American Romanticism emerged as a result of the American bourgeois [608636]

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Introduction

American Romanticism emerged as a result of the American bourgeois
revolution in 1776 -1784. A great importance for the development of American
romanticism and realism were the works of Edgar Allan Poe. When it comes to the
American Romantic literature, his name is one of the first. He is considered one of the
founders of the American short story and the one who developed this genre.
For development of the American literature (such as short story genre and
special li terary style) the value of Poe’s cr eation and especially his prose cannot be
overestimated. Edgar Allan Poe is one of the first American writers, novelists, whose
influence experienced many subsequent writers, and which can be traced in the
American an d European literature of our time. Therefore, the study of fiction in his
prose seems relevant in terms of studying the peculiarities of American literature in
general (plot structure, themes, styles, ideological position).
The object of study in this th esis is in favour of Poe’s creativity in the context
of the American short story of the first half of the XIX century.
The subject of the study is creative features of his fantasy stories.
The aim of this thesis is to reveal the identity of the fant astic fiction in the context of
the American short story of the first half of the XIX century.

The material of this study are short stories like : " The Fall of the House of
Usher ," "William Wilson," "Ligeia", "The Unpar alleled Adventure of One Hans
Phaall", "Sphinx", "The Oval Portrait" and others.
The work consists of an introduction, three chapters which are dedicated to the
characteristics of Poe´s fantastic stories in the context of American Romanticism.

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1. Chapter 1 : discusses the main theoretical issues – short story as a genre of
literature, especially fiction, mystic and author imagination .

2. Chapter 2 : aims to identify the characteristics of American romanticism, ND
Poe’s style, his work in comparison with the work of W. Irvin g.

3. Chapter 3 : is focused on the analysis of Poe's short stories, the various
manifestations of the fantastic in them.
4. The Conclusion .
5. References.

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Chapter 1

Conceptualizing the fictional story

1.1. Short story as a literary genre

The theory of minimal prose – one of the issues discussed today. Numerous literature
experiments in small formats caused significant shifts in the traditional genre system
. The question of genre differentiation in literary works is considered from ancient
times to the present day, they are improving, finding new solutions and choosing
different angles. It is always the same basic generic literary categories – epic, lyric
and drama genres. But in the course of literary developme nt they were transformed,
forcing a new way to assess the genre framework, the hierarchy of genres, their
relationship with each other.
It should be emphasized that the genres like short story and prose are
identified in man y theoretical works . Thus, researcher 1James Cooper Lawrence
gives the following explanation of an establishment of this genre :

“In the light of this classification it would appear that those who
undertake to define the short story as " the single effect " are clearly
striving to make a part greater than the whole. All of these men whose
opinions on the short story we have been considering regard the short
story as distinctly a nineteenth -century type of literature, as a literary
form which was first successfully employed by Poe a nd his French
contemporaries. As a matter of fact, even the briefest consideration of
the history of literature should be sufficient to convince us that the

1 James Cooper Lawrence” The North American Review ”, Vol. 205, No. 735 (Feb., 1917), pp. 274 -286

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short story, far from being a distinctive product of the nineteenth
century, is the oldest form of literature, from which all other literary
types, with the ex ception of the lyric and the critical essay, have
developed in the course of time.”

The Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory 2 gives the following
definition of the short story :

“A prose narrative of indeterminate length, but too short to be
published separate ly as novels or novellas usually are. According to
Edgar Allan Poe, it is a story that concentrates on a unique or single
effect and one in which the totality of effect is the objective. A short
story may be concerned with a scene, an episode, an experience, an
action, the exhibition of a character or characters, the day ’s events, a
meeting, a conversation, or a fantasy. In the preface to his Complete
Short Stories Somerset Mau gham remarks that the shortest item runs to
about 1,600 words (although there have been shorter ones) and the
longest to about 20,000 words. The vast majority of short stories would
fall somewhere between the two. It may be argued that the forefathers
of the short story are myth, legend, parable, fairy tale, fable, anecdote,
exemplum, essay, character study and Märchen; plus the lai, the fab liau
and even the ballad . The term ‘short story ’ has relatives in the shape
of the French conte and nouvelle, the Span ish novela, the Italian
novella, the German Novelle and Kurzgeschichte (a word used to
translate the English ‘short story ’), the yarn, the sketch, the t ale and
the Russian skaz . Historically, we find many inset stories or
digressions in Classical literatu re which amount to short stories, for
instance in biblical stories, the Norse sagas and in many other tales. In
the second half of the 18th c. the short story was being developed and

2 "A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory “ vol 5 (p. 653) J. Cuddon 2013

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established in Britain, partly as a result of the popula rity of the orien tal
tale but more so as a result of the popularity of the Gothic novel . In the
opening years of the 19th c. the short story as a form was highly
evolved, especially in the shape of
the ghost story and the horror story, and stories which had to do with
the supernatural. ”

The literary Encyclopaedic Dictionary 3 gives the other definition of the short story :

“a fictional prose tale of no specified length, but too short to be
published as a volume on its own, as *NOVELLAS sometimes and
*NOVELS usually are. A short story will normally concentrate on a
single event with only one or two characters, more economically than a
novel's sustained exploration of social background. There are similar
fictional forms of greater antiquity —*FABLES, *IAIS,
*FOLKTALES, and *PARABLES — but the short story as we know it
flourished in the magazines of the 19th and early 20th centuries,
especially in the USA, which has a particularly strong tradition. For a
fuller account, consult Ian Reid, . “

Thus , 4Michael Alexandrovich Petrovsky contemporary Russian literary critic
) indicates in his work "Morphology of the prose " :

" the short story requires a specific compressed intense plot.
Pure form of an enclosed story it is a story about an action .. "

In accordance with t his , it should be based on composition and its
presentation. Peterovsky sees the peculiarity of the composition in the story´s
plotline . The middle part of the plot takes a single event, which is anticipating the

3 The Concise Oxford Di ctionary of Literary Terms ,p 236,Cris Baldock 2001

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part that gives meaningful training to the action , and the end is giving meaningful
conclusion of the event. Particular qualities of a prose writing is that the story is told
with a high degree of tension "

In the first half of the XIX century Short story was quite common in the US (and
they were published, mainly in popular magazines, which also had an impact on the
development of this genre) Thus some of the most characteristic works of the best
American writers have been approved by the public. Short form of the narrative
became so t ypical for American literature. Edgar Allan Poe – master of this genre
and is still unbeaten; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne gave
to this genre the charm of English classics.
Since 1819, when Washington Irving published a series of s tories, "The
sketchbook", novels or short stories occupy a significant place in the works of
American romantic writers, except Cooper. Prose becomes a massive genre, but
however does not have any clear genre theory. Many who have tried to write in thi s
genre, could hardly discern difference between the novel and short story (there is
another difference, except for the number of pages). It was Poe´s mission to correct
this situation. His merit lies in the fact that he gave completeness to this genre ,
created clear and concise theory, identifying those features that today we consider
significant in the American romantic prose . All this ideas are outlined in his journal
articles "Poes Critique about Hawthorne” published in 40 -is of the XIX century and
in hiss essay called ” The Philosophy of Composition “ in 1846.
The main idea was to generate a powerful and emotional experience to the
reader which is created in his mind at the climax of an emotional distress and
called «totality effect ». In Poe´s opinion the beginning of the effect should coincide
with the climax of the story. Unexpected dramatic culmination of his works caused
a lasting emotional impression in the readers mind . At the same time the main aim of
the author become s a strong emotional impact.
Also there should not be a word that would not lead directly or indirectly to a
single planned end. Every detail plays a huge role, and no one can be neglected. For
example : thin and barely visible cracks on the House o f Usher ´s facade symbolizes
barely incipient disintegration process which ends – in complete destruction of the

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mansion (the crack will play a fatal role). In all the short stories of Poe the plot is
building backwards – from the core of the main intended effect. First of all writer
determines the final story, the moment of highest tension, an accident or solving a
riddle, which afterwards unite the previous parts.
Gathering and tying together the story details, the reader comes to the final
unity, embodying the main author's intent, which for him was the starting point for the
story building. In many works of Poe culmination completes the story and the writer
explains it by saying that the unity achieved impression should not be broken, but on
the contrary, is embodied in the reader's memory on a high note. Moreover, if the
origin and development activities abound in details, the isolation was discharged with
the utmost brevity. Final picture of the narrative takes place usually at a rapid pace ,
helping build tension, and there is an emotional outburst in the final, which reinforces
the impression.
Thus, we see that dictionaries are not always giving us precise definitions,
which confirms the lack of common opinion among scientists and research ers in
relation to this literary genre we look closer , it turns out that none of this genre
criteria does not cover all the diversity of the phenomena belonging to the genre.

