南开大学 外国语学院 美国文学课件 爱伦坡

1、Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849),father of modern short story father of detective story father of psychoanalytic criticism,1) Works,Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque “MS. Found in a Bottle” C) “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”,奇异怪诞故事集,瓶子里发现的手稿,毛格街杀人案,“The Fall of the House of Usher” “The Masque of t

2、he Red Death” “The Cask of Amontillado”,厄舍古屋的倒塌,红色死亡的化妆舞会,一桶酒的故事,Poetry The Raven，Israfel， Annabel Lee， To Helen “ .the death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world” _ Allen Poe,2) Life,Famous American Poet, short-story writer and critic.,3) Evaluation,Poe rema

3、ined the most controversial and most misunderstood literary figure in the history of American literature.,Emerson dismissed him in three words “the jingle man” （招摇的人），Mark Twain declared his prose to be unreadable. And Whitman was the only famous literary figure present at the Poe Memorial Ceremony

4、in 1875.,Ironically, it was in Europe that Poe enjoyed respect and welcome. Bernard Shaw said: “Poe was the greatest journalistic critic of his time; his poetry is exquisitely refined; and his tales are “complete works of art”.,Poes reputation was first made in France. Charles Baudelaire said that “

5、Edgar Poe, who isnt much in America, must become a great man in France.”,Today, Poes particular power has ensured his position among the greatest writers of the world. The majority of critics today, in America as well as in the world, have recognized the real, unique importance of Poe as a great wri

6、ter of fiction, a poet of the first rank, and a critic of great insight. His works are read the world over. His influence is world-wide in modern literature.,The Raven is noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking ravens mysterious visit to a dist

7、raught lover, tracing the mans slow descent into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore.,The raven, sitting on a bust of Pallas, seems to further instigate (加剧）his distress with its constant repetition of the word, Nevermore. Throughout the

8、poem, Poe makes allusions to folklore and various classical works.,The Raven follows an unnamed narrator who sits reading forgotten lore as a method to forget the loss of his love, Lenore. A rapping at his chamber doorreveals nothing, but excites his soul to burning. A similar rapping, slightly loud

9、er, is heard at his window. When he goes to investigate, a raven steps into his chamber. Paying no attention to the man, the raven perches on a bust of Pallas.,Amused by the ravens comically serious disposition, the man demands that the bird tell him its name. The ravens only answer is Nevermore. Th

10、e narrator is surprised that the raven can talk, though it will say nothing further. He reasons that the bird learned the word Nevermore from some unhappy master and that it is the only word it knows.,The narrator remarks that his friend the raven will soon fly out of his life, just as other friends

11、 have flown before“ along with his previous hopes. As if answering, the raven responds again with Nevermore. The narrator is convinced that this single word, possibly learned from a previous owner with bad luck, is all that the bird can say.,Even so, the narrator pulls his chair directly in front of

12、 the raven, determined to learn more about it. He thinks for a moment, not saying anything, but his mind wanders back to his lost Lenore. He thinks the air grows denser and feels the presence of angels. Confused by the association of the angels with the bird, the narrator becomes angry, calling the

13、raven a thing of evil and a prophet. As he yells at the raven it only responds, Nevermore.,Finally, the narrator asks the raven if he will be reunited with Lenore in heaven. When the raven responds with its typical “Nevermore”, he shrieks and commands the raven to return to the “Plutonian shore”, th

14、ough it never moves. Presumably at the time of the poems recitation （重述）by the narrator, the raven still is sitting“ on the bust of Pallas. The narrators final admission is that his soul is trapped beneath the ravens shadow and shall be lifted Nevermore.,The main theme of the poem is one of undying

15、（永恒的）devotion. The narrator experiences a perverse conflict between desire to forget and desire to remember. He seems to get some pleasure from focusing on loss. The narrator assumes that the word Nevermore is the ravens only stock and store, and yet he continues to ask it questions, knowing what th

