![]() ![]() Yes, we discussed the dominant theory that Poe’s often grief-filled life lent much to his insane characters and plot ideas. ![]() Intentionally.Īs my youngest son, age 17, and I read through Poe’s short works this past month, I found our discussions connecting these thoughts in a fascinating way. He designed his short fiction to run against taste and beauty. Of this latter, while Conscience teaches the obligation, and Reason the expediency, Taste contents herself with displaying the charms: -waging war upon Vice solely on the ground of her deformity-her disproportion-her animosity to the fitting, to the appropriate, to the harmonious-in a word, to Beauty.” In other words, because of his strong moral sense, Poe did mean to shock and startle. In his essay and lecture titled “The Poetic Principle,” Poe explains, “Just as the Intellect concerns itself with Truth, so Taste informs us of the Beautiful, while the Moral Sense is regardful of Duty. The vices, the perversity, could not exist without a moral standard to rub against. I am certain Poe was quite conscious of morality even as he wrote of hatred, murder, and revenge. The demands of the will become of paramount importance.” This is most evident in his short story “The Fall of the House of Usher,” where Poe clearly combined physical horror like entombment with horror of the mind such as hysteria and catatonia. No longer does the external world threaten as much as the internal. In his introduction to Gothic Horror, Clive Bloom writes, “For Poe it is perversity that marks horror just as peculiarity is the mark of art, and both confront common sense, decency and normal moral codes. This nuance captivated readers then and still does today. Suddenly Tales of Horror had a distinctly American flair and a surprising psychological depth. What of satirical jabs at the gothic novel like Northanger Abbey? Or those stories like Jane Eyre that lend such reality that gothic cliché fades away?Īt the same time that Brontë brought depth of character to the gothic setting in the 19th century, Edgar Allan Poe revitalized the genre in mid-century America. What role does science play with piety or superstition? We could examine The Monk, Castle of Wolfenbach, The Mysteries of Udolpho, or The Turn of the Screw. Should man create life from nothing or leave it to his Creator? Consider Dracula. Consider Frankenstein and Victor’s ethical dilemma of creating life from death. This was gothic style.īefore the vampire and zombie novels of our past decade, the gothic tale trumped stories of entertainment, appealing to our darkest ponderings-at base, crossing the line from light to dark, perhaps experiencing the consequence of evil and sin. It was not a new idea, but it was a new way to tell a story. I’m not sure if he spurred or spawned it, but Walpole hit on something. Imitations sprung up like weeds, and he was soon part of pop culture in 1765. Though he first published the tale anonymously on his own printing press, Walpole surprised himself by developing a quick following of readers and authors alike. It wasn’t a long story, but it was replete with stock elements such as a haunted medieval castle, damsels in distress, ghosts, dungeons, sound effects, and a taste for cheesy melodrama. Two hundred and fifty years ago, Horace Walpole was credited with creating quite a stir with the first gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto. At the same time that writers were bringing depth of character to the gothic setting in the 19th century, Edgar Allan Poe revitalized the genre in mid-century America.
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