1.2 The concept of fantasy and science fiction

In this section of s tudy it is important to differentiate and to find common
features of such concepts as "mystic", "fantasy" and "artists connotation .First let's
see the dictionary definition of the word "fiction".
5 “ The adjective fictitious tends to carry the unfavoura ble sense of
falsehood, whereas 'fictional' is more neutral, and the archaic adjective
fictive, revived by the poet Wallace Stevens and others, has more
positive sense closer to 'imaginative' or 'inventive´´.

5 The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms p.96 – 97

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Regarding to mys ticism Encyclopaedia Britann ica gives e following definition of "
Myth ":

“ Myth is not an explanation in satisfaction of a scientific interest but a
narrative resurrection of primeval reality told in satisfaction of deep
religious wants, moral cravings, social submissions, assertio ns even
practical requirements. Myth fulfills in primitive culture an
indispensable function, it expresses, ' enhances and codifies belief, it
safeguards and enforces morality. It vouches for the efficiency of
rituals and contains practical rules for the g uidance of man6
‘’Mysticism must be distinguished from fiction, which can also be in
the form of the mystic. Fantasy involves inventing purposeful,
deliberate fiction. Mystique is experienced by the subject as the true
reality, although sometimes it takes bizarre forms. Forms of mystical
experience are of two types: external and internal. External mystical
experience is revealed as a visions, visual presentation. Inner
experience as a special psychophysical state, without visual
impressions, like a speci al kind of feeling.’’ 7

The article also mentions the name of E.Poe :

"The revival of interest in the mystical also happens in romantic
creativity. Contradiction between a romantic ideal and a lowly reality
can be metaphysical or mysterious. This expl ains the attraction of the
romantics to the folklore and mythological culture .´´ 8 In conclusion ,
in spite of the difference between the concepts "fiction" and

6 "Myth" in Encyclopedia Britannica, V ol. 15, (London: Chicago William Benton Publishers, 1973), p.
134.

7 Nikolyukin A. N. (Russian ed.), ´´Encyclopedia of literary terms and concepts´´ (p.558,p 559,p 888, )

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"mysticism", creativity of Poe correlates with both concepts. Further
we will define in de tail the concept of "science fiction".

9The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms says :

‘’Fictions in general are like legal fictions – suppositions known to be
false, but taken as true for the purposes of practical or theoretical
convenience. Where th is usage extends to a description of mental
processes, it overlaps with the preceding sense, but the stricter model
gives a more explicit account of the role of belief implied in that sense.
It is claimed that fictions are mental structures which we know t o be
false, but which we accept as true for the purposes of mental coherence
and order. Thinking becomes a matter of simultaneous belief and
disbelief in the truth of our ideas; we know that our interpretations of
things are ultimately false, but we must g o on relying at least in part on
these fictions because we have no other way of making sense of things.
The term seems relativistic because it sensitizes us to the limitations of
our own and other people’s viewpoints, but it also tends to imply such
mental diffidence that it is hard to know how we could take the truth of
any idea seriously enough to be sceptical about it. ‘’

Over time, of course, imagination gave birth to new legends and real life – the
phantasmagoria of a different nature. The collection of fantastic images generated by
each era had a structural and semantic unity caused by common ideas about the
"mechanism" of being. Therefore, we can speak of regularly interchanging systems
(types) of fantastic images (mythological, fairy and e.t), Havin g both individual
artistic features, and continuity and common artistic and functional specificity. This
continuity systems formed "a kind of typological unity – fiction in general, as a
historically unified (throughout its evolution), a specific method of artistic reflection
of life"

9 The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms (p.89)

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In the evolution of fiction there are three basic systems with a major type of
structural contradictions (mythological, religious, scientific). They are similar in a
way, each of them will give a uniform art interpretation and generalized meaning of
life (its essential sides, contradictions, trends), which finds expression in everyday
holistic forms of life itself and therefore they cannot be captured by other art
meaning . Thus the "figure -interpretation" is a fantasy w orld – the world of "pure
essences", usually hidden in the empirical element of real forms. His basic law is
different in each system: the mythological gods will, the religious Providence,
scientific law, etc. This law is a condensed expression of the conc epts of universal
causation, externally -concrete manifestation of which is the empirical world. Thus,
the main types of fantastic worlds are art -generalized, cognitive utopia model of
reality created by a specific system of fantastic images.
The Romanticis m is creating other kind of fiction . Fundamentally combining
reality and other world, dreamlike and domestic, mystical and rational, it is naturally
inclined to use fiction as a way of artistic cognition.
Along with numerous borrowing (mythological, fol k, religious) romantic
fiction includes series of new figures; all of them are united by the inner duality, often
is bizarre. Duality of the romantic figure – the most common expression of romantics
it's like a disorder between dreams and life, lofty idea ls and spiritless reality, finite
and infinite. In romantic fiction,, we can find the world which is consumed by its own
duality.
Mystery , wedging into the reality, have become an integral part of the
romantic nature. Shades of mysticism often belong to t he fantastic, and getting an
into the reader's imagination as a special appeal
A favourite technique of the time is a double motivation of the events that
does not allow a reader to finally decide whether evil spirits intervened in the hero´s
life, or they became a victim of incredible coincidences. Later, this technique will be
called a ´´veiled (implicit) fiction´´.
Arguing that in the art "the fantastic has its limits and rules," Dostoevsky
considered one of the most important laws is need of closest appr oach inexplicable
and familiar:

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"Fantastic must be really in contact with the reality that you have to
nearly believe it" 10

The credibility of the unbelievable situation, on the one hand, can be based on
the character´s nature, living co nditions and on the other – on the anticipation of the
latest scientific discoveries and inventions, but it is more common to the fiction of the
XX century. In any case, the object of the whole image becomes knowledge itself, the
relation between intuition and logic, guess and calculation, reality and illusion’s .
Spirits of the pagan traditions suddenly vitalized the nature, giving life to
folklore fiction, were the world is full of mysterious creatures.
Big interest of the romantics to the folk rituals a nd folklore reflected in the
fiction of the XIX ce ntury, giving the genre, " fantastic " where the mystery needs no
explanation.
A sample of the complex intersections of different types of fiction
romanticism gives creativity Poe.
Rationalism increases in the works of Jules Verne, the creator of a new,
romantic science, technology and social utopia the action of which is usually
happening in exotic conditions, and the characters – bright personalities, which are at
odds with the environment and seek to imp lement practically the ideal. Works of Jules
Verne mark the transition from the traditional static utopia (developing and XIX
century in the works of Isaak Morris )to the modern science fiction. The final
formation of it occurs in the works of Herbert Geor ge Wells.
In conclusion, it has to be mentioned that there are three types of fiction story´s like :
1) grotesque story, where other -worldly world i s a manifestation of the
mystery and unbelievable parts of real life;
2) "mystery" story, In its plo t man's attempt is to break into the other world or
converse with fantastical creatures;
3) folk tale where the characters of demonology come to life and wonderful
scene where they are becoming embodiments of legends, beliefs, traditions.

10 From Range of articles “Dostoyevsky Materials and researchers " 2016 ( p. 127)

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Fantastic short story’s are like a folk tale s which shows typical (regular)
events, which manifests itself in the cyclic composition. Dramatic content is not
characteristic to the fantasy fiction , because they represent a process, not a "case",
which is similar in t his regard to a fairy tale. Thus if in the traditional short story
often redraws the fate of the characters, in the "fiction prose " external circumstances
are a condition or result of the chooses, which makes the protagonist.

Conclusions on Chapter 1

1. Short story is a small narrative form were through any arising conflict
reveals the essence of any one side – relation ;
2. the basis of the short story is not only an event, but also a kind of
psychological conflict, which is closely linked to the action, special character, or a
character trait that is characteristic of Poe´s work ;
3. fiction author may correlate with both fantasy and mysticism, whereas
mysticism must be distinguished from science fiction that involves inventing
purposeful, deliber ate fiction, while mysticism is experienced by the subject as the
true reality, although it sometimes takes bizarre forms;
4. Romantic fiction combines real and otherworldly, dreamlike and
domestic, mystical and rational, fantastic shapes sometimes are prosa ic, even ironic
interpretation;
5. for romantic fiction is specific duality of the character, here from comes
the tragedy and gloom of Romantic grotesque;
6. fantasy genre attracted artists of the romantic worldview as the ideal
form to reflect organized pr ocess of learning.

