爱伦坡及其作品中的哥特式元素

1、爱伦坡及其作品中的哥特式元素poe and gothic elements in his worksabstract: the gothic tradition plays an important role in english and american literature, and many writers have inherited the writing tradition in their novels. this paper analyzes the influence of the gothic tradition on the creation of poes famous

2、 gothic stories which contain gothic elements in many aspects, including themes, characters, environment, details and climaxes and so on. at the same time, poe adds disintegrating mentality and fresh energy into the old form of gothic tradition. whats more, he endows the characters with complicated

3、psychological description which makes the old gothic form perfect. he makes his gothic stories imitate the gothic technique successfully and adds something new to gothic tradition as well. as a result his gothic stories maintain the unique and everlasting artistic charm in the literature.key words:

4、edgar allan poe; gothic novels; gothic tradition; improvement摘要：哥特式传统在英美文学的创作中扮演着非常重要的角色，许多作家都把这一传统用到他们的作品中。本文旨在分析哥特式传统在爱伦坡的著名哥特式小说中的运用与影响。这些著作在主题、人物、环境的描述以及细节和情节的刻画方面都运用了哥特式的协作方法。爱伦坡将分裂的心理和新鲜的能量注入旧的哥特式形式，并赋予小说中的人物畸形的心理刻画使其与传统的哥特式完美结合。他在巧妙地运用哥特式传统的同时又增添了新的元素，使得他的哥特式小说在世界文学艺术中保持着持久的魅力。关键词：爱伦坡；哥特式小说；哥

5、特式传统；传承contentsi. an introduction to the gothic tradition and its influence on literature.1a. the origin of gothic tradition and its development.1b. the beginning of gothic novel.2c. the characteristics of gothic novel.3ii. a brief introduction to edgar allan poe and his gothic novels.3iii. gothic d

6、epiction plays a key role in poes gothic works.5a. gothic application to the description of environment.5b. gothic application to the creation of characters disintegrating mind.6c. gothic application to the device of climax.7iv. edgar allan poes improvement on the gothic tradition.7v. conclusion.9wo

7、rks cited.10. an introduction to the gothic tradition and its influence on literaturea. the origin of gothic tradition and its development the term “gothic” admittedly, originated from a confluence of history and architecture. the goths were a northern germanic european people whose ways and beliefs

8、 differed largely from those of greco-roman classical civilization farther south. so to the southern outlook, the goths were wholly uncivilized and barbarous. they were absorbed by christianity, brought a unique architectural and artistic sensibility. gradually, “gothic style” becomes the representi

9、ve style of “the middle age” in europe (hayes 73). the gothic architecture is always very strange and eccentric, high and broad, and with a heavy atmosphere of religion. it is not only frequently associated with architecture, and it can also be applied to sculpture, panel painting, illuminated manus

10、cripts, stained glass, jewellery and textiles produced in that period. the gothic style expressed the essence of the catholic faith, concerned with creating a sense of the numinous, of the presence of god, while still incorporating older pagan (nature-worship) symbolism: gargoyles, elemental spirits

11、 whose purpose was to ward off evil. however, the term “gothic” was never actually applied to any of these art forms until after “the dark ages” was over. with the arrival of the renaissance and the enlightenment, anything medieval came to be seen as backward and primitive, associated with brutality

12、, superstition and feudalism. gothic was therefore used derisively until a revival of interest in everything medieval occurred in the mid-to-late 18th century. in the 18th century, the novel was coming into its own as an established literary form, many novelists began to look to older, oral and roma

13、ntic traditions (e.g. the arthurian legends) as a literary source essentially, a reaction against ideas of the enlightenment and realistic literary conventions. romanticism was a literary genre preferring grandeur, picturesqueness, passion, and extraordinary beauty. like the gothic art style, romant

14、icism was considered the opposite of classical, and also particularly medieval in character. the gothic novel, distinctive for its fascination with the horrible, the repellent, the grotesque and the supernatural, in combination with many of the characteristics of the romantic novel, was (and still i

15、s) seen by some critics as a sub-genre of romanticism, and by others as a genre in its own right (snyder 212).b. the beginning of gothic novelthe gothic novel began with horace walpoles the castle of otranto (1765), which was enormously popular and quickly imitated by other novelists and soon became

16、 a recognizable genre. to most modern readers, however, the castle of otranto is a dull reading. except for the villain manfred, the characters are insipid and flat; the action moves at a fast clip with no emphasis or suspense. but contemporary readers found the novel electrifyingly original and thr

17、illingly suspenseful, with its remote setting, its use of the supernatural, and its medieval trappings, all of which have been so frequently and poorly imitated that they have become stereotypes. the genre takes its name from otrantos medieval or gothicsetting. early gothic novelists tended to set t

18、heir novels in remote times like “the middle ages” and in remote places like italy or the middle east (hayes 75).c. the characteristics of gothic novelswhat makes a work gothic is a combination of at least some of these elements: a castle, ruined or intact, haunted or not (the castle plays such a ke

