An Analysis of Horror in Edgar Allan Poes Short Fictions 论爱伦•坡短篇小说中的恐怖元素文献综述

 2021-12-30 20:41:49

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文 献 综 述An Analysis of the Horror Factors in Edgar Ellan Poes Short Fictions 浅析爱伦坡短篇小说中的恐怖因素1.Introduction1.1 Introduction to Adgar Ellan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 and passed away on October 7, 1849. Poe was raised up by the John and France Allan family of Richmond, Virginia. It was in Richmond that the young child grew up. Poe studied at the Unversity of Virginia for just one semester before turning his aspirations towards enlistment in the Army. His career in the Army was short lived as the youngster found life as a cadet at West Point more than he bargained for.Failing as an officer's cadet at West Point did not make Poe frustrate, to the contrast he bounced back to embarked on the next phase of his life as a writer.Publishing an anonymous collection of poems was literally the start of something special for Edgar Allan Poe. Poems such as the Tamerlane were released by 1827 unaccredited. The poem entitled"a Bostonian"is the only poem Poe was accredited to at that time. 1.2 Introduction to Allan Poes achievements and major worksPoe was accredited as the inventor of detective style fiction which elevated him into the literary spotlight. The exciting emergence of science fiction was another genre that Poe contributed to and drew inspiration from. He was one of the first authors to be noted in history as a"struggling writer". Poe paved the way for the writing profession and in the process left a long lasting mark. His work received literary acclaim for his criticism style. Writing for literary periodicals and literary journeys gave Poe's work direction and focus.Today, Poe is recognized as one of the foremost progenitors of modern literature, both in its popular forms, such as horror and detective fiction, and in its more complex and self-conscious forms, which represent the essential artistic manner of the 20th century. In the aspect of fictions, there are many research articles. There is an inquiry into the theme meaning of Poe's short stories, and there is a criticism from a single criticism method. To examine in a traditional or a context, as in the study of Poe and Goth, it is possible to place Poe under the evolution and development of the American short story. Of course, there are comparative studies. In the aspect of literary criticism, the research on Poe is not in-depth and the achievements are few. Generally speaking, due to the late translation and introduction of Poe, the domestic study of Poe did not catch up with the tradition of Poe's biography, nor did it have time to pay attention to the value of Poe's poetry, so it directly caught up with the country of Poe. The second phase of external research just like the second order of foreign slope research. In the beginning, there was a tradition of studying Poe with psychoanalysis. Therefore, domestic academic articles on Poe just started to use psychoanalysis to analyze Poe's fictions. Later, there were corresponding academic articles interpreting Poe's fictions in terms of feminism. But it should be pointed out that when overseas slope research has tended to do some cross research on cultural connection in the field (e.g. study on slope and music, slope and music), and the trend of studying the relationship between Poe and popular culture, the domestic research has not kept up with this pace. Few people have made a comprehensive analysis of the horror factor hidden behind Poe's short fictions, so in my thesis I will choose some of Poe's most representative short fictions as examples to analyze the different dimensions of horror.Poe is most often remembered for his short fictions. Aside from a common theoretical basis, there is a psychological intensity that is characteristic of Poes writings, especially the tales of horror that comprise his best and best-known works. These storieswhich include The Black Cat, The Cask of Amontillado, andThe Tell-Tale Heartare often told by a first-person narrator, and through this voice Poe probes the workings of a characters psyche. This technique contains the psychological explorations of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the school of psychological realism. In his Gothic tales, Poe also employed an essentially symbolic, almost allegorical method which gives such works asThe Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death, andLigeiaan enigmatic quality that accounts for their enduring interest andlinks them with the symbolical works of Nathaniel Hawthorne andHerman Melville. The influence of Poes tales may be seen in the work of later writers, including Ambrose Bierce and H.P. Lovecraft, who belong to a distinct tradition of horror literature