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Chapter 2

The short story in American socio -cultural context

2.1 Characteristics of the American Romanticism

American Romanticism experienced three periods. 1820 -1830 which marked
the work of W. Irving and Frederick Cooper. The end of the 1830s and 1940s was the
time of Poe's creativity along with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Herman Melville. The third period, which begins with 1851, brings to
the Hawthorne and Melville on the first plan. This period cont inues until the
beginning of the Civil War.
The chronological framework of American romanticism differ from European
Romanticism. Romantic genre in American literature has developed between the
second and third decades of the XIX century and maintained a d ominant position until
the end of the Civil War between North and South (1861 – 1865).
In comparison with European countries, existence of the romantic literature
was very much longer and it can be explained by the characteristics of the history of
Americ an society. Most important factor was the gradual advancement of the
American nation from the east to the west (to the Pacific coast ), where landed the
founders of this genre.. During the colonization of this continent, which lasted almost
three centuries .
“American frontier” – a purely American phenomenon, movable boundary
between the white civilization settlers and the rest of the continent. The line of the
frontier were "vacant land" – America's pure nature, mountains, forests and plains
populated by In dian tribes.

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11“The American frontier is sharply distinguished from the European
frontier a fortified boundary line running through dense populations.
The most significant thing about the American frontier is, that it lies at
the hither edge of free land. In the census reports it is treated as the
margin of that settlement which has a density of two or more to the
square mile. The term is an elastic one, and for our purposes does not
need sharp definition. We shall consider the whole frontier belt,
includin g the Indian country and the outer margin of the settled area of
the census reports. This paper will make no attempt to treat the subject
exhaustively; its aim is simply to call attention to the frontier as a
fertile field for investigation, and to suggest some of the problems
which arise in connection with it.”

The first quarter of XIX century is just beginning to take its national identity.
Generation of Romantics fell to conquer the American literature of international
recognition.
Before the appariti on of the Romantic American writer was talking about his
country, borrowing from the English narrative forms and poetic language. But
Romantics rejected the imitation of English models. Their task was to grasp
American history and thinking, psychology, the nature of Americans.
The revolution of 1776 was close historical event for the generation of that
time. Therefore, fantasy of the early American romantics wanted to go towards not
only to some perfect, fairy -tale world, but in the real one closed the relatively recent
era, when America was still a rural country.
At that time, there were big changes and everything was uncertain. So all this
required artistic interpretation. America Needed a new hero – a perfect being, highly
moral, passionate, charming and free of social vices. But he did not exist in real life,
he was supposed to be an abstraction, the dream of a beautiful, of a just and true.
After non –durable manifestation of pre – romantic trends ( " Gothic" novel by
Charles Brocken Brown "Arthur Mervyn , or Memoirs of 1793 ", 1800) with
exaggerated forms of evil image in American romanticism was approved a fantastic

11 Frederick Jackson Turner “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” 1893 p .2

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genre with a more proportional forms of evil image, were supernatural is combined
with common, and demonic with a specific life details. The connection between
educational and pre -romantic beginnings manifested in the works of Hugh Henry
Breckenridge, author of the novel "Modern Chivalry, or Adventures of Captain John
Farrag and Tiga Reagan, his servant" (1792, 1815) and in the early works of
Washington Irving.
Early American Fiction of Romantic period is mainly characterized by a
combination of mythological American motifs with a realistic colour of the
bourgeois early settlers life . If late romanticism gave American ficti on elements
bleak despair, horror, exemplified by the work of Edgar Allan Poe, in the early period
of its inception it had dominated cheerful, bright colours . Fantasy describes the
mystery , wonderful, legendary, in combination with fictional stories. It has the
spirit of adventure, humour , irony about the prevailing superstitions and at the same
time, the thirst for new knowledge of the unknown, it is submitted to the new
American settlers , with its dangerous rivers, pristine forests, disappeared to nowhere
ships and people. Life created myth itself, by moving on the pages , filled the
American fiction with the particular national identity.
In American literature at the root of the new Romantic movement was
Washington Irving, his work has inc orporated the brightest moments of national
romanticism, also had an impact on the work of Edgar Allan Poe, so in the next
paragraph of this study it is important to identify common ground in the works of
both writers.

2.2 Parallels between wo rks of Edgar Allan Poe and W. Irving

Irving was a pioneer who later became the main in the a American
literature, because he was the first who developed the short story , which
became a favourite genre of American writers and created a prose style tha t was

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considered a model for several generations. In the development of the theory of
the short story genre Poe is Irving´s follower .
Brian Jay Jones wrote in the preface of his book about 12Washington Irving :

“ Washington Irving was an American original, . His life story is the
kind on which America was built and thrives: a likeable, average man
does something no one has ever done before and becomes very, very
famous. So famous that women swoon over him and adoring tans hang
his picture on their walls Newspapers track his every move. Politicians
want to be associated with him. It's a story you might think you've read
and heard countless times before, but this one is different because it's
the first.
The first American to earn a living by his pen , Washington Irving was
America's first bona fide best -selling author. Unlike writers before him,
he had no family wealth or personal estate to sustain him if he simply
dabbled or wrote for pleasure. Irving had to write for a living. And,
write he did, ch urning out books, reviews, and articles for six decades,
working with such regularity that he was sometimes accused of
bookmaking. Like many of today's best -selling authors, who publish
books re aders love but critics loathe I rwing wrote for the masses and
for profit, not for posterity”.

Special poetic charm, which painted his prose , with their penetrating
symbolism, "the game feeling, thought, language" according to the saying of Irving in
a letter to Henry Brevoort on December 11. 1824 , will certainly r equire a brief study
of his work. In the work he embodied the characteristic signs of American literature.
Irwing was at the forefront of American literature and being considered as a founder

12Brian Jay Jones “Washington Irving: The Definitive Biography of Ameri ca's First Bestselling
Author “Arcade Publishing (January 4, 2008)

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of the American short story, definitely worthy of exploring a nd comparing his work
with the work of Poe.
As it is known, Irving came back to the study of folklore and a certain
romantic themes, especially prevalent in the late 18th – early 19th century. in German
and English literature. Irving called a mediator b etween Europe and America, while
alone in his Anglo -American position. However, Irving was the mediator not only in
spatial terms, but also in time, speaking a kind of liaisons between the past and the
present and future, in fact, even creating the missing past America.
If, before the Irving an American writer talked about his country's borrowings
from the English narrative forms and poetic language, then Irving rejected the
imitation of the English model, he recognized as the main task was of understandi ng
American history. This problem was brilliantly solved by him in his prose , were he
appeared as a true romantic. He was the first romantic who was nominated by
American literature.
Characteristic of the Irving and Poe’s works in whatever they wro te are that
they have always tried to look at the world through his fellow citizen’s eyes . ; even
if it was in the story of medieval Europe or Moorish Spain, this type of story would
sound anyhow unusual to the accustomed reader of the last century .
Different researches had marked that the “ distinction of mystical and
mysterious “ is preserved in some works of Edgar Allan Poe. However, the
destruction of Irving’s fabulous and unreal is not associated with a grim reality, but
with a subtle good -natured irony .These are his famous short story’s “ Rip Van
Vinkle”, “The legend of sleepy hollow “,”The widow & her son”, from “The sketch
book” .
Of course In the development of satirical techniques and artistically means
Poe largely succeeded W. Irving . For both of them is characteristically similar
ideological orientation that underlies their satirical vision. Both are equally standing
out from the total number of critics from bourgeois reality of absolute stubbornness
and rejection of the princi ples of bourgeois society. However, Irving admitted the
possibility of correcting social disadvantages, had faith in the triumph of the ideals
of democracy. But Poe's denial of bourgeois reality has become uncompromising.

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Poe´s satire had subtle veil ed nature and has been planned on a high
intelligence of the reader's perception and his nihilism often goes beyond the social
and political frames of the US. Poe was convinced that democracy is impossible in
principle, and any attempt to establish univ ersal equality will inevitably lead to the
dissolution of the individual in the total mass.
Irving short story inherent characteristic features such as the severity of the
plot, entertaining, a compound of serious and comic romantic irony combination with
pronounced rationalistic beginning.
A characteristic feature of romantic style of Irving and Poe is a combination
of the fantastic and realistic, with soft transitions from normal into a magic and
back. In addition to a similar ideological base , there was also similarity of artistic
techniques and style of expression. Both authors have the ability to express their
attitude in two or three sentences, dropped in a very simple way , but they have so
much of irony and sarcasm, that It inevitably gave th e entire work a critical
connotation.
Details in Poe´s narrative has a special role , it emphasizes the most
grotesque in the characters line , often turning the entire image in a hypertrophied
detail.
Finally, fantastic grotesque, was used by the auth or as satirical trick is not only
used in his satirical stories but is vividly manifested in his "ter rific" stories , giving
them even more depth.
Owning to Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe short story became one of
the most developed genre of American literature. Moreover, their prose differ by the
vivacity of the story, entertaining plot combined ironically , beauty of the landscape.
The common characteristics of their work are first, a combination of gentle irony,
humour , parody, grotesque and satire on modern American life, and, secondly, the
combination of fantasy with a realistic transition from the everyday to the magic, but
at the same time mystery appears as something natural in their works ..