16、e answer will be.,The narrator questions, then, are purposely self-deprecating （驳斥）and further incite his feelings of loss. Poe leaves it unclear if the raven actually knows what it is saying or if it really intends to cause a reaction in the poems narrator. The narrator begins as weak and weary, be

17、comes regretful and grief-stricken, before passing into a frenzy（狂乱） and, finally, madness.,The tale opens with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country complaining of an illness and asking for his co

18、mfort.,Ushers symptoms can be described according to its terminology. They include hyperesthesia (extreme hypersensitivity to light, sounds, smells, and tastes), hypochondria (an excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness), and acute anxiety.,It is revealed that Ushers twin sist

19、er, Madeline, is also ill and falls into cataleptic, death-like trances（昏厥）. The narrator is impressed with Ushers paintings, and attempts to cheer him by reading with him and listening to his improvised musical compositions on the guitar. Usher sings “The Haunted Palace”, then tells the narrator th

20、at he believes the house he lives in to be sentient（有知觉力的）, and that this sentience arises from the arrangement of the masonry and vegetation surrounding it.,Usher later informs the narrator that his sister has died and insists that she be entombed for two weeks in a vault in the house before being

21、permanently buried. They inter （料理后事，如埋葬等）her, but over the next week both Usher and the narrator find themselves becoming increasingly agitated for no apparent reason. A storm begins. Usher comes to the narrators bedroom, which is situated directly above the vault, and throws open his window to the

22、 storm. He notices that the bog （沼泽）surrounding the house seems to glow in the dark, as it glowed in Roderick Ushers paintings, although there is no lightning.,The narrator attempts to calm Usher by reading aloud The Mad Trist, a novel involving a knight named Ethelred who breaks into a hermits dwel

23、ling in an attempt to escape an approaching storm, only to find a palace of gold guarded by a dragon. He also finds hanging on the wall a shield of shining brass of which is written a legend: that the one who slays the dragon wins the shield. With a stroke of his mace, Ethelred fells the dragon, who

24、 dies with a piercing shriek, and proceeds to take the shield, which falls to the floor with an unnerving clatter.,As the narrator reads of the knights forcible entry into the dwelling, cracking and ripping sounds are heard somewhere in the house. When the dragon is described as shrieking as it dies

25、, a shriek is heard, again within the house. As he relates the shield falling from off the wall, a reverberation, metallic and hollow, can be heard. Usher becomes increasingly hysterical, and eventually exclaims that these sounds are being made by his sister, who was in fact alive when she was entom

26、bed and that Usher knew that she was alive.,The bedroom door is then blown open to reveal Madeline standing there. She falls violently in death upon her brother, who dies of his own terror. The narrator then flees the house, and, as he does so, notices a flash of light causing him to look back upon

27、the House of Usher, in time to watch it break in two, the fragments sinking into the tarn.,The Fall of the House of Usher shows Poes ability to create an emotional tone in his work, specifically feelings of fear, doom, and guilt. These emotions center on Roderick Usher who, like many Poe characters,

28、 suffers from an unnamed disease. His disease causes his hyperactive senses.,The illness manifests physically but is based in Rodericks mental or even moral state. He is sick, it is suggested, because he expects to be sick based on his familys history of illness and is, therefore, essentially a hypo

29、chondriac. Similarly, he buries his sister alive because he expects to bury her alive, creating his own self-fulfilling prophecy.,Major themes The doppelgnger theme . The reflection of the house in the tarn is described in the opening paragraph, and “a striking similitude between the brother and sis

30、ter” is mentioned when Madeline “dies”.（*1） Poe uses the theme of the death and resurrection of a woman here as well as in Ligeia and Morella. The theme of mental illness is explored in this work, as it is in numerous other tales such as Berenice. Interment while alive is also explored in The Premat

