Stan Diana AndreeaYear III, English A Spanish BGroup 2

Images of an underworld. The grotesque, the disfigured, the uncanny: Poe is a (Romantic) architect of the abyssEdgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, literary critic and editor. During his life, Poe also played significant part in the American Romantic Movement, being one of the founders of Dark Romanticism, a current starting from the European Romantic movement and opposing Transcendentalism. Being one of the earliest American writers to use the medium of the short story, Poe is best known for his tales of mystery, horror, macabre, grotesque and arabesque, as well as poems which reflect the same dark, pessimistic attitude towards literature.The term dark romanticism originates primarily from the pessimistic nature of the genre, as well as the influence of the earlier Romantic literary movement upon it, particularly the subgenre of Gothicism. The adepts of this movement chose to see Beauty in the more unusual places. The evil, the uncanny, the grotesque become the centre of attention in their literary works, along with fantastic creatures and the supernatural. Dark Romanticism, however, was born from a mid-19th century reaction of opposition towards the American Transcendentalist movement. Transcendentalism found its popularity from 1836 through the late 1840s and originated in New England, among intellectuals such as Ralph Waldo Emerson or Henry David Thoreau. This cultural movement had a significant influence over various areas of American expression, including literature. However, some of those authors, among which was Poe, considered Transcendentalist beliefs as being exceedingly optimistic as well as egotistical, and responded by opposing them in their poetry and prose, thus adopting the subgenre that was to be called Dark Romanticism. Among the most notable representatives of Dark Romanticism are authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, as well as poet Emily Dickinson. In his work, the two concepts that Poe uses on various occasions are the grotesque and the arabesque. The origin of grotesque goes back to the Italian grotta (= cave), and designates the revival of the Ancient Roman architectural and decorative style in the 15th century. The arabesque style began in the Islamic art, only for it to be appropriated by the European culture during the Renaissance in a more simplified form. The two terms are most notably present in the title of Poes collection of short stories, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. In the Preface of this volume, Poe does not try to explain their meaning according to his view, but only says that The epithets Grotesque and Arabesque will be found to indicate with sufficient precision the prevalent tenor of the tales here published. (Poe, 5). The only other mention found here would be the critics wrong attribution of the arabesque in his stories to the German literary style of the time, which he denies by saying that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul (Poe, 6). Some critics believe that Poes use of the terms was inspired by Sir Walter Scotts essay, On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition, where the concepts were first used in the literary context. Scott describes them as follows: the grotesquepartly resembles the arabesque in painting, in which is introduced the most strange and complicated monsters, resembling centaurs, griffins, sphinxes, chimeras, rocs, and all other creatures of romantic imagination. His use of the term romantic clarifies the sense in which he considers the two concepts to be related to art, be it painting or literature. Although the essay is about the life and work of Hoffman, it can largely be applied to Poes literature as well. However, while Scott sees the grotesque and arabesque as two similar concepts in different media, Poe differentiates completely between them. In Philosophy of Furniture, Poe describes the arabesque as being vivid circular or cycloid figures, of no meaning. This description is similar to that of Scott, considering the fact that he says of the arabesque in painting: there is in reality nothing to satisfy the understanding or inform the judgment. Poes understanding of the terms grotesque and arabesque is quite different from Scotts, however. It is generally accepted by critics that for Poe, the grotesque and arabesque characterize different literary modes, the grotesque designating the comic, burlesque and satiric, and the arabesque the serious, poetic, terrifying and visionary (Carlson, 283). Poes The Fall of the House of Usher can be described as being part of his Arabesque type of short stories, due to its seriousness, poetic language and the dark, threatening atmosphereAnother literary device that Poe uses in his works is the presence of the uncanny. In Freuds essay titled The Uncanny, he describes it with the help of two German words. The first state is that of heimlich, or the familiar, the usual, the well-known. When this familiar object suffers even the most subtle of changes, it becomes