埃德加•爱伦•坡《同木乃伊的对话》幽默性
关键词 埃德加•爱伦•坡 幽默 恐怖 历史 讽刺
毕 业 论 文 外 文 摘 要
Title The Humour in Edgar Allan Poe’s Fiction——
The Example of Some Words With A Mummy
Abstract
Edgar Allan Poe has always been noted for his short stories, focusing on horror，murder，revenge，death, etc. However, Tales of Humour by Poe rarely draw the attention of the public. This paper is aimed at elaborating on Poe’s humor with respect to both shared qualities and unique ones consisting of horror, history, satire. Meanwhile, through Some Words with A mummy, this paper tries to analyze writing skills in terms of its style，figure of speech，character and environment so as to explore the nature of Poe’s humor and open a window for further study as well as acquaint people with a new and all-round Allan Poe. Allan Poe is a master not only on Tales of Gothic, Detection, and Psychology but on Humor, and he shows us many philosophy and wisdom by means of his own style of humor.
Keywords Edgar Allan Poe Humour Horror History Satire
Table of Contents
1 Introduction...1
1.1 The Previous Study of Poe’s Tales of Humour..........1
1.2 Research Design....2
2 The Shared Qualities in Poe’s Humour.....2
2.1 Humour and Tales of Humour..2
2.2 American Humorous Literature...4
2.3 Poe’s Inheritance and Innovation..5
3 The Unique Qualities in Poe’s Humour.......6
3.1 The Reasons behind Poe’s Distinctive Humour....6
3.2 Unique Elements in Poe’s Humor——Horror and History..7
4 Poe’s Humour in Some Words with A Mummy........10
4.1 Poe’s Humorous Techniques...10
4.2 Social Criticism in Poesque Humour...11
Conclusion14
Acknowledgements..16
Bibliography17
1 Introduction
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is a celebrated American poet, novelist and literary critic during 19th Romantic Period. In the field of American literature, Allan Poe is one of the most controversial and legendary writers. For a long time, he has always been treated as playing a minor role on the margin in the literary history. Emerson considers him as “a jingle man”; Henry James holds that his works are “with a strong literary technique and glowing appearance, but without real thought and profound meaning”. (Meyer, 1992: 271) And in an article The Significance of Edgar Poe in 1880, Whitman maintains that his works belong to “the light of imaginative literature, bright and dazzling, but without the heat”. (Clarke, 1991: 207) But the famous French symbolist poet Baudelaire admires and worships him for his outstanding writings. Edgar Allan Poe himself seems to predict that he cannot find one who can really understand and appreciate his works in his age and says that “I don’t care that my stories are read by contemporary people or people of next generations. I can spend a century on waiting for readers.” (Thompson, 2004: 580) Then time finally witnesses Poe’s excellence, his fame rises increasingly and he establishes his new status in the literary history. He is regarded as the founder and pioneer of Tales of Horror and Tales of Detection, and experts dedicate themselves to studying these works. The consequence is that whenever it comes to Poe’s short stories, people are inclined to think of his most appreciated gothic works, like The Fall of House of Usher, The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart. However, it is because these grotesque stories are so classic and impressive that unconsciously people ignore that as a matter of fact Poe also writes many stories based on humor and satire. Considering the above fact, this paper is aimed at exploring another aspect of Poe——Sense of Humour.