theheavy reliance of Sherlock Holmes, creator on the work of his predecessor Poe.Poe’s stories and protagonist have more depth than Conan Doyle’s becauseHolmes’ methods relies entirely on logic and Duplin relies on behavior andnuance. Investigating the murders in the Rue Morgue Duplin displays hisunusual, his own method of investigation. Now, in the following passage we maysee how this author describes it: “ I soon noticed a special reasoning power hehad, an unusual reasoning power. Using it gave him great pleasure. He told meonce, with a soft and quite laugh, that most man have windows over theirhearts, through these he could see into their souls. Then he surprised me bytelling what he knew about my own soul, and I found that he knew things aboutme that I had thought only I could possibly know, His manner at these momentswas cold and distant. His eyes looked empty and far away, and his voice becamehigh and nervous. At such times it seemed to me that I saw not just Duplin buttwo Duplin one who coldly put things together and another who just as coldlytook them apart.[10]
“ at first Isaw nothing strange in this. Duplin had agreed with me, with my own thoughts.This, of course; seemed to be quite natural. For a few seconds I continuedwalking, and thinking; but suddenly I realized that Duplin had agreed withsomething which was only a thought. I had not spoken a single word. I stoppedwalking and turned to my friend. “Duplin”, I said, “Duplin, this is beyond myunderstanding. How could you know that I was thinking of” Here I stopped, inorder to test him, to learn if he really did know my unspoken thoughts.
“How did Iknow you were thinking of chantilly? Why do you stop? You were thinking thatchantilly is too small for the plays in which he acts”.
“That isindeed what I was thinking. But tell me in Heaven’s name, the method if methodthere is by which you have been able to see into my soul in this matter.”
The story “TheGold Bug” is very popular among many readers. The writer himself considered it“ the Ruckiest”. The great popularity of “The Gold Bug”, marked Gervi Allen, isthat there is almost absent morbid motives, which prevailed in many other worksof Edgar Poe”.[11] And how Alexander Blockpointed out thatin Edgar Poe’s stories there were morbid motives connected withhurting state of psychology. “The Gold Bug,” judging by its genre usually isjoined the famous detective stories as “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” “TheMystery of Marie Roget” and “The Purloined letter”, the main hero of which is adetective amateur Sh. August Duplin.
The authorcalled these stories “logical stories”, in which the power of logic andanalytical wit is displayed. And this logical power is clearly described in“The Murders on the Rue Morgue”, when Duplin calculated the killer. The writerconstantly made the reader to be wonder and amazed by Duplin power to think anddo right conclusions. He himself was surprised “ I will not say that I wassurprised. I was more than surprised, I was astonished. Duplin was right, asright as he could be. Those were in fact my thoughts, my unspoken thoughts asmy mind moved from one thought to the next. But if I was astonished by this. Iwould soon be more that astonished.
One morningthis strangely interesting man showed me once again his unusual reasoningpower. We heard that an old woman had been killed by unknown persons. Thekiller, or the killers, had cut her head off, and escaped into the night. Whowas this killer, this murderer? The police had no answer. They lookedeverywhere and found nothing that helped them. They did not know what to donext. And so they did nothing. But not Duplin. He knew what to do. The authorshows the sympathy describing his hero. He describe him as “ an unusuallyinteresting young man with a busy, forceful mind. This mind could, it seemed,look right through a man’s body into his soul, and uncover his deepest thoughtssometimes he seemed to be not one, but two people one who coldly put thingstogether, and another who just as coldly took them apart”
Edgar Poe’sessay “The chess automat of Meltrel” was the first work, where Poe showed he asan infallible logic and an acute analytic over amazing the method, which laterSherlock Homes immortalized in his works
Speaking aboutEdgar Poe’s short stories of about his “Tales of Grotesque and Arabesque” wecan’t help mentioning his fantastic stores. His fantastic stories are the modelof that fact, how the comic and the serious get with inside one genre. EdgarPoe requires from his reader a little trust, a little fantasy and takes him tothe world of cosmic space to the edge of the earth to the mysterious Antarcticaand makes him or determine his age, or step back in order to appreciatefantastic wonders of technique of the 19th century.
“Unusualadventure of Hans Pfae” is an original ad amazement fiction, which inspiredJule Verm to create the novel “Five weeks on the air globe” The beginning andthe end of the fictions make the reader enjoy himself with humor watching thesmart citizen making fun of fool burgomaster and professor. The middle part ofthe fiction the story of Hans about traveling to the Moon is a serious andscientific adventure story with great details. As a real scientist experimentation,Pal observes his own physical state and behavior of animals, he doesn’t missany important observation. He tells about different of atmosphere, he knowsphysics, mechanics, geography and astronomy.
And because ofit European decadents called Edgar Poe as “Reckless Edgar”. In this story heshows an erudition of a real scientist, he does scientific prognosis andcreates eh adventure such an unexpected, such a new, that it rouses greatinterest of the reader.