31、ure Burial and The Cask of Amontillado. There are also various Gothic elements, such as the decrepit castle and tarn, whose signs of decay reflect the mental condition of Usher, which is rapidly deteriorating.,（*1） The doppelgnger theme： German: “double goer”), in German folklore, a wraith （生魂，传说中人临

32、终或刚死显现的幽灵）or apparition of a living person, as distinguished from a ghost. The concept of the existence of a spirit double, an exact but usually invisible replica of every man, bird, or beast, is an ancient and widespread belief. To meet ones double is a sign that ones death is imminent. The doppelg

33、nger became a popular symbol of horror literature, and the theme took on considerable complexity.,（*1） The doppelgnger theme： In The Double (1846), by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, for example, a poor clerk, Golyadkin, driven to madness by poverty and unrequited love, beholds his own wraith, who succeeds in e

34、verything at which Golyadkin has failed. Finally the wraith succeeds in disposing of his original. An earlier, well-known story of a doppelgnger appears in the novel Die Elixiere des Teufels, 2 vol. (181516; “The Devils Elixir”), by the German writer of fantastic tales E.T.A. Hoffmann.,“The Masque o

35、f the Red Death “ The story takes place at the castellated abbey of the happy and dauntless and sagacious Prince Prospero. Prospero and one thousand other nobles are taking refuge in a walled abbey to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague that has been sweeping the land. The symptoms of the Red De

36、ath are gruesome to behold: the victim is swept by convulsive agony and sweats blood instead of water.,The plague is said to kill within half an hour. Prospero and his court are presented as being indifferent to the sufferings of the population at large, intending to await the ending of the plague i

37、n luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge. One night, Prospero holds a masquerade ball （假面舞会）to entertain his guests in seven colored rooms of the abbey. Six of the rooms are each decorated and illuminated in a specific color: blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet. The las

38、t room is decorated in black and is illuminated by a blood-red light; because of this chilling pair of colors, few guests are brave enough to venture into the seventh room.,The room is also the location of a large ebony（乌木质地的，乌木般黑亮的） clock that ominously （预示噩兆的）clangs at each hour. At the chiming （钟

39、鸣）of midnight, Prospero notices one figure in a blood-spattered, dark robe resembling a funeral shroud, with a skull-like mask depicting a victim of the Red Death, which all at the ball have been desperate to escape. Gravely insulted, Prospero demands to know the identity of the mysterious guest so

40、that they can hang him, and when none obey, pursues him with a drawn dagger through the seven rooms until the mysterious figure is cornered in the seventh room, the black room where the windows are tinted scarlet. When the figure turns to face him, the Prince falls dead at a glance.,Enraged, the rev

41、elers （狂欢参与者）surge into the black room and remove the mask, only to find both of the masks and the costumes empty. To the horror of all, the figure reveals itself as the personification of the Red Death itself, and all the guests suddenly contract and succumb to （死于）the disease. The final line of th

42、e story sums up: “And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable （无限的）dominion （控制）over all.,In the story, Poe adapts many conventions of traditional Gothic fiction, including the setting of a castle. The multiple single-toned rooms may be representative of the human mind, showing differe

43、nt personality types. The imagery of blood and time throughout also indicate corporeality （实体化事物）. The plague may, in fact, be typical attributes of （属性）human life and mortality. This would imply the entire story is an allegory about mans futile attempts to stave off death, the commonly accepted int

44、erpretation.,“The Cask of Amontillado The story is set in a nameless Italian city in an unspecified year (possibly sometime during the eighteenth century) and concerns the deadly revenge taken by the narrator on a friend who he claims has insulted him. Like several of Poes stories, and in keeping wi

45、th the 19th-century fascination with the subject, the narrative revolves around a person being buried alive in this case, by immurement （被封闭而死）.,As in The Black Cat and The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe conveys the story through the murderers perspective. Montresor tells the story of the night that he took h

