1。1  Poe’ s Life

    Edgar Allan Poe is a prominent American poet, short story writer and critic in the 19th century, who occupies a unique position in American literature, even in world literature。

    Poe’s literary works all originated in his life。 He liked to use the theme of “Death of beauty” which refers to those dead women in his life and base his stories on the influence of his childhood through much struggling with the loved ones’ death。 Edgar Allen Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January19, 1809, the second children of David Poe and Elizabeth Poe, both of whom were professional actors belonging to a touring theatrical company。 Poe’s father deserted the family when Poe was still an infant。 Poe’s mother floundered through the work appearing professionally in Richmond, Virginia, then became ill and died of tuberculosis just at the age of twenty-four, leaving her three children orphaned。 That was just the reason that Poe was eager for mother’s love。文献综述

    In 1823, Poe met Mrs。 Stannard, the mother of his classmate, who was a beautiful and loving mother role for him。 But Mrs。 Stannard also died of tuberculosis a year later as Poe’s mother。 In 1827, Poe’s adoptive mother also died of tuberculosis。

    In 1836, he married Virginia, who suddenly began to hemorrhage from January in 1842, the first sign of tuberculosis。 She was seriously ill for a period, and would never again be truly healthy。 On January 30, 1847, Virginia died, plunging Poe into an emotional and physical collapse that lasted for most of the year (Wang, 2010, p。 65-68)。

    The untimely death of the women around Poe may have made his memories about them fragmented, and he also tended to describe female characters in his stories with some small and fragmented details to present a whole female image in front of the readers, which sometimes, required readers to connect the dots themselves。 In “Berenice”, Poe kept describing Berenice’s teeth, from which we can tell how serious her condition was and how shocking appearance changes she was experiencing。 These descriptions of details are in line with the law of closure, in which people tend to connect the parts into a whole。 Through the description of teeth, readers can picture what Berenice looks like and feel the terror in it。

1。2  Gestalt Aesthetics

Gestalt psychology originated from Germany in the late 19th century, and became an important school of psychology at that time。 Gestalt emphasized the integrity of experience and behavior, while objected to elements theory of structuralism and “stimulus - response” formula of behaviorism。 Gestalt psychologist believed that the whole is not just the sum of the parts, consciousness is not equal to the collection of feeling elements, and behavior is not the same as the cycle of reflex arc (Li, 2010, p。 4-5)。

German Gestalt psychology is an important branch of the psychology at that time。 It combined with the theory of literature and art in the first half of the 20th century, giving birth to an important branch of Literary Psychology, Aesthetics of Gestalt Psychology, which attaches great importance to people’s active participation in aesthetic activities。 Gestalt aesthetes emphasized that “we should take aesthetics into the category of psychological research, and focus on art performance and subject creation。 Beauty is an aesthetic experience。” The active participation of people’s sensation in aesthetic activities brings the external, independent and separate parts in their inner heart into wholeness, forming a complete form, thus presenting a complete image of artwork (Wei, 2014, p。 5)。来,自.优;尔:论[文|网www.chuibin.com +QQ752018766-

1。3  “Berenice”

The death of several important women in Poe’s life influenced him deeply and this influence also reflect in some of his stories。 All those beautiful women died at such a young age, urging Poe to combine beauty with death in order to hold the beauty forever。 Thus female characters in Poe’ s short stories were always charming, considerate and kind, reflecting the definition of ideal woman of Poe。