19、y role that it has been called the main character of the gothic novel); a curious heroine with a tendency to faint and a need to be rescued frequently; a hero whose true identity is revealed by the end of the novel; a passion-driven, willful villain-hero or villain; dungeons, underground passages, c

20、rypts, and catacombs which, in modern houses become spooky basements or attics; extreme landscapes, like rugged mountains, thick forests, or icy wastes, and extreme weather; horrifying (or terrifying) events or the threat of such happenings; labyrinths, dark corridors, and winding stairs; magic, sup

21、ernatural manifestations, or the suggestion of the supernatural; omens and ancestral curses; ruined buildings which are sinister or which arouse a pleasing melancholy; shadows, a beam of moonlight in the blackness, a flickering candle, or the only source of light failing (a candle blown out or, toda

22、y, an electric failure); the gothic creates feelings of gloom, mystery, and suspense and tends to the dramatic and the sensational, like incest, diabolism, necrophilia, and nameless terrors. it crosses boundaries, mixed daylight and the dark side, life and death, consciousness and unconsciousness. s

23、ometimes covertly, sometimes explicitly, it presents transgression, taboos, and fears fears of violation, of imprisonment, of social chaos, and of emotional collapse. most of us immediately recognize the gothic elements (even if we dont know the name) when we encounter it in novels, poetry, plays, m

24、ovies, and tv series. to some readers safely experiencing dread or horror is thrilling and enjoyable. gothic fiction, the frightening and horrifying stories of various kinds have been told in all ages, but the tradition confusingly designated as “gothic” is a distinct modern development in which the

25、 characteristic theme is the stranglehold of the past upon the present, or the encroachment of the “dark” age of oppression upon the “enlightened” modern era (drabble 422). in gothic romances and tales this theme is embodied typically in enclosed and haunted settings such as castles, crypts, convent

26、s, or gloomy mansions, in images of ruin and decay, and in episodes of imprisonment, cruelty, and persecution. from those sources the first master of america gothic writing, poe, developed a more intensity hysterical style in gothic stories.gothic elements have made their way into mainstream writing

27、. they are found in sir walter scotts novels, charlotte brontes jane eyre, and emily brontes wuthering heights and in romantic poetry like samuel coleridges “christabel” lord byrons “the giaour” john keatss “the eve of st. agnes”,etc. a tendency to the macabre and bizarre which appears in writers li

28、ke william faulkner, truman capote, and flannery oconnor has been called southern gothic (hayes 74). . a brief introduction to edgar allan poe and his gothic novelspoe, novelist and poet, is one of the most important figures of american literature in nineteenth century.his life experience and hard w

29、riting career stamped a direct and deep influence in his creating of short stories and poems, the main literary forms, both of them are not the reflection of the real world, but the imagination of him. most of them are gothic novels with decadent content, eccentric and abnormal psychological charact

30、ers, and the plot of death and decadence.usually the basic tone of them is negative and oppressive, filled with mysteries. the ancient eccentric castles, decadent temples or abbeys and the ghastly crypts are always the happening places of his gothic novels. his heroes often present as crazy noble, t

31、he murder who tortured himself, the weak neurotic man who addicted in the corpses and death, or the man with abnormal psychology. these abnormal heroes and heroines were locked in the terrible castles, abbeys, crypts or inner world, and standing various kinds of pain and horror. poes gothic novels s

32、how, though carefully crafted symbols, complex characters in deep psychological states. the symbols are rays of light that poe casts on those hidden, deep recesses of the human mind. often, the stories gain added complexity and sophistication because of poes use of complex narrators. in order to sho

33、w the details of their psychological states, poe did his best to place the characters in a special situation to enhance the force of his works. whats more, his characters own an alter ego or a double, thus signifying the incompleteness and the self-loathing part of an individual. sometimes the chara

34、cters try to escape from or destroy or bury the part of the self which is represent as the double, the annihilation of the double or the half of ones half, leads to the destruction of the other half, thus to the self-destruction(tong 117-118). actually, the gothic novels originated from the late eig

35、hteenth century in england, after 1920s, its core position transferred to america, among them, the novels written by poe are the most famous (wei 1). he is a famous novelist, his works impacted deeply on many european and american writers. he is good at depicting the horrible scenes and the morbid p

36、sychology.when it comes to poe, a famous american novelist, no one can ignore his gothic novels. what, however, contributes to the authors success of those works? there are two main reasons. one is the environmental impact on the authors growth. poe was born in a poor travel actors family; his paren

37、ts died when he was only three years old. this sudden death probably warped him for the rest of life. he was taken into the home of john allan, a successful and ambitious richmond merchant. because of lack of parents love, especially fathers love, and the conflicts between his foster-father, he live

38、d a lonely life which made him eccentric to the society. and his character was full of contradictions, naturally stubborn and willful, gloomy, indignant and intolerant. he, however, had a strong and creative brain filled with eccentric but depressed mighty. poe was endowed with the unique imaginatio