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2.3 Characteristic of the Poe´s style

Speaking of American literature of the XIX century, impossible not to
mention the typical phenomena which special to the early stage of American
shrort story development. A significant number of stories of that time were
imitative. Sample were horror stories, cultivated by some European literary
magazines. These stories got something from the Gothic novel – with all kind of
mysteries, ghosts, monstrous fantasies. But among th em it was difficult to meet
something which would fulfill ev erything of this genre . A genius was It
required . And he was Edgar Allan Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809 -1849) was the first writer of the United States, which
not only learned from the Europeans, but had on them a serious impact response. It is
called one of the first authors in whose works live America. How can it be, if his
works are creations of fantasy and imagination? Great Anglo -American poet and
critic T .S Eliot said about this:
13“Perhaps all that one can say of Poe is that he was a t ype of
imagination that created its own dream world , that anyone’s dream
world is conditioned by the world in which he lives , and that the real
world behind Poe’s fancy was the world of Baltimore , Richmond ,
Philadelphia “

14R. W. WALLACE wrote in his article :

“In prose Poe was a master in the short story line. And one may be
inclined to accept his own estimate of them as expressed in a charming

Lee Oser “T.S. Eliot and American Poetry “University of Missouri Press 1998 (p.14)

14 R. W. WALLACE “The Journal of Education, V ol. 68, No. 24 (1709) ( december 24,
1908)

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letter to Lowell: "My best tales are 'Ligeia,' 'The Gold Bug,' the 'Murders
in the Rue Morg ue,' 'The Fall of the House of Usher,' 'The Tell -Tale Heart/
'The Black Cat,' 'William Wilson,' and 'The Descent into the Maelstrom "
In these and other of his short fictions may be found everything in the
whole gamut of the weird, grotesque, and mor – bid. And he seemed to
meet the popular wish for such tales in his day. "The Gold Bug" had a
circulation of over 300,000 copies. Alluding to these stories, Professor
Trent speaks of them as "the most strangely compelling prose
compositions in any literature ”

Many critics explaining Poe's attraction to catastrophic and grotesque plots,
sombre events, ominous atmosphere, the general atmosphere of hopelessness and
despair. Tragic transformation of human consciousness, terrified and out of control,
not o nly characterized in "terror tales " and in the aesthetic norm romant ic prose, but
also elevate his short stories to German sources. Researches proved that he was
depending on Hoffmann´s ideas and his "supernatural".
15Fiodor Dostoevsky, who firs t published the stories of Edgar Allan Poe in
Russia, in the preface to it wrote:

"This is very strange writer – definitely strange – although with a lot of
talent. Its impossible to classify his works , such as Hoffmann tales in
a fantastic , If he is “ fantastic then only externally … And if he has
something fantastic, then its kind of a material … It is evident that he
is quite an American, even in the most of his fantastic works. "

Another assessment on Edgar Allan Poe as about :

15 Fyodor M. Dostoevsky (Vremia , 1861) p.230 -0231

21
16“ the father of the modern short story” . According to
Professor Matthews, it was Poe who first laid down the true principles
of short story construction unity and singleness of intention in a
review of Hawthorne´s “Tales“. Written in 1842 . His tec hnical
theories made little impression on the United States at that time , but
they were quickly seized upon by French writers , worked out well
– night to perfection by Merimee and Maupassant , and later accepted
by the masters of the short sto ry in every modern language : coming
back to the United States by way of France , here to reach their
widest , if not their most exceptional development . Poe not only
organized the short story , he clamed for it superiority over every
other for m of fiction because of its very brevity , , it´s “immense
force derivable from totality “

Poe himself new the attitude of his critics, and he has expressed himself about this
subject as follows:

17 “I am led to think that it is the prevalence of the Ara – besque in my
serious tales which has induced one or two of my critics to tax me, in
all friendliness, with what they have been pleased to call Germanism
and gloom. The charge is in bad taste and the grounds of the accu –
sation have not been suf ficiently considered. Let us admit for the
moment that the "phantasy pieces" now given are Germanic or what
not. But the truth is that with a single exception there is no one of the
stories in which the scholar should recognize the distinctive fea – tures
of that species of pseudo -horror which we are taught to call Germanic
for no better reason than that some of the secondary names of German
literature have become identified with its folly. If in many of my

16 The father of the modern short story : Journal of education, vol. 68, no. 6 (1691) (august 20, 1908),
p. 173
17 The influence of Hoffmann on the tales of Edgar Allan Poe . Vol. III . p . 2

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productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of
Germany, but of the soul.”

American reality turned out to Poe on the thought side. The Son of actors, who
died of tuberculosis, grew up in a rich house of dealer Allan, whose name has
become the second name of his foster – child . Dealer did not adopt hi m but , took the
boy in his house. Edgar grew up in wealth, but still being the poor and without
control . He was considered the heir of a rich man, but never receiv ed an inheritance.
After his foster mother died, Allan re married, and relationships with him utterly
spoiled as a wayward young man did not want to reckon with the will of his
guardian.
He left withought any money so he enlisted in the US army as a private
Using the name” Perry “ . But at the end he did not succeed in this career . Poe began
to write poetry. On the collected money he publishes several collections of poems,
which did not bring him neither fame nor money.
He started to search for his relatives – sister of his father Mrs. Clemm. She
despi rately needs help in raising her daughter Virginia. They are dominated by
poverty, but here Poe finds his place . Later, he married his cousin Virginia , whose
image was captured in many poems and stories.
His first published collection of short he c alled " Tales of the Grotesque and
Arabesque, 1839 -1840” were was included "Ligeia," "William Wilson" and "The Fall
of the House of Usher" and others. The works title given by the author guides the
reader, gives them the key to the entrance to the area cr eated by the creative
imagination. Poe's stories really are grotesque and arabesque. But it describes more
appearance and style than the essence . Often literary critic call short stories of
Edgar Allan Poe "macabre." And tales of mystery . Such genr e was already widely
America when Poe was writing his story’s , so he has very much aware of popularity
of it .
His education and temperament helped him to become the first writer of all
America, he spoke a language that was interesting and und erstandable for the
European readers. As a romantic he knew attraction of the mysterious . Most of all he

23
liked to reveal the secrets that made him the creator of detective style . However, in
addition to analytical work of his mind, he appreciated the poetic way to approach
the mystery..
The main type of his short stories were psychological stories, which are
often were named as "horror “ .Their main theme was the tragic consequences of the
collision of human consciousness, educated in the spirit of humanistic ideals, with
new inhuman tendencies that arises during the progress of the American bourgeois
civilization. Poe was probably the first American writer who captured in these trends
lack of spirituality. A human soul, horrified when it f aces with a world in where it
has no place , the pain and the illness of the soul, fear, all these became the subject
of artistic and psychological research. And the results of the study depended, on the
general philosophical and aesthetic positions of the writer.
Detective stories of Edgar Allan Poe are very different from his horrific
stories. His detectives are penetrated by a solid logical line , which is guided by the
main character. There is no hint of mystique, All mysteries are solved by
protagonists with the method of deductive analysis of the events. The best detective
stories are: "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Mystery of Marie Roget," "The
Purloined Letter", "The Gold Bug".
One of his best fantastic stories is "The Narrati ve of Arthur Gordon Pym of
Nantucket” and among the mystical stories is "Ligeia."
Unlike the fiction author s Poe finds the “ wonderful ” in all situations. Horror
is not a necessary an element and if in a few of his short stories is the theme of li fe
after death, it is seen from a scientific and philosophical point of view ( "Magnetic
revelation"), or with vampires position ( "Morella"). Although Poe considered that
he belongs to an American school, according to his style and interpretation of th e
Anglo -Saxon subjects he is a romantic. Indeed, most of his literary training was held
in England around 1815, when there were the first Hoffmann stories . Each story
takes place in precisely describe the place and time. Often stories commented on
philoso phical arguments. The action of the story begins just after the life presentation
of the main characters. Although the plot can written in a few words, all impression
creates by his interpretation. Preliminaries and everything that surrounds direct act ion
are also important to feel the hypnotic power of t he style of Edgar Allan Poe.

24
Speaking about the legacy of Poe's prose, it is impossible to ignore his
attempts at a theoretical understanding of the story as one of the leading genres of
romantic litera ture in the United States. The writer proceeded from the idea of the
story as a genre magazine, designed for a wide range of readers. Hence – the basic
requirements of substantive and formal nature, applicable to "short prose".

