摘要：

埃德加•爱伦•坡是十九世纪上半叶美国文坛的翘楚，其与当时主流文坛格格不入的哥特式文风向来是吸引国内外学者研究讨论的重要话题。研究爱伦•坡文风成因对深入理解其作品内涵有着极大作用，有关此课题的探讨十分广泛，涌现出不少被中西方学者认可的观点。然而，不少深层次的原因仍尚未被专家学者们发掘。本文就爱伦•坡哥特式文风的成因提出了三点可能：一、坡遗传自其父母的抑郁性格和戏剧幻想可能导致其对怪诞抑郁的哥特式气氛产生偏好；二、坡为了迎合当时人们对神秘刺激作品的喜好从而创作哥特式小说；三、坡长期过量饮酒，并有脑膜炎病史，这些生活习惯和生理疾病可能导致其陷入幻想，并将幻想带入文学创作。

关键词：埃德加•爱伦•坡；哥特式文风；成因
 
Abstract:
Edgar Allan Poe, a master of American literature in the first half of the 19th Century, was incompatible with the literature mainstream at his time for his unique Gothic writing style, which is a discussion-attracter to scholars from east and west. Since studying the factors leading to Poe’s Gothic writing style is a significant help for better understanding his works, discussions on this issue have been widely heated for years, and a lot of researching results are accepted by scholars and readers. However, there are quite a few important possible contributing factors which are not mentioned yet, and this thesis aims at proposing three of them: first, Poe’s melancholy character and drama fantasies inherited from his parents might cause his interest in gloomy Gothic ambiance; second, Poe wrote Gothic style novels to cater to readers’ favor for thrill and mystery; and third, Poe’s excessive long-term drinking problem and brain disease could make his mind fall in chaos and fantasies, which would easily affect his writing style.

Key words: Edgar Allan Poe; Gothic writing style; contributing factors

1. Introduction
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was a talented American writer, poet, and critic who left a wealth of fortune to the world literature. But his works, full of death, horror, depression and sense of bizarreness, were a kind of non-mainstream phenomenon to his contemporaries. Now Poe’s special Gothic writing style is one of the most popular research topics among scholars all around the world.
This thesis starts with a brief introduction of the general definition of Gothic writing style and the current research results from scholars home and abroad on the question of what are the contributing factors of Poe’s Gothic writing style. The main opinions accepted by most scholars can be summarized into five points: Poe’s special understanding of beauty and death, Poe’s miserable fate, the social situation which was totally against Poe’s wish, the influence from other writers and other schools of culture, and Poe’s physical problem of sexual inability.