initiated by Poe. In addition to his achievement as creator of the modern horror tale, Poe is also credited with parenting two other popular genres: science fiction and the detective story. In such works as The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaall and Von Kempelen and His Discovery,Poe took advantage of the fascination for science and technology that emerged in the early 19th century to produce speculative and fantastic narratives which anticipate a type of literature that did not become widely practiced until the 20th century. Similarly, Poes three tales of ratiocinationThe Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Purloined LetterandThe Mystery of Marie Rogetare recognized as the models which established the major characters and literary conventions of detective fiction, specifically the amateur sleuth who solves a crime that has confounded the authorities and whose feats of deductive reasoning are documented by an admiring associate. Just as Poe influenced many succeeding authors and is regarded as an ancestor of such major literary movements as Symbolism and Surrealism, he was also influenced by earlier literary figures and movements. In his use of the demonic and the grotesque, Poe evidenced the impact of the stories of E.T.A. Hoffman and the Gothic fictions of Ann Radcliffe, while the despair and melancholy in much of his writing reflects an affinity with the Romantic movement of the early 19th century. It was Poes particular genius that in his work he gave consummate artistic form both to his personal obsessions and those of previous literary generations, at the same time creating new forms which provided a means of expression for future artists.1.3Introduction to Gothic genre Popular in Europe before and after the 18th century, "Gothic" fictions are one of the direct sources of contemporary western horror films. The word "Goth" originally comes from the name of the Teutonic Gothic tribe. Later, it was used to refer to a medieval style of architecture, often used in churches and castles, characterized by soaring spires, heavy stone walls, dark interiors, and grim tunnels. According to those who advocate the ancient Greek civilization thinkers, because of this kind of architecture aversion, the word "Gothic" has evolved into a barbaric, terror, mystery and dark synonym. In the 18th century, a kind of horror and mystery based on the tone, often took place in the desert castle style, was given the name "Gothic" fiction. Such fictions often take ancient castles, wasteland, ruins and other environments as the background, the atmosphere is grim, mysterious, full of suspense, often full of violence, revenge and death plot. By the 1790s, the Gothic fiction had gradually evolved into two branches. One branch is The horror-type gothic fiction, characterized by adherence to traditional methods and the addition of pathological evil to add mystical and terrifying effects, such as Matthew Lewis's (1775-1818) The Monk (1795). The other branch is The sentimental gothic fiction, which is characterized by keeping the scene of castles, but abandoning the over mysterious elements and extreme horror atmosphere, so that The story comes to a logical explanation, such as The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by MaryRadcliffe (1764-1823).2.Literature Review Many previous researchers hold different opinions towards Poe's horror fictions, but these opinions are not contradictory and they help us know the essence of Poe's horror fictions. Zhang(2012) provides a view of the application of unique aesthetic concepts. Poe's horror fictions are full of a kind of grotesque beauty, which also shows Poe's unique creative ideas and writing style. Poe's horror fictions are full of the beauty of death, grotesque beauty and so on. What's more, these unique aesthetic concepts are fully displayed by Poe through superb artistic techniques. In Edgar Allan Poe's writing, the death of a beautiful woman can best express the beauty and shock of death. And the death of a beautiful woman is depicted in an otherworldly way. These beautiful, intelligent women either have a fear of death, or have caused the terrible deaths of themselves and others. In the horror of its death, full of the beauty of death. Readers can feel the beauty beyond reason and the beauty and shock that death brings to people. This kind of beauty has gone beyond the life itself, which easily reminds readers of the existence of beauty beyond the reality and triggers the reflection on life. What Edgar Allan Poe's works bring to readers is not the beauty that makes their mind calm, nor the sublime beauty that contains the moral height, but a melancholy beauty with decadent color and an abnormal beauty of absurdity. Edgar Allan Poe's works make readers temporarily break