In his own work he dev eloped whole system of methods elements which
created the effect of reliability and of course all critics observed . At that time,
Dostoevsky described in his famous article unic style of the American author.
His non -fiction works are "Sphinx", "Three Sundays in a Week" , "Hans
Phaal", "History with a balloon" , «Mellonta Tauta», satirical "Conversation with the
mummy," "A Thousand second tale of Scheherazade" and metaphysical "The tale of
the rocky mountains," "Mesmeric revelation," "The Facts i n the Case of M.
Valdemar".
Experiments Edgar of Allan Poe were namely experiments. They only
showed the possibility of the science fiction existence as an independent type of
literature. Credits to the writer could be for the development a number of techniques
that then become part of the poetics of the science fiction genre and retain their
"performance" so far.
Conventionally, there could be few categories Poe´s fantastic short story , were
the main characteristics are "weird", "terrible", "psych" , "sci -fi" and "Gothic" .

Conclusions on Chapter 2

In this chapter we were able to establish the following facts:
– the beginning of the American Romanticism is connected to
emergence of a national literature, what influenced creativity W. Irving and E.A Poe
as the founders and developers of the literary genre like short story ;

25
– The writers' works is directed to the inner world of a man; it
uses the principle of the “double – world “ by which the imperfection of the real
world is opposed to the world of fantasy;
– Fiction of Poe is comes together with the description of the
extraordinary, wonderful, legendary and the combination of legends , or is
describing fictional stories;
– One of the main themes of Poe’s short stories is the tragi c
consequences of the collision of human consciousness, educated in the spirit of
humanistic ideals, with new inhuman tendencies that arise during the progress of the
American bourgeois civilization;
Poe short story has several subspecies – gothic detecti ve, science fiction and
psychological n arrative, whereas fantasy fiction is divided into short stories, and main
is the " mystic ", "weird", "terrible", "psychological", "Science -fiction "and" Gothic
"novel.

26

Chapter 3

Analysis of the fantastic prose

3.1 Mystery in the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe

In order to give a more complete explanation of the fiction in the stories of
Edgar Allan Poe, it should be said that there is mystery in his works and there are
situations that can be explained ,but, nevertheless, it's incredible, extraordinary,
stunning, strange and disturbing events, and because they cause the hero and reader
response, similar to that we observe in works of fiction.
In contrast to the fantasy genre , the mystery has no clear bou ndaries, its delimited
on one side only – from the fantastic and on the other hand, it dissolves in the
literature in general. The mystery is only associated with feelings of characters rather
than with material object which is challenging mind .
As an illustration of the mystery would be the short story by Edgar Allan
Poe, "The Fall of the House of Usher” 1839 – one of the most famous and illustrative
manner for short stories of a writer.
Sad and dull landscape of the place .When the Ushers ancien t castle appeared, the
traveller went through a complete discouragement:
There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart …
For the reader is not clear why the character is going through this emotions.
The mystery is waiting for its resoluti on. Here the writer uses the trick of
enumeration to create a psychological tension of the situation.
The Narrator received a letter from his old friend Roderick Usher, a
descendant of a noble family, spending time under the catches inside of the ancestr al
castle. They had not seen each other for many years, but the request sounded so
desperate, he could not wait anymore and set off on the road. Upon meeting the
narrator was amazed how terribly changed Asher, how lifeless was his form.

27
Roderick – nervous, extremely sensitive man, adores his sister, who is currently is
seriously ill.
Everything in the house indicates of an ancient times and ruins: scattered books and
musical instruments. Asher spoke about the magical effect, which has this terrible
house on him , where slowly is dying Madeleine. Her disease is mysterious. It is a
kind of catalepsy. While Roderick was talking the female figure, as a fragile shadow
passed in the depths of a huge room and disappeared. Forever since that even ing
Madeleine will not be able to get up and leave his room.
G. Allen, Poe's biographer, believes that in the story "The Fall of the House of
Usher" is reflecting Poe’s marriage circumstances and that dying lady Madeline it
is easily recognizable Vir ginia", the beginning of her illness, her apathy, painfully
experienced By Poe:
“The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians.
A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although
transient affectio ns of a partially cataleptically character, were the mystery diagnosis.”
In this passage writer describe s the disease us ing a number of metaphors
and similes, indicating the presence of mystery .
Strange relationship with her brother it is inexplicable reason, inspiring Asher
desire to see it buried alive – is not nothing but a painful echoes of the agony
experienced by the bedside of his slowly dying wife and cousin.
Magazine "Baltimore museum" published Poe's poem "The Haunted Palace",
which he used in the story "The Fall of the House of Usher." The fact that his own
experiences, as well as the strange circumstances of his marriage, constitute kind of
story -based , and are reflected in his short stories , description as Roderick Usher is
the most accu rate of the known verbal portraits of Poe, and could be called "Self –
portrait of the artist in thirty years."
There is no such an under standing like plot in this story . Events are taking place of
the sensations and premonitions. Instead of developing o f the story – there is a kind
of pressure of the atmosphere: the first glimpse of fear, foreboding mystery, waiting
for death and the promise, from the Rodericks words the worst is going to happen

28
after the death of his sister. The news that m his sist er died, Roderick said almost
dispassionately.
Two friends, rather than place her body in the ground, they placed the coffin
in one of the cellars of the house.
A terrible storm broke. At this point, wanting to reassure Roderick, the
narrator reads a novel to him , which is accompanied by crashing sounds. At first it
was like a mighty, distant echo, then the sound became closer and shook the walls
down old copper shield.
That night was a terrible storm . But suddenly they could hear like a mighty, dis tant
echo, then the sound became closer .In the end, Roderick Usher stood up and said
under his breath:
We have put her living in the tomb! ( "We buried her alive").
And indeed, the door opened and his sister appeared in the doorway. Brother
and sister r ushed into each other's arms and dropped dead:

“… ut then without those doors there DID stand the lofty and
enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher”

In this passage the author uses a graphical method of lining out a verb in
lowercase letters which moreover is an e mphatic feature: it points on the horrified
character who can’t believe in what is happening.
Her catalepsy was taken as death and they buried it alive. What could it
be a crime or mystery ?
The narrator terrified runs away from the castle … and still notices the gap in
the ancient wall which begins to spread and through this gap pours the moon light :

“… this fissure rapidly widened – there came a fierce breath of
the whirlwind – the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my
sight – my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder –
there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a

29
thousand waters – and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly
and silently over the fragments of the "House of Usher".

In order to show the uniqueness of the situation and its mysticism, the writer
uses many techniques of personification : cracks expands, the wind blows, the lunar
disk appears, etc. It creates a se nse of reality. The reader is there at the same moment.
To do this Poe uses the device of alliteration: repetition of similar -sounding
consonants.
Here the mystery has two sources. The first source – a coincidence. For
example It can seem supernatural the resurrection of his sister and falling of the
house after the death of its inhabitants, but Poe did not fail to give a rational
explanation for these two events. He describes The house as follows:

“ Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might hav e discovered a
barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the
building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction,
until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn. ”
It so happened that the story "The Fall of the Hou se of Usher" is more ofte n
associated with Germanism. But horror or psychological story i n spite of the
individual features of typological similarities with some areas in the European prose,
can not be associated directly to the "German" school.
In the b ook "Grotesque and Arabesque" he wrote:

"In fact, there is no story in the book … in which critics could
detect clear signs of horror , which we used to call the “German ”. If the
subject of many of my works was horror , it is non -German horror and
terror of the soul. "

That is, as already described the new psychological property of the person are afraid
not just fictional imagination of ghosts and the dead, and of their own, sometimes
imaginary fears.

30
Subject of attention was the human soul, horrif ied when faced with a world in
which there was no room for her. Deceptive simplicity and clarity of this story
produces hundreds of assumptions, but under that simplicity hides the depth and
complexity.
The artistic world does not coincide with the everyda y reality. It is useless to
wonder: what is the cause of the Ashers disease? Why is he buried his sister? What
killed him? In the story there is no causal link. This story is a psychological horror .
On the one hand, the main subject is the disease state of the human psyche,
consciousness on the verge of insanity, on the other hand there is soul trilled with
horror .
Among the psychological states, the main position is dominated by a sense of
fear: fear of death, fear of life, fear of loneliness, fear of people, fear of insanity, fear
of knowledge. "The Fall of the House of Usher" draws no longer the fear of life or
fear of death, but the fear of life before death means particularly sophisticated and
deadly form of the terrified soul that leads to the d estruction of personality.
In the portrait of Roderick Usher Edgar Allan Poe introduced the tragic
characteristics of the romantic artist. Sensitivity and vulnerability, sophistication and
desire for solitude, fear of himself, isolation which is replace d by a sudden opening
and trusting the first comer, these characteristics can be defined as symptoms of " of
Usher diseases ":
“ It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one for
which he despaired to find a remedy – a mere nervous affect ion, he
immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It
displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he
detailed them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the
terms, and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He
suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid
food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain
texture; the odours of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were
tortured by even a faint light; a nd there were but peculiar sounds, and
these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with
horror.”