unheimlich, or uncanny. The reason why Freud feels the need to resort to the use of language in order to study the portrayal of the feeling of uncanny is the relationship he had found between the two words. In order for something to be uncanny, it first needs to be familiar. This is an obligatory condition, that the object should be known or at least experienced or seen in the past in order for it to turn uncanny. The change from one state to another intervenes when there is a subtle change in the object itself, or there is a certain type of ambiguity regarding it, such as unclear features, accompanied by a feeling that something is wrong with the object that was previously completely familiar and usual.One of Freuds examples of the most uncanny situations is the uncertainty whether an object is living or inanimate. Life-like objects and unmoving persons can be seen as uncanny, as long as the difference is subtle, almost unnoticeable. If the differences are completely clear, Freud suggests, it is less likely for people to perceive the particular object as uncanny. In The Fall of the House of Usher we can observe many such cases. The first meeting with Usher presented itself as uncanny because of the familiarity of his face and the changes he had suffered. Not being able to decide whether Lady Madeline was alive or dead was most certainly an uncanny moment as well, especially followed by her rising from her tomb. Freud also says that To many people the idea of being buried alive while appearing to be dead is the most uncanny thing of all, once again proving Poes frequent use of this method of creating a tense atmosphere and causing fear in the reader.Another type of uncanny appears when almost obsessive repetition is involved. What could only be considered coincidences, such as the frequent repetition of places (passing by the same place more than once accidentally), numbers (the reoccurrence of a specific number during a short period of time) or people (identical twins or unrelated people who look very much alike) give the experiencer a certain uneasiness. This sends us to the idea of the Double and it representations that may cause fear. The most basic fear that Freud identifies is that of death, and he relates it to the uncanny by explaining the old belief that those who had died might have immortal souls. The dead body and the soul thus create a Double that people fear, mostly because of our lack of knowledge of this aspect. The idea of the Double, mirroring and duality in general has been used very often in The Fall of the House of Usher. From the very beginning, we can find a parallel between the decrepitude of the house and that of its master. This personification seems uncanny as the house is given human features. The very name of the House of Usher refers both to the family and the house in which they lived, and they both get destroyed in the end. Also, in a true Romantic style, the weather mirrors the emotional state of the characters, climaxing with a storm during the eventful end of the story. Through a mise-en-abyme, Poe reflects Madeleines tomb within the tomb that is the house, which ultimately collapses upon itself. Poe introduces the poem within the tale, which describes the story of the House of Usher through metaphors, as well as Mad Trists story, which can also be considered a case of mise-en-abyme. We can also find the theme of madness and illness that is repeated through the Usher family tree and is transferred temporarily to his visitor (overwhelmed senses when he first sees the house).Poe not only uses his own form of Romanticism, but creates an entire collection of poems and prose around the methods described by Freud and Sir Walter Scott, while still adapting them to his own literary style. He played a great role in the American Literary community and still inspires artists and literature enthusiasts today. To conclude, Edgar Allan Poe is a master of the uncanny, the grotesque and arabesque and Dark Romanticism, as seen through examples of all his work. He is a true architect of the abyss, where the abyss can be both metaphorical and theoretical.

Bibliography:1. Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Illustrated Works of Edgar Allan Poe. London: Bounty Books, 2007. Print.2. Poe, Edgar Allan. Preface to Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Web.http://www.eapoe.org/works/misc/tgap.htm3. Poe, Edgar Allan. Philosophy of Furniture. Web.http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/POE/philfurn.html4. Sir Scott, Walter. On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition. The Foreign Quarterly Review, Volumes 1-37. Web.https://books.google.ro/books?id=T9gRAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA60&ots=vOBZE3m0Dd&pg=PA60#v=onepage&q&f=false5. Carlson, Eric W. A Companion to Poe Studies. Web.https://books.google.ro/books?id=s9YSUsvuPkgC&lpg=PA283&pg=PA280#v=onepage&q&f=false6. Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. Web.http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf

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