爱伦坡的死亡观在《乌鸦》中的体现-毕业论文

1、【标题】爱?伦坡的死亡观在乌鸦中的体现 【作者】杨力 【关键词】埃德加?爱伦?坡；死亡观；乌鸦；美 【指导老师】赵洪尹 翟赫 【专业】英语 【正文】.IntroductionEdgar Allan Poe(1809-1849) is one of the most controversial literary figures in American history. For a long time after his death, Poe didnt get the recognition he deserved, but his talents in literature has been

2、gradually rediscovered and appreciated by now. Contemporary critics consider him as a pioneering aesthetician and psychological investigator, and his reputation with the reading public is more secured than that of any other major American writer of his time.Many critics have expressed their amazemen

3、t regarding the relative paucity of Poes poetic output in relation to his status as a great poet. T. S. Eliot once noted,“He wrote very few poems, and of those few only half a dozen have had a great success: but those few are as well known to as large a number of people, are as well remembered by ev

4、erybody, as any poems ever written.” 1 Of all the poems many agree that The Raven is Poes finest poems. Ever since The Raven was first published on 29th January 1845, in N. P. Williss“New York Evening Mirror”, it brings Poe national and international fame.In the poem, the first person narrator confi

5、nes in his chamber and try to ease his pain for his lost love Lenore with old books of forgotten lore. Weak and weary, he is nearly napping. Then he hears a tapping on the door and then on the window lattice, which brings the narrator both fear and a mood of expectancy. When he opens the shutter, th

6、e bird of ill-omen, a stately raven steps in and perches on the bust of Pallas, which is the goddess of wisdom in Greek mythology. When the narrator is confronting the raven and takes it as a speaker, he asks questions about the destiny of his dead love Lenore but is frustrated by the single-word re

7、sponse:“Nevermore”, which drives the narrators mood to permanent despair.Edgar Allan Poe illustrates his view on death and poetry in“The Poetic Principle”. He puts his theory into practice in his poems. This thesis takes The Raven as an example, explains this poem in detail from the prospects of pho

8、netic elements and imagery elements, which reflect his poetic principle. In this way, readers can witness Poes creation of“death of beauty” and fully appreciate his aesthetic principles. The death of beauty reveals Poes infinite inspiration, and through which he makes, the perfect combination of dea

9、th and beauty achieved.A General Account of Poes View on DeathAllan Poe is regarded as the progenitor of both the symbolic literature in the schools of western contemporary novel and detective or psychological analysis novels in the history of literature all over the world. He is also the founder of

10、 American short-story novelist who focuses on the theme of death. His works are full of horror, mystery and romance. For nearly one and half a century, the critics from different countries have taken great interest in his works. Though there are variety of comments on his works, the theme of death i

11、s widely focused on accordingly, in order to know the great novelist well, it is essential for us to pay more attention to the content, the cause and the profound significance of his works.A. The Connotation of the Theme of DeathPoes writing reflects his literary theories, which he presented in his

12、criticism and also in essays such as“The Poetic Principle”. He disliked didacticism and allegory, though he believed that meaning in literature should be an undercurrent just beneath the surface.2“Works with obvious meanings”, he wrote,“cease to be art.”3 He believed that quality work should be brie

13、f and focus on a specific single effect.4 To that end, he believed that the writer should carefully calculate every sentiment and idea. According to the famous principle of effort, the works focusing on the theme of death can be classified into 4 categories:Horrible stories that occurs a considerabl

14、e number of time, even appears in deeper heart of the people, which approves the fact that Allan Poe uses is not the formal one but poetry and comes from the fact that the horrible method comes from the depth of our human consciousness. The Raven is the most topical work which is about horrible read

15、ing. The whole poem is as if a terrible scene. The poem tells the horrible topic through the following three factors: the scene background, the music and the light. The raven is chosen by the author to describe a terrible scene. Its every“never return” answer perfectly to actors each question and“ne

16、ver return” echoes actors sorrow mood. The theme of terrible death not only appears in his poetry but also in his short stories. In the story“The Black Cat”, the actor who lost consciousness finally killed his cat and his kind-hearted wife. The whole story appears the horrible topic by the clue, the

17、 effect and the discussion to mans kindness.Following the rules of consistency of effect, the theme of Allan Poes short stories primarily chose something strange never happens. In his short story, Allan Poe writes it well and he doesnt focus on discussing if it is true, but concentrates on revealing

18、 peoples deeper feeling. Therefore, his short stories make people fell the scene of the art as well. In the book A Tale of the ragged Mountains and The facts in the case of M. Valdemar, Allan Poe uses the main method in psychological analysis-hypnotism and he approves its magical function.“The fact”