31

For a description of the disease writer uses many metaphors and epithets.
If we consider the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher" as a parable
about the artist, the tenderness of Roderick Usher can be read as an allegory of artistic
subtlety of genius, his nervous nakedness and vulnerability to gross material world.
Roderick Usher presented a poet, musician and painter, totally alienated from the
outside world and give birth in the impeachment of passionate sound of music,
melancholy rhythms of poetry and whimsical fantasy painting:

“A small picture presented the interior of an immensely long
and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low wall s, smooth, white, and
without interruption or device. Certain accessory points of the design
served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding
depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was observed in any
portion of its vast ext ent, and no torch, or other artificial source of light
was discernible; yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and
bathed the whole in a ghas tly and inappropriate splendour”

The Underground crypt with inner light it has many senses and, at the same time, a
clear symbol of the mystical tradition in romanticism, which goes back to the Neo-
Platonists , they considered prison a corporeal shell, which is languishing soul to her
release and return to the heavenly homeland after death. A man is living in a trap,
that’s why the outside world is in his imagination takes the semblance of the tomb.
Crypt, tomb, cave, well , old house, a castle, a ship are examples of closed space, in
which one or the other he ro is imprisoned and condemned to death as a vi ctim of
circumstance or his own mental illness. Life literally pushes a char acter in desperate
circumstances.
The space is often filled with dark spirits, destructive forces and once it
comes to life it turns into a terrible monster, enveloping man. Thus, for example, the
house itself is presented in the story of Roderick Asher. House of Usher, taken in its
symbolic meaning it's kind of a world in a state of profound decay dying, Dying.
Once it was a beautiful world where human li fe was spent in a creativ e atmosphere .

32
But now life has gone , leaving only memories. The tragedy of the inhabitants of this
house comes from the irresistible power that House has over them, over their minds
and actions. Any contact with reality is painful for them and they live i n fear in
collision with the reality of life.
It is significant that not the name of the protagonist but his home name is in
the title of the story .Evil f orces are stronger than the individual, because the name in
the title of the story only "attached" to the house of fear and death – "The Fall of the
House of Usher" (not "Roderick Usher" and "Roderick Usher and his house," for
example). You can say that Poe sees life through death, through the eyes of death
and, mor eover, it seeks death as a gate whic h opens the way to the world of the
spirits , in the invisible world of the underworld, who passionately carries his intellect
and imagination. So the theme of death becomes an expression of love for the
unknown, the mysterious, otherworldly.

Claiming ab solute value in itself, romantic art on the one hand is connected
and artistically mastered the tradition of introspection, moral inner introspection, but
on the other hand, severed man's relationship with God, which led to the tragic
interpretation of l ife itself as the existence in the darkness and in isolation from any
light source which is beyond human consciousness.
Darkness envelops the world around the romantic hero, the surrounding reality seems
unbearable, cruel and hopeless (which embody the symptoms of Usher), but inside
the person, and within, is another source of life: .
So the light of creation, the light of the soul is trapped in a mortal existence.
This light seems to be "inappropriate radiance" in a world where darkness spread, but
that it illuminates the life, the bright rays of dispelling the darkness. Only the light of
creativity leaves hope for salvation.
In fact Roderick is the main and only Poe’s hero, differently repeated in other
stories: it is – a nervous, painfully percepti ve contemplator who loves rare books, a
hermit who is afraid of life; The same as his the favourite heroine – a mysterious,
mysteriously -wise, fading beautiful woman. Hero es of Poe’s are predetermining
their death; they are weak -willed, they do not hav e forces to protest against the life,
perceived as a nightmare and evil. Each of them is a victim of some obsession, they

33
are not real people with real feelings and passions but abstract figures, almost scheme,
and only creator gives them vitality.

3.2 Psychological storie s of Edgar Allan Poe

As the base of psychological stories Poe forms the principle of "forbidden
fruit". It is about human behaviour in the new conditions proposed by the bourgeois –
democratic society, where the apparent freedom of t he individual came into conflict
with the daily, hourly dependence and the impossibility of free will . Behaviour of a
man seemed forced. Exposes the sharp divergence between the moral consciousness
of the person and its practical actions, intentions betw een the ideal and concrete.
Edgar Allan Poe, Like other Romantics interpreted the social and psychological
phenomena in terms of personal consciousness, he saw here "disease of the soul",
which is similar to a mental abnormality . Poe identified it like "the spirit of the
perverse ." "The spirit of the perverse " seems to the writer common phenomenon and
characteristic to the current state of society. He has always insisted on the fact that
we are dealing with the disease, with a deviation from the norm. " The spirit of the
perverse " seems to the writer common phenomenon and characteristic of the current
state of society. He has always insisted on the fact that we are dealing with the
disease, with a deviation from the norm.
Each of psychological stories have sort of self -study of the human mind .
Heroes of the story have psychological fear of life. They fear not the reality as such,
but the moral and other standards that have established themselves in bourgeois
America, and those powerful forces that im pose these standards to human
consciousness, rape, crushing and deforming it. According to the awe of the terrible
danger of levelling individual consciousness, loss of identity, dissolved in spiritless
mercantilism.
According to researchers of strictly pa y attention to another mental
abnormality, occurring constantly in his stories – a divided mind, and put it on a par
with "the spirit of perversion." Interest to the writer of this anomaly is of a different
nature, and goes more to the problems of techniqu e and narrative structure than social

34
psychology. It has long been observed that his story is usually based on the traditional
romantic prose were the narrator is a protagonist. The narrator personifies moral –
psychological norm, the hero – a deviation fr om it. However in Poe’s art the narrator
and hero is one person. It embodies norm and deviation, and the narrative takes on
the character of self -observation. From here comes split consciousness, which
functions on two levels. One person commits acts ,another a man who describes
and explains the commitment . This duality is common in Romanticism, and the
writer used quite deliberately.
In various storie s degree of duality of consciousness is different. In some she
barely felt in the other – can be seen more clearly. Most fully it is expressed in the
story "William Wilson", where the degree of duality is so high that the "two"
consciousness can not "not fit" in one character and each "demands" for themselves
an independent physical form .
Poe sho rt story "William Wilson" – a story about a man pursued by a double
ganger, and difficult to decide for reader whether this is a double of a human being,
or the author offers us a kind of parable, in which the so -called.. double is only a part
of the pers onality of the hero, a kind of incarnation of his conscience….

“…..my rival had a weakness in the faucal or guttural organs,
which precluded him from raising his voice at any time above a very
low whisper. “

This double appears by magic, the most key moments of t William Wilsons
life :
«In ceasing, he departed at once, and as abruptly as he had entered».
«Years flew, while I experienced no relief. Villain! – at Rome, with how
untimely, yet with how spectral an officiousness, stepped he in between me and my
ambition! At Vienna, too – at Berlin – and at Moscow!
As an example characters anger writer uses the technic of personification,
and also allows a crude expression in speech. Also he uses phases without predicate
which is atypical for English speech expressing a short time, a surprise.

35
End of story leads us to the allegorical interpretation. William Wilson calls his
double on the duel and mortally wounds him, while the "other" approaches him and
saying the following words:

“ You have conquer ed, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also
dead – dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope! In me didst thou exist –
and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou
hast murdered thyself ”

These words are clearly a complete explication of the allegory, but however,
they retain their value and relevance. One can not argue that this is a pure allegory, it
was more a question of the reader fluctuations. Separating consciousness on the
moral and immoral , Poe gave the "two " heroes same name, one age, one
appearance, but separate existence. And only in the last sentence of the story, in the
sentence before death of William Wilson, who was killed by William Wilson, the
writer reveals the unity of their dual existence.
Short story "William Wilson," is about a man fighting with his own
conscience, slowly killing it, and when he finally kills it thus destroys personality too,
which was based on a combination of good and bad principles.
There are two theory’s about the evil and they interact differently in the
literature:
1) people born good and initial impulse of evil is introduced from the
outside;
2) a person born angry, effectiveness of the evil in it depends only on the
degree of initiation sitting in every human evil, forcing him to commit his illogical
behavior.
The combination of this two theory’s is characteristic to the medieval picture
of the world , on the one hand were man is constantly exposed to the temptation of an
outsid e evil force, and on the other , initially has a tripartite structure: the spirit of
striving for God, the soul, which has the possibility of choosing between good and
evil, and flesh, gravitating toward s evil. The second point is predominant in the
ideological picture of the world of roma ntics that the problem moved into the inner

36
sphere of man. The tragedy of these characters is the inability to resist them against
themselves and their metaphysical longing for the ideal . Edgar Allan Poe in the short
story "William Wilson" placed the sourc e of evil in the recesses of the human soul, in
the twists and turns and dead ends of consciousness.

