-美国文学史之-AllanPoe课件.ppt

1、Lecture NineEdgar Allan Poe(1809-1849)Life Experiencesl 1809:born in Bostonl 1826:university of Virginial 1827:his first book of poetry,Tamerlane and Other Poemsl 1830:West Pointl 1832:his first short story“MS.Found in a Bottle”l 1835:editor of The Southern Literary Messengerl 1836:married l 1847:hi

2、s wife diedl 1849:died in BaltimoreSome American Counterparts on Poe or his WritingslEmerson:“the jingle man”lHenry James:“an enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of decidedly primitive state of development”lJames Russell Lowell:“Three fifths of his genius and two fifths sheer fudge.”etclMark Twain declar

3、ed his prose to be unreadablelT.S.Eliot:“slipshod writing”Some European Writers Comments on himlShaw:“the greatest journalistic critic of his time”;his poetry is“exquisitely refined”;his tales are“complete works of art”lBaudelaire:“Edgar Poe,who isnt much in America,must become a great man in France

4、”His Poetic TheorieslThe Philosophy of Composition;The Poetic Principlel1).Opposing didactic poetry and calling for pure poetry:“The artistry of the poem lies not so much in what is being said as in the way it says it.”l2)Stressing rhythm,true poetry as“the rhythmical creation of beauty”.l3)The poem

5、s should be short,readable at one sitting.Poems aim to produce a feeling of beauty in the reader.l4)Melancholy is the most legitimate of all the poetic tones.l5)The death of a beautiful woman is the most poetical topic.The Ravenl Once upon a midnight dreary,while I pondered weak and weary,Over many

6、a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,While I nodded,nearly napping,suddenly there came a tapping,As of some one gently rapping,rapping at my chamber door.Tis some visitor,I muttered,tapping at my chamber door-Only this,and nothing more.Analysis of The Ravenl an elegy,melancholy tone,a lamen

7、tation over the death of a beautiful woman.l It is not long,108 lines,readable at one sitting.l The poem is composed of 18 six-line stanzas,the first five lines being trochaic octameter(八音步扬抑格),and the sixth line a trochaic tetrameter(四音步扬抑格).l The rhyming scheme of the poem is abcbbbl The repetitio

8、n of“nevermore”,suggest mourning and grief.His poetrylAn obsession with death(“The City in the Sea”)lA dreamy color(“A Dream Within Dream”)lA desire for the poetic imagination(“SonnetTo Science”)l“To Helen”,“Annabel Lee”,etcAnnabel LeeIt was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,That a ma

9、iden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee;And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.She was a child and I was a child,In this kingdom by the sea,But we loved with a love that was more than love I and my Annabel LeeWith a love that the winged

10、seraphs of Heaven Coveted her and me And this was the reason that,long ago,In this kingdom by the sea,A wind blew out of a cloud by night Chilling my Annabel Lee;So that her highborn kinsmen came And bore her away from me,To shut her up in a sepulcher In this kingdom by the seaPoes Theories for the

11、Short StorieslReviews of Hawthornes Twice-Told TaleslTotality:“in almost all classes of composition,the unity of effect or impression is a point of the greatest importance”.lThe first sentence should bring out the single effect of the story.lIt should end with the last sentence,leaving a sense of fi

12、nality with the reader.During the whole of a dull,dark,and soundless day in the autumn of the year,when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens,I had been passing alone,on horseback,through a singularly dreary tract of country;and at length found myself,as the shades of the evening drew on,w

13、ithin view of the melancholy House of Usher._The Fall of the House of UsherlBrevity:lIt must be brief,readable at one sitting,in order to ensure the totality of impression.l“this unity cannot be thoroughly preserved in productions whose perusal cannot be completed at one sitting.”lCompression:“there

14、 should be no word written,of which the tendency,direct or indirect,is not to the one pre-established design”;lNo word should be wasted.lIt must reveal some logical truthHis Fiction lthree collections of short stories:Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque;The Murders in the Rue Morgue;TaleslNovel:The

15、 Narrative of Arthur Gordon PymPoes Short Storieslstories of horror:lFeatures:1)An investigation on the unconscious and subconscious mental activity of the people.2)The theme of the disintegration and annihilation of the self3)Neurotics as the protagonists4)Gothic atmospherel“The Fall of the House o

16、f Usher”,“The Tell-Tale Heart”,“Ligeia”,“The Masque of the Red Death”,etc.l“I”,Roderick Usher and Madeline Usherl The disintegration and annihilation of a human mindlstories of deduction and induction(detective stories):l“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”;“The Purloined Letter”,“The Gold Bug”,“The Myst

17、ery of Marie Roger”.Poes literary importance and Influencela great writer of fiction,a poet of the first rank,and a critic of acumen and insightlone of the first aestheteslfather of psychoanalytic criticism and the detective stories.linfluence on symbolism and aestheticism,T.S.Eliot,Faulkner,Luxun,etc.