46、is revenge on Fortunato, a fellow nobleman. Angry over some unspecified insult, he plots to murder his friend during Carnival when the man is drunk, dizzy, and wearing a jesters （嘲弄者）motley （小丑所穿的杂色花衣）.,He baits Fortunato by telling him he has obtained, out of season, what he believes to be a pipe o

47、f Amontillado， a rare and valuable sherry wine. He wants his friends expert opinion on the subject. Fortunato goes with Montresor to the wine cellars of the latters palazzo, where they wander in the catacombs.,Montresor gives Fortunato more to drink; at one point, Fortunato makes an elaborate and, t

48、o the narrators eyes, grotesque gesture with an upraised wine bottle. When Montresor fails to recognize the gesture, Fortunato asks, “You are not of the masons ?” （该词在此处具有双重意义：1.一地下组织free masons 的简称，2.泥瓦匠） Montresor says he is, and when Fortunato, disbelieving, requests a sign, Montresor displays a

49、trowel he had been hiding.,Montresor warns Fortunato, who has a bad cough, of the damp, and suggests they go back; Fortunato insists on continuing, claiming that “he shall not die of a cough.” During their walk, Montresor mentions his family coat of arms （纹章）- a golden foot in a blue background crus

50、hing a snake whose fangs are embedded in the foots heel - with the motto Nemo me impune lacessit (No one strikes me with impunity).,When they come to a niche （壁龛）, Montresor tells his victim that the Amontillado is within. Fortunato enters and, drunk and unsuspecting, does not resist as Montresor qu

51、ickly chains him to the wall. Montresor then declares that, since Fortunato wont go back, he must positively leave him.,Montresor walls up the niche, entombing his friend alive. At first, Fortunato, who recovers from his drunken state faster than Montresor anticipated he would, shakes the chains, tr

52、ying to escape. The narrator stops working for a while so he can enjoy the sound. Fortunato then screams for help, but Montresor mocks his cries, knowing nobody can hear them. Fortunato laughs weakly and tries to pretend that he is the subject of a joke and that people will be waiting for him (inclu

53、ding the Lady Fortunato).,As the murderer finishes the topmost row of stones, Fortunato wails For the love of God, Montresor! Montresor replies, Yes, for the love of God! He listens for a reply but hears only the jesters bells ringing as he places the last stone. He claims that he feels sick at hear

54、t, but dismisses this reaction as an effect of the dampness of the catacombs.,In the last few sentences, Montresor reveals that it has been 50 years since the murder, he has never been caught, and Fortunatos body still hangs from its chains in the niche where he left it. The murderer, seemingly unre

55、pentant （无懊悔之意）, ends the story by remarking: In pace requiescat (may he rest in peace).,The mystery in The Cask of Amontillado is in Montresors motive for murder. Montresors motive for murder is uncertain other than the vague thousand injuries to which he refers. Many commentators conclude that, la

56、cking significant reason, Montresor must be insane, though even this is questionable because of the intricate details of the plot.,“The Tell-Tale Heart” follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a “vulture （兀鹰）eye. The old man with whom he lives has a clou

57、ded, pale, blue vulture-like eye which so distresses the narrator that he plots to murder the old man.,The narrator insists that his careful precision in committing the murder shows that he cannot possibly be insane. For seven nights, the narrator opens the door of the old mans room, a process which

58、 takes him a full hour. However, the old mans vulture eye is always closed, making it impossible to do the deed.,On the eighth night, the old man awakens and sits up in his bed while the narrator performs his nightly ritual. The narrator does not draw back and, after some time, decides to open his l

59、antern.,A single ray of light shines out and lands precisely on the old mans eye, revealing that it is wide open. Hearing the old mans heartbeat beating unusually and dangerously quick from terror, the narrator decides to strike, jumping out with a loud yell giving the old man a heart attack and then smothering the old man with his own bed.,The narrator proceeds to chop up the body and conceal the pieces under the floorboards. The narrator makes certain to hide all signs of the crime.,Even so, the old mans scream during the night causes a neighbor to call the poli