Poe's addiction to all kinds of mental anomalies is well known. But Few,
noticed that his attention focused on the anomalies leading to disruption of soci al and
moral laws and that the symbolism of madness has a deep social meaning and that
"the mad " of his heroes is built on the basis of careful analysis of the human psyche,
and all this is a special form of reflection of reality.
As increased atten tion of Poe to psychology was due to a desire finding
out what stops consciousness to fully function . In all his life he believed in the
humans mind, which could be the only able to lead out humanity from the tragic
contradictions of life. No wonder critics say that his the main rationalist in
Romanticism. Of course , the biggest interest for the writer was the intellectual
activity of the person.

37

3.3 Supernatural in Poe´s fiction

Death as a manifestation of the supernatur al (the death of a beautiful woman
in a mysterious circumstances) – is the theme of the story «Ligeia» (1838), one of the
best narrative. It posed the problem of death overcoming, and miraculous,
mysterious resu rrection Ligeia.
By trying to overcome the apathy of his heroes: gi ving them the power of
thought. In the epigraph of Ligeria Poe uses words of Joseph Glanvill:

18 “And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth
the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will
pervad ing all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield
himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the
weakness of his feeble will.”

Supernatural of Poe is rationally chosen path to achieve the effect. Effects
are characte rs image which corresponds to the realism of his wild landscapes, to
describe this he uses epithets:

“ an abbey, which I shall not name, in one of the wildest and least
frequented portions of fair England. The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the
buildi ng, the almost savage aspect of the domain, the many melancholy and
time-honored memories connected with both, had much in unison with the
feelings of utter abandonment which had driven me into that remote and
unsocial region of the country. Yet although t he external abbey, with its
verdant decay hanging about it, suffered but little alteration …”

18 https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/574749 -and-the-will-therein -lieth -which -dieth -not-who –
knoweth

38
Specific to this passage are the morphological features of adjectives: all
the adjectives are used in pairs. In the first pair of adjectives have superlat ive
degree of comparison, in the second – the same formative suffixes, which gives a
description of additional emotion and expressiveness.
In the "Ligeia" storry the main carácter is lovestruck young man who
can not overcome after sudden death of th e woman he loved. He turns his life in
voluntary imprisonment and his castle into a kind of decoration of imprisonment.
But this hero is getting low. He begins to realize that he could arrange a meeting
with his beloved in a special world. He begins to cre ate the world, similar to the
reality. The world is like, but at the same time distinct from it. The desire of the
hero of Edgar Allan Poe is not in the incarnation of the event, but the embodiment
of a particular person: build a special world, where would be a lovely woman.
This world was not created in order to cure or treatment, and in order to more
severe pain.
Hero brings to the castle as the wife of another woman. She falls ill and
near death, unconscious. That's a new shell for Lady Legay. After a lo ng slumber
wife of the hero opens his eyes and looks at the hero's eyes Lady Ligeia.
Action in the supernatural fiction By going in a surreal, mysterious world
where the usual offset coordinates of time and space and have no control laws of
logic and comm on sense. The plot is built around some terrible catastrophe, the
atmosphere of the story is full of agonizing despair, but the fate of heroes – the
dark tragedy.
In the short story "Ligeia" the reader can notice a romantic irony, the
main characteristi cs of which is a contradiction of the ideal and the reality. Trying
to explain the essence of this concept, romantics talked about the coexistence in
the space of the phenomenal world and they wrote about an art as "the
expression of the infinite in th e finite.
In the short story "Ligeyya" where this principle of duality occurs on the
basis of contrasting the two worlds. The duality of Poe – is the substantial condition,
which is , characterized by the coexistence of the two forms of the infinity in human

39
existence. The contrast of the two worlds based on the principle of separation in the
earthly life and after death. It is important to note that in the story is that death
becomes a facet through which the hero to enter the beyond world . In Poe storie this
concept of duality is incredibly realistic and natural .
Death , so often founded in Poe narration , that it became very familiar to the
reader. Indeed , death always separates the two worlds .
Interesting anough that death -boundary has of two forms, which may be
conditionally expressed in geometric forms – either straight or zigzag. In fact, there
are two forms of death coming into life: straight is a surprise, zigzag a sense of the
constant presence of death and suddenness . It shou ld be noted that it generally are
two possible ways of death comprehension in literature. However, just at in Poe’s art
it deliberate geometric form , and above all, because it is a border .
Thus, the straight death, always comes into a person's lif e unexpectedly,
usually is realized in the form of a thin or sharp object, as in the short story "Never
Bet the Devil Your Head “ And it is interesting that the hero Toby Dammit literally
goes from one world to another by trying to jump over the gate:
“ About five feet just above the top of the turnstile, and crossing the arch of
the foot -path so as to constitute a brace, there extended a flat iron bar, lying with its
breadth horizontally, and forming one of a series that served tostrengthen the structure
throughout its extent. With the edge of this brace it appeared evident that the neck of
my unfortunate friend had come precisely in contact ”
And the head immediately is picked up by man in black (the devil), standing
on the other side of the gate.

Poe´s perception is always full of contrasts . Like in the story "The Death of
Mr. Bernard," just with the first sentence to the reader the "untimely death of the
hero is stated (moreover, his death is already stated in the title). But even for the
hero's death occurs suddenly.
From the window they saw a woman running down the street (Mr. Bernard);
but, before reaching the central angle of two streets, she stopped and rushed back
,disappeared within a second in airless darkness.

40
After that, the reader understands that Mr. Bernard already dead. It can be
deduced that the "disappeared woman into the stuffy darkness" has been a shift in
the other world.
The second form of death in the works of Edgar Allan Poe is a zigzag. This
we can find in the sto ry "The Premature Burial":
This form of embodiment of death implies that it is part of life it's always
there, is not always easy to be observed , and even visible.
Zigzag it is like shape of the border between two worlds, the best it is
represents in P oe's short story "Ligeia". The theme of death is part of the story, which
is beginning with the epigraph:

"And the will therein lieth, which dieth not …" (Joseph Glanvill)

The story works such way that with the first lines reader is absorbed in t he
narrators memories about his deceased beloved:
“… in studies of a nature more than all else adapted to deaden impressions of
the outward world, it is by that sweet word alone – by Ligeia – that I bring before mine
eyes in fancy the image of her wh o is no more “
Here again we find the use of epithets.
Thus, the memories very clearly creates us the image of a living woman,
knowing that she died. Illness and death is the point of contact between the to
worlds. Aftr , the memories of his new wife (Lady Rowena), which are filled with a
sense of guilt towards her. . Again, death accompanies the life of their penetration
into it:
“ My memory flew back, (oh, with what intensity of regret!) To
Ligeia, the beloved, the august, the beautiful, the ent ombed. “

Disease of Lady Rowena (again the presence of death), during which the
forces of the underworld again penetrate the living world:

“ The wind was rushing hurriedly behind the tapestries, and I
wished to show her (what, let me confess it, I coul d not all believe) that

41
those almost inarticulate breathings, and those very gentle variations of
the figures upon the wall, were but the natural effects of that customary
rushing of the wind.
It was then that I became distinctly aware of a gentle footfall upon the
carpet, and near the couch; and in a second thereafter, as Rowena was
in the act of raising the wine to her lips, I saw, or may have dreamed
that I saw, fall within the goblet, as if from some invisible spring in the
atmosphere of the room, three or four large drops of a brilliant and
ruby colored fluid.”

Finally, we see the death of Lady Rowena, who again become a point of
contact between the two worlds. At the same time there is a substitution of Lady
Rowena , she goes into the other worl d, and Ligeia returnes to this world through
her death:

“ Shrinking from my touch, she let fall from her head,
unloosened, the ghastly cerements which had confined it, and there
streamed forth, into the rushing atmosphere of the chamber, huge
masses of long and disheveled hair; it was blacker than the raven wings
of the midnight! And now slowly opened the eyes of the figure which
stood before me. "Here then, at least," I shrieked aloud, "can I never –
can I never be mistaken – these are the full, and th e black, and the wild
eyes – of my lost love – of the lady – of the LADY LIGEIA. "

Thus, throughout the entire text of the story happens interpenetration of life
and death, a kind of wave and like an oscillation between two worlds. This wave is
like an actual zigzag.
By expresses heightened interest to the extreme and inexplicable. Writer, together
with his characters tend to look "beyond" , beyond the Earth's cognition, beyond the
mind, beyond the edge of life. All of this is concentrated in the last fatal mystery – the

42
mystery of death. Various forms and aspects of death, physical and mental torture,
agony all is studied and analysed by the writer. Of course, all this affects painful
breakdown of Poe . But still he uses skilfully laws of per ception, thus amplifying the
emotional impact, enhancing the reader's imagination.