39、n which a novelist must have. and both his character and his mind were with gothic color which can be seen in “william wilson”.another is the impact of the authors morbid love affection. poe had an unhappy childhood during which time he had senses of inferiority, timidness, introversion, and precoci

40、ty. during school time, he felt more and more insecure and estrange from his schoolmates for his lowly origin and more and more antagonistic to mr. allan out of love for his sick foster-mothera standard oedipus relationship. being a passionate boy, while still at school, he fell in love with a beaut

41、iful young mother of one of his friendsmr. stanard. after that, he married a thirteen-year-old child wife virginia who was fatally ill and died in her 23. in “ligeia” and “the fall of the house of usher”, we can easily find the influence of his morbid love affection. all his life he craved love and

42、tenderness, but was doomed to lose in turn all the women he loved. when he reached a sheltered childhood and adolescence he encountered nothing but failures and denials. . gothic depiction plays a key role in poes gothic novels“the permanent charm of literature usually is the most unique and the mos

43、t inconceivable works and that those can make people feel greatly mysterious, instead of those of the most extensive living space and the most profound scale” (cecil. d. 162). because of gothic depiction, poes gothic novels can be. and the peculiar effect caused by the depiction is clearly reflected

44、 in his writing.a. gothic application to the description of environment poes stories in gothic novels almost happened in a hellish environment. in “the fall of the house of usher”, when “i” saw the melancholy house of usher, “a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit”, “bleak wall”, “the vaca

45、nt eye-like windows”, “decayed trees” and “mansion of gloom”. when entering the house, what the reader see are “dark and intricate passages”, “the somber tapestries of the wall”, “the ebon blackness of the floor, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies” (li 175-180). all the things what he saw pave

46、d the way of gothic effect to the readers and make them feel that there is a kind of “ pestilent and mystic vapor” over the house of usher. poe applied a lot of rhetorical devices to show the horrible environment, for instance, at the beginning of the story, he used alliteration, such as “during, du

47、ll, dark, day, dreary, drew”, in which many voiced consonant “d” to strengthen the heavy atmosphere. and with the readers imagination, or the visual effect, the sentences show the time, place and background to the readers clearly. without telling story, the horrible and ghastly effects have been alr

48、eady for readers. in “ligeia”, “i” met ligeia most frequently in “some large, old and decaying city near the rhine”. her family is “remotely ancient”. after ligeias death, “i”, in order to be far away from the sorrow of losing loved woman, purchased “one of the wildest and least frequented portions

49、of fair england”, “gloomy and grandeur of the building” (li 2-13). the stylistic gothic environments contribute a more terror and more expectable plot of the story. that is really a good way to attract people. almost his gothic stories took place or developed under such atmosphere: dim, ghastly, mys

50、terious and horrible-stricken, such as “the black cat”, “the masque of the red death”. this kind of natural environment can further deepen the smell of mystery and gloomy which can create a charming and blood-curding atmosphere. poes gothic stories set in a mysterious and horrible environment both i

51、n the real nature environment and the inner movement of the characters, the author described a strange and a nameless terror for us. while reading those stories, you will be absorbed in the terror atmosphere which the author created. b. gothic application to the creation of characters disintegrating

52、 mindthe characters described in poes gothic novels belong to gothic mode. another look at “the fall of the house of usher” will reveal it is interesting in more ways than one. here in the decaying, disintegrating house lived a sister and a brother. roderick usher, the brother, is very much a poes c

53、haracter. he knows every turn of his own disintegrating mind. at beginning, he was so sensitive that he can hear the sound which his sister made in the coffin. but he suffered the terrible sound rather than saved his sister for that he can not make himself believe he had buried his sister in the cof

54、fin alive. so, on one hand, deep in his mind he was sad, nervous and horrible, on the other hand, he was more horrible to acknowledge the fact that his sister in the coffin alive. at last, at a stormy night, the sister broke the coffin and came out died in the embrace of his brother who also died at

55、 the same time.approaching the theme from a slightly different point of view is the story “william wilson”. the namesake schoolmate of william wilson is in the point of fact his double, and wilsons mind refuses to acknowledge what he really is until it is totally disintegrated. “ligeia” is a good ca

56、se in the point, too. the narrator was so obsessed with the death of his first wife that he can not see his second wife except in the guise of his first wife ligeia. more than that, even his vision is reflected in the eyes of his first wife: there is no sense of reality except as he knows it from he

57、r. “the tell-tale heart”, a tale of murder, tends to present the internal disintegration in an exterior way. the narrator-murder is obviously a schizophrenic, to whom the eyes of the victim prove to be intolerable. on one hand, the murder-narrator does not hate the old man, even love him for he thou

58、ght that “he had never wronged me”, and “he had never given me insult”, while, on the other hand, the murder-narrator can not stand the “vulture-a pale blue eye, with a film over it”. that is just one case to show his disintegrating mind. we can also see it in the end of the story that he was too proud of not being found guilty to keep the corpse under the floor. “the black cat” is an incisive inquiry into the capacity of the