Edgar Allen Poe and the Gothic

This study will provide an analysis of the Gothic features of the writing of Edgar Allan Poe. The study will argue that Poe's works do indeed demonstrate a number of the elements of what is known as the Gothic school in literature, which is marked by "mystery . . . heavily tinged with horror derived from a gloomy background of medieval architecture and with terror of the supernatural" (Columbia 529). Writing of the story "Ligeia," one critic writes that

the exterior of the abbey and its situation are described with every adjective in the Gothic repertoire: wildest, least frequented, gloomy and dreary grandeur, savage aspect, melancholy and time-honored memories, utter abandonment, remote and unsocial region, verdant decay (Bloom 96).

In such an ominous setting, Gothic literature creates characters who are obsessed with death, fear, violence, evil, the supernatural, and other dark aspects of existence, the imagination, and the human condition. Gothic characters in Poe often believe themselves to be special in some way compared to other people. In "The Masque of the Red Death," Poe features a protagonist who believes he is beyond the physical and/or psychological laws and conditions which control the lives of others. Prince Prospero believes that he is beyond the power of the plague. He believes that ordinary people will be killed by the plague, while he and his friends will survive. This belief is based in part on the security provided by his Gothic dwelling, which he be

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nd soul of the character lost in Gothic world. In "House of Usher," Poe seeks to make the reader feel what the narrator experiences: a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. . . . there was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart. . . . There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition . . . served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. . . . An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and . . . there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm (Asselineau 14). In the poem "To Helen," Poe uses the Gothic emphasis on the darkness of nature and the hold the memory has on the speaker: Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nic�an barks of yore. . . . On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand (Williams 363-364). This love poem turns into a Gothic portrait of the beloved which leads the reader to feel the unreality and otherworldliness of the woman. The love for a living woman is shown to be a yearning for her to be unchanging i

Category: Literature - E