19、 Allan Poe describes is just something inexistent and“the fact” is the authors demand to write seriously as if stating ones own experience.Love knot is the conscious trend which is consisted of unconscious concepts, emotion, and memory in psychology. It affects ones thinking and the emotion, includi

20、ng revenging mood which is something stressed in ones deeper heart. Allan Poe experienced unpleasant time in his whole life, therefore he revealed his unpleasant mood in his revenging stories, and the most typical ones are“Hop-Frog” and“The Cask of Amontillado”. The latter is the most representative

21、 and the most successful one to represent the theme of revenge. The revenge plans the trick, sets place and time, and applies the method of symbol.In his opinion, death equals to happiness. Allan Poe praises death and ideal love. He said“Happiness in their death-death means happy life to them.”5 The

22、 topic about death is also mentioned in“The Assignation”. However people never fed unpleasant or horrible about death; on the contrary, they feel romantic. Allan Poe uses death to reveal the desire of beyond life and it is one of the most influential concepts in the theme of death.B. Death of Beauty

23、, as the Most Poetical MotifBeauty is most typically demonstrated in Allan Poes obsession with the death theme, his appeal for morbid beauty and atmospheric effect, and his innovation and exploration of beauty in poetry. Be it death, morbidity or aesthetic forms or verses, they all serve to create a

24、 unified effect of“the excitement of the soul”, thus enabling the readers a special aesthetic experience in an excitement of the soul.“Death of the beauty” as a poetic effect is first raised by Poe in his critical article“The Philosophy of Composition”,“The death, then, of a beautiful woman is unque

25、stionably the most poetical topic in the world”.6 Death is chosen by the poet as the ideal subject to produce the poetical effect in his poetry-a melancholy and sublime mood.“Now never losing sight of the object supremeness, or perfection, at all points, I asked myselfof all melancholy topics, what

26、according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy? Death was the obvious reply.”7For the poet, Death as the most melancholy topic, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is most suitable for his pursuit of Beauty with supremeness and perfection. It is obvious

27、that the immediate purpose of the death theme is to produce an effect that is related to the sense of beauty. The most eye-catching characteristic of Poes poetry is that it sets a close relation between Death and Beauty. And the poets attitude towards death under artistic treatment in his poetry bes

28、t demonstrates his aesthetic conceptions. Poe has his peculiar ideas about Death and Beauty which have their own metaphysical meanings related to the aesthetic effect the poet pursues in his poems.The poet has his own unique perception of poetical beauty, as he claimed:“When, indeed, men speak of Be

29、auty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect-they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of the soul-not of intellect, or of heart-upon which I have commented, and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating the beautiful.”8In this very article,

30、 Poe uses the word“effect” twenty-one times in both single and plural forms to describe the way he believes how beauty in a poem should be created. For the poet, the poetic beauty could only be possibly created in the excitement aroused by a poem in readers soul; the perception of beauty is rather s

31、ubjective. And Poe, whose special taste of beauty was cultivated by his miseries in life, appeals to the morbid and terrible things for this very effect of“poetical excitement”.The presentation of Death scene will get the readers shocked as well as fascinated. This effect brought by Death belongs to

32、 what Burke called the sublimity in aesthetics. According to Burke, the effect brought by the sublime things is greater than the common sense of beauty:Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terr

33、ible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime: that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. I say the strongest emotion; because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the p

34、art of pleasure. But as pain is stronger in its operation than pleasure, so death is in general a much more affecting idea than pain. 9Actually, there are several references to Burke in Poes works. And in a review published in The Southern Literary Messenger in 1836, Poe quotes the author and exclai

35、ms:“What a moment!” and“what a spectacle for the lover of the sublime and beautiful!” And this chapter will be unfolded in the examination of the aesthetic value of the theme of Death and especially the“death of a beautiful woman“respectively in accordance with Burkes aesthetic theories as well as P

36、oes own“philosophy” of composition.C. The Motives of Originating the Theme of Death, and SignificanceAllan Poes theory of consistency and effect is the gist to classify his works. Its also the principle he pursues through his whole life. In order to fully embody the theory, he sets the basic tone of

37、 his writing, accordingly, takes topics and materials into account. In addition, another famous theory is the emphasis of beauty, excitement and implication. Allan Poe not only inherits but also excels the original writing style of Gothic novels. His perfect designing and profound connotation in wri

38、ting make his works more reliable. Allan Poe lost his parents when he was quite young. He didnt get along with his adopted father, his beloved wife passed away too early. He was also looked down upon in career. As an unlucky youngster from the south, he experienced too many troubles, he hated realit

39、y and looked forward to the future, as a result, he attempted to get rid of the trouble from the realistic world by describing death. Allan Poe gives considerable influence over the aestheticism in Britain, the symbolism in France, even LuXun, the great writer in our country. Allan Poes works charac

