Edgar Allan Poe

Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1908)

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 1849)

American romantic poet Best known for his mystery One of the earliest practitioners of short story and inventor of detectivefiction genre Rational composition of tales Horror as a result of human wrath

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 1849)

He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston His mother early died and his father abandoned family He was adopted by John and Frances Allan He studied university for one semester he left for lack of money He married his cousin Virginia (13) He died because of alcohol and drugs

Tales of Mystery and Imagination

The first complete collection of Poes tales Includes 10 short stories

The Fall of the House of Usher

Edgar Allan Poe 1839

The Fall of the House of Usher

The gothic context of the tale:

Gothic Elements
Supernatural horrors and an atmosphere of unknown terror pervades the action High emotion, sentimentalism, but also pronounced anger, surprise, and especially
terror

Use of words indicating fear, mystery, etc.: apparition, devil, ghost, haunted, terror, fright, fainting Emphasis on setting

Exterior: landscape
Interior: houses

Castle-like architecture Characters are brooding, secretive Buried family secrets Long history of family tied to place

The Gothic literary tradition

Begun in eighteenth century England Novelists

Horace Walpole Ann Radcliffe Matthew Monk Lewis

Popular form in British literary journals Imported into American short story - 19th century Key ingredient was sensationalism

Gothic Architecture in America

Started in US about 1840 Steeply pitched roofs Pointed arch windows Elaborate trim around roof edges High dormers Lancet windows

GOTHIC.. continued

Poes house of Usher looks more like a medieval castle or English cathedral in Gothic style

The vision.. Secretive, eerie

The house might look something like this (from a photograph by

Simon Marsden in his Visions of Poe)

Who Represents What?

Roderick
An artist figure Nervous agitation Lives in dark upstairs apartment Cadaverous complexion want of moral energy excessive nervous agitation

Rodericks mental condition is affected by his environment He was enchanted by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted . . . An effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence.

Here, physique refers to something physical And morale refers to something mental

Roderick is all mind in a weak body He represents in one way the life of the isolated artist

Paintings Reading Guitar playing

Madeleine
Illness has debilitated her
All descriptions focus on the body gradual wasting away of the person Roderick and the narrator screw down the lid of her coffin She returns from the tomb to reclaim her twin brother, her double the huge antique panelsthrew back She fell heavily inward uponher brother andbore him to the floor a corpse

The Red Death

Nobles wanted to remove mask from the mysterious guest and they find that there is no human body in clothes They realize that the figure is the Red Death and all nobles have this disease The clock stop forever And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

The Red Death

The Red Death: killed thousands people

Heavy bleeding through the skin, death came in half an hour

Prince Prospero and one thousand other nobles have taken refuge in his walled abbey to escape There is 7 room painted in different colour and one is painted black with blood-red window and clock

The Red Death

Prince holds a carnival in black room There appeared a figure which looks like death and have symptoms of Red Death Prospero would like to kill him but when the figure turns to face him, the Prince falls dead.