Conclusion
3.1Edgar Poe’s artistic manner
Summing up Iwould like to point out Edgar Poe’s artistic manner. Having read and analyzedsome of his stories I came to the conclusion that absorbing of narration is oneof the clearest features of Edgar Poe’s artistic manner. His reader is alwaysthe collaborator of described events. He trembles with impatience when Duplininvestigates the place of murder and makes his mathematic conclusions, he bearshunger, cold and fear with the heroes, he suffers all kinds of adventures.Everything that he describes in his own life, with his own experiences andthat’s why we may say that his own life is reflected in his works.
Poe developeda theory of composition that he applied to both his short stories and hispoems. Its most basic principle was that in so far as short fiction and poetrywere concerned the writer should aim at creating a single and totalpsychological spiritual effect upon the reader. The theme of plot of the pieceis always subordinate to the author’s calculated construction of single intensemood in the reader’s or listener’s mind, be it melancholy, suspense, or horror.There are no extra elements in Poe, no subplots no minor characters, that showhe madness of deranged first person (I) narrators. Ultimately, Poe took writingto be a moral task that worked not through teacher lessons, but insimultaneously stimulating his readers’ mental, emotional and spiritualfaculties through texts of absolute integrily. Poe, moreover, judged others bythese same standards. By doing so he is establishing the rules and methodscommon to New Criticism, the leading school of literary analysis in the 20thcentury with, its insistence that the text must be interpreted from thecritic’s opinions of its author or the suitability of its themes.
Edgar Poepoints out the main principle of literary compositions. He defines thisprinciple as follows: “The combination of events and color, which would ratherserve to creation of the main effect”, or as he calls it totality effect. Heapplies luxury and picturesque descriptions, verity usage of expressivecontrasts in situations, language, characters, “emotional air” surroundingheroes; the force of monotone.
So, the mostcharacteristic feature of Edgar Poe’s works is the creation of effect, toimpress the readers. His artistic manner roused vivid interest of many writersfrom different countries and different ideological and aesthetic trends.
Bibliography
1. EdgarAllan Poe язык / Edgar Allan inter.multikulti.ru/categories/1082561.
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Каталог Edgar Allan Poe Рейтинг@Mail.ru www.mp3search.ru (всего 46)
4. EdgarAllan Poe NationalHistoric Site Index Page
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5. EdgarAllan Poe: Как выучить английскийязык: Форумы на EFL.ru главная > форум > Как выучить английский язык > Edgar Allan Poe18.04.2006- 10 Kb — www.efl.ru/forum/threads/6797/
6. In4ArchWiki: EdgarPoe -23 15:27:47 |Владелец: Edgar Poe | Свойства | Наблюдать | Версия для печати |
7. Ex Libris:книги Эдгара По — Edgar Allan Poe.
The Mystery of Marie Roget EdgarAllan Poe 2001 Менеджер Классический зарубежный детектив 46.00 руб.
8. EdgarAllan Poe ЛУЧШИЕ КНИГИ Автор: Edgar Автор: Edgar Allan Poe23.08.2005 — 15 Kb — bookland.ru/adv_search.php?
9. EdgarAllan Poe — Wikipedia,the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org (всего 88)
10. AudioStore — Lou Reed — Edgar Allan Poe (Альбом— The Raven (CD 1))
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11. ЖАРГОН.РУ/ Народные/ Английские/ Rhyming slang / EdgarAlan Poe ...php?cat=276&id=8460]EdgarAlan Poe[/url]
12. ::Pinaygovno!::Pizdariki::EdgarAllan Poe::
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13. BuyBooks on CD: Edgar Allan Poe Audio Collection
14. Edgar Poe “ TheAdventures of the world” M. Prosveshcheniye 1986 pp.13, 26, 78, 134, 145, 149
15.·Edgar Poe “The goldbug.” L. High School 1974 pp. 34, 47, 89, 113-114
16. Edgar Poe. A Connecticut Yankee inKing Arthur's Court M. Drofa 2003 p.134, 163, 222, 267
17. Edgar Poesconceptions. Prentice Hall Publishers 2001 pp.34, 46, 172, 228, 291
18. Philip PhonerPrinston, 1998 p.145
19. Readings on modernAmerican Literature M. High School 1977 pp. 177-229
20. The Correspondence of SamuelL.Clemens and William D.Howells. 1872-21. Vols. 1-2. Harvard Universily Press,1960 pp. 284, 287, 312
22. World BookEncyclopedia New York 1993 Vol. 21 pp.597-600
23. Юрий Олеша Заметки Едгаре По. М.Детская литература 1975 стр. 11
24. Юрий Олеша. Ни дня без строчки. М., 1965, стр. 216-220.
25. Collection of worksNewYork 1997 pp.156-159, 274-276, 279, 412