40、terizingfrom fun to ridicule, from scare to horrification, from wit to irony, from specialty to mystery, generate a contrastable writing style and makes remarkable achievement, its still popular till now. Among Poes various representations of death and dying, we can discern that, for Poe, death was

41、indeed gigantic, not in crude bodily terms but as a phenomenon that is present everywhere and hard to bear. Personal experience, popular culture, and intellectual history silently plan to make it so. As Bacon, the great English philosopher says,“He(One) that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one th

42、at is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time, scare feels the heart; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good doth avert the dolours of death.”10. Poes View on Death from the Perspective of Phonetic ElementsRhyme is defined in Concise Oxford Dictionary as“identity of sounds be

43、tween words or verse lines extending back from the end to the last fully accented vowel and not further.”11 The general function of rhymes is to get the texts more organized and to bestow“music” to the texts. But rhyme is also used to bind lines which are closely associated in content to serve as an

44、 important device for literary effects. End-rhyme, internal rhyme and alliteration are widely used in Poes The Raven.A. The Use of End Rhyme and Internal RhymeIn each stanza of the poem, the second line, the fourth line and the fifth, and the sixth lines are rhymed with/o:/, such as“nothing more”,“n

45、evermore”,”evermore”./ o：/ is repeatedly used to strengthen the inner connection, and touches readers from time to time. It is like the painful groaning of a patient, who is suffering great pain, and can not express it to others, only swallowing into his heart. As time goes on, the pain shall occur

46、more frequently and become sharper, until the patient dies forlornly. Here the narrator in The Raven, due to the/ o：/ sound, is like a dying person, asking information about his dead lover. He dies to get some information of his beloved. But all answer he gets is“nevermore”, which even worsens his m

47、iserable situation. Like a knell,“nevermore” renders an extreme forlorn scene, evoking a tragic sense in readers inner heart. We are almost sharing his sorrow until the narrator breaks his heart in the end and becomes almost insane. Under the effect, readers are so close to having experienced a cris

48、is in their lifetime.Internal rhyme is also distributed at every place in the poem, which actually is an end-rhyme located within a line. For example:Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,While I nodded, nearly napping, s

49、uddenly there came a tapping.12In the first line,“dreary” and“weary” is a pair of internal rhyme. In the third line,“napping” and“tapping” is a pair of internal rhyme. Of the eighteen stanzas in the poem, internal rhyme is located in the first and the third line of each stanza with the exception of

50、the eleventh stanza, such as“remember” and“December”,“morrow” and“borrow” in the second stanza,“beating” and“repeating” in the third stanza,“shutter” and“flutter” in the seventh stanza, etc. For one thing, internal rhymes add to the musicality of the poem. Besides, internal rhymes strengthen the int

51、ernal connection of the lines, increasing its wholeness.B. The Use of AlliterationFrom the same three lines in the last papagraph, we can also see the use of alliteration. It, in literature, has a significant role to play. It is used to link together words that are similar in feeling or thought to g

52、ive great emphasis to the words. Thus achieving some special effect. Like end rhyme, alliteration used systematically can coordinate a metrical pattern with the segmental phones-providing sonic themes for the-the consonants and vowels-verbal music, not primarily for the verbal sense. It can help the

53、 writer to create or deepen a specific mood, such as a heavy and depressed mood, or a lighted and hilarious one.In the first line“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary.”,“weak and weary” makes the line more musical to read on one hand, and on the other hand, it helps to expre

54、ss the heros pathetic mood. The hero is both physically and spiritually withered. In” while I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping”,“nodded, nearly napping” gives readers a vivid description of the present condition of the sad hero. He is processing from weariness to falling asleep,

55、 which casts a foreshadowing for the tense atmosphere when the raven appears. Therefore, the use of alliteration helps to create a certain atmosphere, besides the musical effect. In The Raven, Poe also uses alliteration to describe the ominous raven:“What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and omi

56、nous bird of yore. Readers perceive a disgusting sense of the bird from“grim, ungainly, ghastly, and gaunt”13. And surely it helps Poe realize his principle to make poems“the rhythmical creation of beauty”.14C. The Use of OnomatopoeiaOnomatopoeia is another device Poe uses to realize his poetic prin

57、ciple. Onomatopoeia is referred to by Alexander Pope as a necessary part of a poets technique.15 It is usually phrased as the recurrence of the phonemes in a text unit that suggests certain natural sounds which reinforce the meaning conveyed in that text unit and bring readers to that environment. T

58、he choice of certain vowels and consonants along with the adoption of onomatopoeia constitute phonaesthesia. Look at the following lines:Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;Not the least obeisance made he; no

59、t an instant stopped or stayed he;But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber doorPerched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber doorPerched; and sat, and nothing more.16In the first line, Poe uses three consonant clusters/ fl/ to imitate the action of the raven. And if we analyze further, we are ea