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关键字：埃德加•爱伦•坡， 哥特式，《厄舍古屋的倒塌》
1 Introduction
“Gothic” originally refers to one of the Germanic tribes living in northern Europe and it also becomes a pronoun of savage people. Gothicism is, in fact, an eerie and grotesque style of architecture emerging from the Mid Ages in Europe. Gothic appeared in literature field initiated by Horace Walpole with his first Gothic novel — The Castle of Otranto published in 1764. One of the greatest masters for Gothic literature should be Edgar Allan Poe, and “it would be difficult to overestimate his contribution and influence on the development of Gothic literature” (Punter, 2004:155).
Edgar Allan Poe is a famous American poet, short story writer, journalist, and literary critic in the 19th century. He takes up a special statue in the development of American history, making never-forgotten contributions to American literature and even to the world literature. He is also considered as the first American professional writer as well as the first writer of the detective story in the world. Along with Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway, Poe is one of the greatest literary celebrities in the American literature. He has written more than seventy works all his life, twenty of which have gained great popularity around the world. Four of his twenty works are detective stories, and all the rest are horror fictions. In the process of creating horror fictions, the writing techniques of Gothic novel have made profound influence on Poe’s writings. It is not that genius Poe’s writing techniques are confined to traditional Gothic writing techniques, but he inherits and develops them in his own writing.
As a writer, Poe deserves more credit than any other writers for transforming short stories from anecdote to arts. He, in fact, produced the detective story and perfected the psychological thriller. He is mainly well-known for his tales of mystery and imagination, and it is for these that he wins his statue as “Father of American Gothic.”(Fan, 2006:31). Virtually, his tragic life, his neurotic attraction to attraction to intense beauty, fierce horror and death, his imagination of the world made a contribution to his popularity and recognition as a Gothic writer. It has been widely acknowledged that Poe plays an indispensable role in the development of modern Gothic writing and his contribution is substantial, which lies in his ability to create various forms of symbolist terror, using new structures and creating new forms of narrative tone.
One of his well-known short stories— The Fall of the House of Usher — a classic example of this genre. It obviously shows us Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic style. The story show us his unreal but lively imagined world, with almost unparalleled richness of suggestive details, and its appeal is not so much to our senses as to our nerves(Fan, 2006:32).
A lot of studies about this short story have been carried out from a variety of perspectives. But most of the studies of this work focus on the themes, writing techniques, the analysis of characters, and also the various interpretations of images. By studying the gothic elements in the work and the creation and development of the Poe’s Gothicism, this paper will analyze this work from the perspective of its gothic style. This research can contribute to the enriching of the ranges and contents of both this short story and the author.
2The Brief Introduction of Edgar Allan Poe
Different critics give Poe different evaluations. Bernard Shaw thinks that America has produced two great writers—Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain. Tennyson says that Poe is the most original American genius. Yeats remarks Poe is the greatest American poet and a great lyric poet of the world (Belgion, 1951:51). While, Emerson regards Poe as a jingle man and Whitman considers he is among the electric lights of imaginative literature, brilliant and dazzling, but with no heat. While someone also ignores Poe’s talent remarking that his art is immoral or amoral, describing him as demon rum and a disciple of the devil in the introduction of his biography. (Gerald, 1973:19)