恐怖·鬼魅·死亡-解析《厄谢尔古屋的倒塌》中的哥特元素_英语论文

Horror Ghost Death—Interpreting the Gothic Elements in “The Fall of the House of Usher”

摘要

埃德加•爱伦•坡是美国诗人、短篇小说作家和文学评论家，现代侦探小说的开山鼻祖，恐怖小说大师和科幻先驱之一。他提倡“为艺术而艺术”，宣扬唯美主义和神秘主义。坡在出版了脍炙人口的哥特诗歌的同时，还创作大量被称为“黑色浪漫主义”的哥特小说。坡的哥特小说通过应用哥特元素，把黑色浪漫的主题表现地淋漓尽致，风格怪异奇离，充满恐怖气氛，语言和形式精致优美，内容丰富多彩，为读者展示出恐怖之美。

《厄谢尔古屋的倒塌》是坡恐怖小说的代表作。小说讲述了哥哥将尚未死亡的妹妹埋葬，而在一个暴风雨的夜晚，妹妹回来与哥哥同归于尽，厄谢尔古屋也随之倒塌的故事。坡通过对阴森环境的逼真描绘来烘托恐怖气氛，通过鬼魅的隐约形象，突出了死亡这一主题。多年来，学者们聚焦于这部作品的死亡艺术、人物原型、人格分析等方面展开研究，取得了丰硕成果；也有部分学者关注到作品中恐怖氛围的营造以及死亡、复活主题，但研究相对零散。在前人研究的基础上，本文将聚焦于作品中的哥特元素，从恐怖、鬼魅、死亡三个角度综合剖析作品中哥特风格的独特魅力，并挖掘坡对哥特风格青睐的深层次原因及对其后世作品的影响。

关键词: 埃德加·爱伦·坡；《厄谢尔古屋的倒塌》；哥特元素；恐怖；鬼魅；死亡

Abstract

Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, novelist and literature critic, the founder of the modern detective novels, and a pioneer of horror and science fiction novels. He called for “art for art’s sake” and advocated aestheticism and mysticism. Poe published lots of popular and fantastic gothic poems, as well as many gothic novels which are called “black romanticism”. By applying the gothic elements in his novels, Poe brought the theme of black romanticism into full play. His works feature bizarre style, horrible atmosphere, beautiful and delicate words and rich content, which all show the beauty of horror. 

“The Fall of the House of Usher” is one of Poe’s horrible stories. This story tells of a brother, Roderick Usher, who buried his sister Madeline alive. However, at a night with heavy rain and wind, the sister crawled out tomb and finally died with her brother together, and the house collapsed at the same time. Poe presented the death theme by describing the details of the terrifying environment around the house, and by creating ghost images to foil the horror. Over the years, many scholars have obtained many achievements by focusing on the death art, characterization and analysis of personality in the story. Some of them did research on the theme of horrible atmosphere, death and rebirth, but these studies are relatively scattered. On the basis of previous research, this thesis will focus on the Gothic elements in this story and explore the particular charm of Gothic art by analyzing it from the angles of horror, ghost and death. It will also explore the deep reasons for Poe’s preference for Gothic style and his influence later works.

Keywords: Edgar Allan Poe  “The Fall of the House of Usher”  Gothic elements  horror  ghost  death