American Literature

Lecture Seven

The American Romanticism

(III)

Edgar Allen Poe(1809 - 1849)

I. General Introduction:

1. Poe stands alone in the history of American literature. For a long time after his death he remained probably the most controversial and most misunderstood literary figure. Some people even painted him as a Bohemian, depraved and demonic, a villain with no virtue at all. Mark Twain declared his prose to be unreadable. But Eliot proclaimed him a critic of the first rank. He enjoyed respect and welcome greatly in Europe.

2. He is the father of psychoanalytic criticism. In deed, Poe places the subconscious condition of the mind under investigation and probes beneath the surface of normal existence. What interests him most is the deep abyss of the unconscious and subconscious mental activity of the people, the subterranean recesses of the mind at work.

3. His tale The Murders in the Rue Morgue, an ingenious detective story, became the ancestor of the genre.

4. His theories for the short story and poetry are remarkable in their clarity even if they lack intellectual detachment and catholicity of taste.

5. He was the first author in American literature to make the neurotic the heroic figure, the protagonist, in his stories.

6. As a short story writer, Poe was a fascinating man of imagination interested in deduction and induction. And half a dozen of his stories belong to （ Ratiocinative ）

7. His aesthetics and conscious craftsmanship, his attack on “the heresy of didactic” and his call for “the rhythmical creation of beauty” have influenced French symbolists and the devotes of “art for art’s sake”.

8. His masterpiece “Raven” reveals a central theme: the human mind would be healthy and alive if it were incapable of thought, but since it is a mind and does possess the power of introspection and self-knowledge, then that very power and knowledge spell its death. In other words, thought is the constituent of the mind, but the act of thinking can be its undoing.

9. Poe’s style is traditional but he is difficult to read.

II. The Raven(selected)

The Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door,

“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at mydoor——

Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow; ——vainly I had tried to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow-sorrow for the lost.

For the rare and radiant maiden the angels name Lenore ——

Nameless here for evermore.

Notes

① "a midnight dreary" should be "a dreary midnight", but for the internal rhyme, the poet has changed the word order.

② volume of——amount of

③ 'Tis——archaic for "it is"

④ wrought its ghost——made its shadow

⑤ morrow——the day following some specified day, tomorrow

⑥ I had tried to borrow from my books surcease of sorrow: 我竭力读书，想以此排遣心中的哀伤。

⑦ surcease——archaic for "stop"

⑧ Lenore——the name of the student's love

⑨ the rear and radiant maiden——the uncommon and strikingly beautiful girl

Brief Explanation: A lonely man tries to ease his "sorrow for the

lost Lenore," by distracting his mind with old books of "forgotten lore." He is interrupted while he is "nearly napping," by a "tapping on [his] chamber door." As he opens up the door, he finds "darkness there and nothing more." Into the darkness he whispers, "Lenore," hoping his lost love had come back, but all that could be heard was "an echo [that] murmured back the word 'Lenore!'"

Translation从前一个阴郁的子夜，我独自沉思，慵懒疲竭，面对许多古怪而离奇、并早已被人遗忘的书卷；当我开始打盹，几乎入睡，突然传来一阵轻擂，仿佛有人在轻轻叩击——轻轻叩击我房间的门环。“有客来也”，我轻声嘟喃，“正在叩击我的门环，

惟此而已，别无他般。”

哦，我清楚地记得那是在风凄雨冷的十二月，每一团奄奄一息的余烬都形成阴影伏在地板。我当时真盼望翌日——因为我已经枉费心机想用书来消除伤悲，消除因失去丽诺尔的伤感，因那位被天使叫作丽诺尔的少女，她美丽娇艳，

在此已抹去芳名，直至永远。

1. Poetic Structure: The poem is made up of 18 stanzas of six lines e

ach. Generally, the meter is trochaic octameter — eight trochaic feet per line, each foot having one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable.

The rhyme scheme is ABCBBB and makes heavy use of internal rhyme ("dreary" and "weary"; "Once upon" and "while I pon-") and alliteration ("Doubting, dreaming dreams..."). 20th century American poet Daniel Hoffman suggested that the poem's structure and meter is so formulaic that it is artificial, though its mesmeric quality overrides that.

2. The sound devices of the poemline 1:

Alliteration

line 4:

Onomatopoeia

line 7:

Internal rhyme

line 10:

Assonance

3. The mood of the poem A sense of melancholy over the de

ath of a beloved beautiful young woman pervades the whole poem, the portrayal of a young man grieving for his lost Lenore, his grief turned to madness under the steady one-word repetition of the talking bird.

III. To Helen

To HelenHelen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore'That gently o'er a perfumed sea, The weary way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinih hair, thy calssic 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, The agate lamp within thy hand!Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy-Land!

1. Notes

① Nicean （小亚细亚西北部古城）尼西亚的② Barks 平底船，三至五桅船③ Naiad 水中仙女、水精灵、水域女神④ Hyacinth 风信子，又名洋水仙、五色水仙，花有白、粉、红、蓝各种颜色，芳香，春季开花。原产南欧、地中海东部沿岸及小亚细亚。

⑤ Agate 玛瑙⑥ Psyche 赛克（希腊神话中人类灵魂的化身）

The translation

海伦哦，我眼里你的美丽就像昔日尼西亚的小船，轻柔地在飘香的海面，将那旅途劳顿的游子带回他故乡的海岸。

在绝望的海面、亘古波涛无边，你飘飘的秀发，你典雅的脸庞，你水中仙女般的丰姿让我想见希腊的荣光、罗马的庄严。

看哦！在远方的华丽窗龛，

我见你如雕像玉立，手里擎着玛瑙灯盏！啊，灵魂之女，你来

自哪里，哪里就是圣地！

The analysis of the poem In the first stanza, Helen's beauty is

soothing. It provides security and safety. for her beauty is as hypnotic for the speaker as were the ships that transported another wanderer_Ulysses-home from Troy.

Throughout the poem, Poe uses allusions to classical names and places, as well as certain kinds of images to create the impression of a far-off idealized, unreal woman, like a Greek statue. Words that support the image of an ideal woman are "hyacinth" and "classic"(line 7), "Naiad airs"(line 8), and "statue-like"(line 12). Helen stands, not like a real womaan, but like a saint in a "window-niche"(line 11). She becomes a symbol both of beauty and of frustration, a romantically idealized, yet inaccessible image of the heart's desire.