away from the normal life state through the display of abnormal psychological activities in the inner world, and touch or shock readers' hearts to relieve and vent their pressure and bad emotions to a certain extent, which just meets the reading needs of modern readers. The presentation of the grotesque elements in Edgar Allan Poe's fictions shows his anti-traditional aesthetic style, reflects his deep thinking on human nature and has a strong modern consciousness. Lu(2017) mentions Poes creation of gothic fictions. In traditional Gothic fictions, the author often pays attention to the description of the horrible background, and those grim castles and monasteries often become the material for the author to take pictures. Traditional Gothic fictions will describe a dark world through the construction of a series of grotesque and scary stories, attack the darkness of society and expose the darkness of human nature. Different from the traditional Gothic fictions, Allan Poe pays more attention to the detailed depiction of the inner heart of the characters while describing the terrifying scenes. In Poe's paper, the source of human terror is worth exploring. There are many kinds of things that make people afraid, such as the fear of death, the anxiety about the unknown future, the struggle and helplessness for the fate, and the despair when they are bound by the reality. These inner emotions bring horror to people as much as the external environment. Therefore, Poe's fictions pay more attention to the exploration and description of people's terrible minds, and his horror fictions are able to arouse the resonance of readers' hearts. In Edgar Allan Poe's horror fictions, the weird and horrible behaviors of the heroes showed Edgar Allan Poe's deep exploration of the spiritual world of human beings, and the dark side of human nature was also vividly described. Different from these traditional Gothic fictions, Edgar Allan Poe's horror fictions do not pay attention to moral preaching, but reveal the dark side of human nature. Though the traditional gothic fiction will also describe the dark side of human nature, but from the entire moral level and social level for description, more is the revelation of the dark side of society, Edgar Allan Poe's horror fiction of human nature, dark, and in extreme characters will act under the mental state of extreme behavior, and to explain the rationality of the behavior.Yuan(2012) has noticed the exploration of the infinite possibilities of the human spirit. The characters in Edgar Allan Poe's horror fictions are mostly gloomy and have dual personalities, and they also do some crazy acts that are difficult for ordinary people to understand. But after careful analysis, it is not hard to find that the occurrence and existence of these behaviors has its rationality. Driven by inner desire, human beings will even take a series of extreme actions to satisfy their desires. In Edgar Allan Poe's horror fictions, the reasons for the characters' crazy behaviors are largely because their inner desires have not been satisfied. In his fictions A Bucket of White Wine and The Tell-Telling Heart, Edgar Allan Poe describes the original evil desire in the inner heart of his characters with exquisite strokes. It is this desire that leads to the distortion of the inner heart of his characters, and the nature of this evil will be exposed by some accidental events. In A Bucket of White Wine, the hero deliberately kills someone out of revenge for an insult. The hero gets the pleasure of revenge by killing a man, the pleasure of this monstrous pleasure which is a reflection of the satisfaction of his distorted desires. Poe attributed the derangement of the characters' behaviors in his works to the derangement of the human spiritual world and rationalized it from the perspective of psychoanalysis, thus explaining the greatness of the spiritual world. This is also different from other writers. The source of the horror of his horror works is ultimately the terror of the mind. Edgar Allan Poe pays attention to the psychological analysis of terrorist acts. Through the analysis of terror psychology, he brings readers a sense of horror from the heart and shows the deep state of the human spiritual world.As a pioneer of horror literature, Edgar Allan Poe's horror fictions are of great artistic value. Compared to the traditional gothic fiction, Edgar Allan Poe's horror fictions have unique artistic features and these unique artistic characteristics of Edgar Allan Poe's horror fictions make readers feel the charm of horror literature, and let people get psychological impact and spiritual pleasure from them.3.ConclusionPopular in Europe before and after the 18th century, Gothic fictions are one of the direct sources of contemporary western horror