#Gothic literature edgar allan poe full#
#Gothic literature edgar allan poe license#

Therefore, the Goths has long left people with the indelible image of truculence, barbarian and gracefulness. During the third century, the Goths made their incursion into Roman and in AD 410, they took Rome under King Alaric and established kingdoms in France and Italy.

Confirmed by the archaeologists, their early settlement was in the Baltic, and gradually they migrated down to the Black Sea. It comes from the word “Goth”, which indicates one of several Germanic tribes that was instrumental in the fall of the Roman Empire in the medieval times. Poe, as one of the most important writers in American Southern literature, makes very important contribution to the development of the Gothic literature.įirst, if we were going to focus on the Gothic literature, we should understand the definition of the term “Gothic”. The Gothic literature’s development is very colorful and the influence is great, because the Gothic has devoted itself to many popular genres and influenced many important writers such as Edgar Allan Poe. Through an analysis of related knowledge with Gothic and his works which have fascinated readers of generations with its unique artistic beauty, this paper will highlights Poe’s fiction and proves that his works merit our discussion. At the same time, according to the theory of sublime by Longinus, Imanuel Kant and Burke, readers still can find beauty from horror in Gothic fiction and experience the aesthetic pleasure. What’s more, just as his other excellent works, Poe not only tells a story, but also clarifies his spirit in this work: Horror is a kind of instinct and one of the strongest feelings of human kind. Every aspect expected from a Poe’s piece can be found within this story. The Fall of the House of Usher written by Edgar Allan Poe in l839 is regarded as an early and supreme example of the Gothic horror story, and it has the usual Gothic elements found in most works by Poe. He tries his best to state how the evil and horror function in bringing the sublimation and purification to man’s inner world. He tries to make it clear that horror comes from our soul. In his works, he reveals people’s horror towards super nature, nothingness, death, evil and disintegration of personality. To a certain degree, Poe’s horror fiction prepares the origin of Southern fiction. He inherits and develops the tradition Gothic fiction, and the American literature forms the background of his horror fictions and gives his fictions unique power and charm. The American author Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) is just one master of the literary genre known as the Gothic story, and he makes great contribution to Gothic fiction. Gothic Stories are romantic tales of terror and the supernatural, which rely a great deal on scene and setting to convey a sense of horror to the reader. Gothic, Horror, Sublime, Aesthetic Function This paper borrowing a critical perspective of Gothic tradition and theory of the sublime, tries to analyze the Gothicism in this novel to detect its aesthetic feature. It presents terrifying atmosphere, the dark plot, and man’s psychological terror to reveal the process of disintegration and annihilation of human mind, thus offering readers specific aesthetic perception through psychological shocks. The Fall of the House of Usher is Poe’s classical piece of this type.

#Gothic literature edgar allan poe full#

Con- sequently, he adopts Gothic technique in a composition, taking a full advantage of Gothic subject matter, plot and elements and lingering on violence, murder, insanity and collapse. He stands alone with his aesthetic taste and writing principle, engaged in the morbid theme of nightmare, death, crime and evil. Received 27 December 2014 accepted 15 January 2015 published 22 January 2015Įdgar Allan Poe is one of the most unique writers in America.

#Gothic literature edgar allan poe full#

#Gothic literature edgar allan poe license#