films. According to those who advocate the ancient Greek civilization thinkers, because of this kind of architecture aversion the word Gothic has evolved into a barbaric, terror, mystery and dark synonym. In the 18th century, a kind of horror and mystery based on the tone, often took place in the desert castle style, was given the name Gothic fiction. Such fictions often take ancient castles, wasteland, ruins and other environments as the background, the atmosphere is grim, mysterious, full of suspense, often full of violence, revenge and death plot. Edgar Allan Poe's horror fictions are characterized by romanticism. Throughout the creation of Edgar Allan Poe's horror fictions, most of his themes reveal the dark side of human consciousness and subconscious, which is obviously different from other contemporary romantic writers. Edgar Allan Poe, using a special literary form of horror fiction, deeply depicted and presented the mental state and psychological characteristics of people in the non-realistic state, trying to reveal the spiritual difficulties of modern people through non-realistic and irrational expression. He imagines strange, scary and strange plots, and expresses the crisis of human nature through rhetorical means such as exaggeration, metaphor and symbol. Poe always chose death as his theme, and most of his fictions have elements of the Gothic tradition. It is worth mentioning that Edgar Allan Poe's Gothic fictions are also of great realistic significance. They reflect the alienated psychological states of people in the current society: loneliness, fear, anxiety, annoyance, despair, etc. Lonely and anxious people produced a thirst for lofty feeling: people aspire a safety, destructive object to show the actual threat and harm, at the same time also can enjoy the aesthetic delight caused by horror, thriller, dark aesthetic pleasure.As previous studies have proved, Allan Poe is a representative of Gothic genre. His works promote the popularity of Gothic fictions and a different reading psychology. His writing style and technique has influenced writers all over the world. In his own work, he demonstrated a brilliant command of language and technique as well as an inspired and original imagination. Poes poetry and short stories greatly influenced the French Symbolists of the late 19th century, who in turn altered the direction of modern literature.The aim of this thesis is to further analize the horror factors in Allan Poe's short fictions based on Gothuc genre. Despite former researches have touched upon this view, few of them have analyzed the similarities and differences between Japanese horror fictions and Chinese horror novles. This thesis considers the the horror factors hidden in Poe's short fictions from different dimensions. It will explore them in detail to show the fact that horror fictions and gothic style play an important role in westen literature, it reveals the physical state and social environment in certain historical period.References Auden, Wyston Hugh(1991). Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe: Selected prose and poetry. In Graham Clarke. Edgar Allan Poe: Critical Assessments(Vol. 1).Beers, Henry A(1996). A history of English romanticism in the Eighteenth century.Bloom, Clive(2007). Gothic Horror: A Guide for Students and Readers. Basingstoke:Palgrave Macmillan. Li Ziyue(2012), Edgar Allan Poe and His Horror Tales, 《海外英语》，23 Vines, Lois Davis(1992). Valery and Poe: A Literary Legacy. New York:New York University Press. Yiyang Yu(2017), Edgar Allan Poes Romantic and Gothic. 陈剑雯（2015），爱伦坡对哥特小说的继承与发展爱伦坡的恐怖小说解析， 硕士论文 梁东妮（2012），爱伦坡《黑猫》恐怖元素功能分析，《短篇小说》（原创版），10 梁瑶（2011），从霍夫曼到爱伦坡论恐怖怪诞审美形态的发展，《西北大学学报（哲学社会科学版）》，01 任翔（2011），美死亡恐怖论爱伦坡的诗歌与心理小说，《文艺研究》，09 王德峰（2008），爱伦坡与世纪之交的中国当代恐怖小说，硕士学位论文 王睿（2013），浅析爱伦坡恐怖小说的艺术手法，《长城》，12 徐（2013），精神世界中恐怖的无限可能性， 硕士学位论文 杨洋，晋艳（2011），爱伦坡恐怖美学对哥特作品的突破性影响，《名作欣赏》，15 袁京（2011），论爱伦坡《黑猫》恐怖气氛的营造，《名作欣赏》，12 张玉娟（2012），骇人而美丽 恐怖而刺激爱伦坡恐怖小说的恐怖意象，江苏教育学院学报，05 朱俊霞（2012），爱伦坡恐怖小说阅读心理探析，《短篇小说》，08 邹晓燕（2011），《一桶白葡萄酒》哥特式艺术手法探究，《作家》，24Outline1.Introduction 1.1 Life and experience of Edgar Allan Poe 1.2 Representative works of Edgar Allan Poe2. Literature review3. Theoretical basis: Gothic gengre 3.1 Origin and development of Gothic genre 3.2 Application of Gothic genre4. Horror factors 4.1 Horror image4.2 Horror atmosphere4.3 Horror scene 5. Reading psychology of horror fictions5.1 Horrible grotesque aesthetic5.2 First person narrative5.3 Horrible plot6. Similarities and differences between Chinese horror novles and Japanese horror fictions6.1 The pursuit of horror effect and artistic technique6.2 The imitation of subject matter selection6.3 The reference of technique of expression6.4 Reasons for the influence of Allan Poe in Chinese Literature 7. Conclusion

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