3.4 The Science fiction of Edgar Allan Poe

Adgar E llan Poe had a remarkable gift: he connects the two elements that
seemed incompatible, – the combination of imagin ation of a romantic poet and
meticulous analyst. It is the best combination to become the founder of science
fiction.
The S cience fiction of Edgar Allan Poe include such as «The Unparalleled
Adventure of One Hans P haal», 1835, “The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of
Nantuchet, 1838 " " A descent into the Maelstroum ” and others were the writer
refers to the science of the contemporary world .
Mix between science and fiction in "The Unparalleled Adventure of One
Hans Phaal" furs manufacturer . Almost bro ke , he builds a balloon and reaches the
moon safe ,from where five years later he sends the report to the city leaders of
Rotterdam.
Action , tinged with humour and irony. Once the inhabitants of the city are
witnessing an extraordinary event: above t hem hangs an object having the shape
of "dunce cap" from which a stranger throws a letter addressed to the governor
Superbus van Underdunu. Letter is sent to the moon by Hans Ph allem, craftsman,
who disappeared from Rotterdam five years ago. The letter ex plains how once in
difficult material circum stances, hunted by creditors, Ph all ventured a risky
move. After collecting the money, having studied the relevant scientific work, he
builds his own balloon and secretly leave Rotterdam. The letter is

43
meticulo us written in the form of a diary, its a record of the flight . The writer
engages the reader with the details. Fantastic plot of specific details relating to
the structure and equipment of the ball, navigation characteristics, feelings of a
man soaring h igh above the Earth. Poes gives the the impression of strictly
documentary equipment.
From a purely literary point of view, "Hans Phall" can not be named a
masterpiece, but the method, which was used by the writer, proved to be extremely
useful for the f uture; perhaps it is in the work of science fiction has found its true face
About the story "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Phaall" Poe wrote:
" The characteristic’s of" Hans Paall " try to achieve this possibility of using
scientific principles t o the extent that allows the fantastic character of the book."
Edgar Allan Poe – a poet of beauty, which, in his opinion, is killed in a our
society. He was a romantic, trying to push the boundaries of the possible for a human
being, led him beyond the b oundaries of the real and at the same time leaving hero the
humanity. In fact Poe was a science fiction writer, which proves the scientific
description of Hans Phaall´s journey to the moon. In his works emerges a precise
mathematical calculation, everyt hing that is fantasy subdue to the laws of the real
world. The extraordinary contrast between strange things happening and description
based on facts . This is what attracts reader the most .

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3.5 Concept of horror in science fiction of Ed gar Allan Poe

An illustrative example of "The Sphinx".

“Near the close of exceedingly warm day, I was sitting, book in hand,
at an open window, commanding, through a long vista of the river banks, a
view of a distant hill, the face of which nearest my position had been denuded
by what is termed a landslide, of the principal portion of its trees. My thoughts
had been long wandering from the volume before me to the gloom and
desolation of the neighbouring city. Uplifting my eyes from the page, they fell
upon the naked face of the bill, and upon an object – upon some living monster
of hideous conformation, which very rapidly made its way from the summit to
the bottom, disappearing finally in the dense forest below. As this creature first
came in sight, I dou bted my own sanity – or at least the evidence of my own
eyes; and many minutes passed before I succeeded in convincing myself that I
was neither mad nor in a dream. Yet when I described the monster (which I
distinctly saw, and calmly surveyed through the wh ole period of its progress),
my readers, I fear, will feel more difficulty in being convinced of these points
than even I did myself. ”
The story is about the mysterious and scary , but then on the next page
comes the exposure of " the trick " like an expla nation about how the monster
appears in front of the narrator. . It turned out that it's only an insect – "sphinx ".
Insect got into a web that is woven through the window, and the human eye,
sitting at the window, projected it on bare slope of the distan t hill. The image of
the beast – an illusion generated by disturb ed mental state of the narrator . Bck
then I n New York was a cholera epidemic , "the disaster was spreading all in the
wind, when it blew from the south … it seemed to stink of death." The "Sphinx"
reflected the actual event in early 30 -ies of the last century:

45
"Sphinx" – the story is "scary" has a parody, it also has Poe´s significant
motive of social satire – pronounced a real state of American democracy. Relative
narrator is describ ed as follows:
" with what I thought a cruel calmness, of various points of
speculative philosophy, which had heretofore formed subject of discussion
between us. I remember his insisting very especially (among other things)
upon the idea that the principle source of error in all human investigations
lay in the liability of the understanding to under -rate or to over -value the
importance of an object, through mere mis -admeasurement of its
propinquity. “To estimate properly, for example,” he said, “the influen ce to
be exercised on mankind at large by the thorough diffusion of Democracy,
the distance of the epoch at which such diffusion may possibly be
accomplished should not fail to form an item in the estimate. ”

According to Dostoevsky, Edgar Allan Poe can be seriously distinguished from all
other writers: by the power of imagination. Not that he was superior to to other
writers; but in its ability to have such a feature of the imagination, which we have not
seen anybody: it is the power of the details, "which is able to convince the reader …

"The power of imagination, or, more precisely, the considerations",

says Dostoevsky, allowed Edgar Poe with an emphatic success widely mystify the
reader. About abilities we can give as an example "History with a balloon" – the
story were the myth about the flight of the balloon 118 from Europe to America was
so believable that became a real sensation.
Dostoevsky payed attention to the very important element Edgar Allan Poe stories
"He almost always takes a very exceptional reality, puts his hero in the most
exclusive external or psychological situation, and with huge inner power talks about
the state of the human soul." Very often the terrified soul, that once felt Edgar Allan
Poe.

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3.6 Gothic world in Poe´s fiction

Poe explored a lot about the Gothic world, but he never has written stories
about vampires. However, his critics have found impacts of contemporary a vampire
in his various works. Historians studying the literary heritage of the X IX century,
noted that in addition to the bloodsucking vampires in literature of the time attended a
metaphorical or psychological vampirism in which vampire like character sucks the
life force or energy from another person .
Most recently, James Twitchell proved that "the development of vampire
analogy was one of the main artistic techniques of Edgar Allan Poe". Twitchell saw
the vampire theme in few story’s especially in "Bernice," "Morella," "Ligeia," "The
Oval Portrait" and "The Fall of the House of Ush er." In "Bernice" Poe was telling a
story about a man who, being very weak at the beginning of the story and seemed to
be becoming more and more healthy by the development of the action, while his
cousin Bernice died. At the end Bernice became a vamp ire, because she was pale,
having lifeless eyes and protruding teeth. The narrator is even more afraid of Bernice
after death, he goes to the grave to kill the vampire, having pulled out her teeth .
Bernice was the first female vampires created by Poe. . Morell , which was written
shortly after "Bernice," . She also had signs of a vampire: cold hands, mesmerizing
eyes and bloodless face. In the same way the main character of "Ligeia" (1838) had a
similarity with Lamia because of his cold hands, pale, pro minent teeth and hypnotic
eyes. Twitchell suggested that in these first three story’s Poe used vampiric theme as
an allegory of the relationship between lovers. Poe returned to this theme in "The
Fall of the House of Usher", where happens vampiric exchan ge of energy between the
blood brothers.

And finally, in "The Oval Portrait" On wove a fascinating story of an artist
who destroys all around him by his passion for his work. The story was about the
artist who painted the portrait of his beautiful wife, withought noticing that the more

47
he paint, the more she becomes weaker and weaker. After completing his work, he
said that this is in fact life itself. Eventually, he finds his wife dead life completely.
By Poe death does not mean the irreversible end o f all that we see, and
clearest example of this idea would be "The Oval Portrait.
The world of "Gothic" by Edgar Allan Poe short stories populated by ghosts,
there prevails a climate of fear, everything is permeated by corruption.
The story "The Oval Portrait" takes place in an old abandoned castle :
“… it was gloomy and majestic … there was a rich decoration,
but an old and dilapidated …”
In the room, where was sitting the nameless character of the story , the bed
was with a heavy canopy ma de of a black velvet. Mystique arises from the very
beginning and not because there is something strange and odd. The beginning of the
is quite prosaic: the hero was sick and wounded, and his servant found him a refuge in
a abandoned castle. He was su ffering from a fever and had to take opium, to ease his
sufferings somehow . This is the first part of the story , as if it were an introduction.
The very short story is divided into two parts of different sizes.
The situation presented in such a way that the reader is kept in suspense
awaiting the appearance of the supernatural, and the author leads the reader gradually
to the phenomenon of the underworld. The underworld it is the traditional Poe
creation . As soon as the hero takes opium he see´s the portrait in an oval gilt frame.
And here comes the culmination of the action because by taking opium he becomes
more sensitive towards the eternal.
Portrait depicts a beautiful young girl – like all the feminine characters of Poe ,
she is beautiful inh umanly ghostly, heavenly beauty. After all, the second part , were
we find out the history of the portrait – a mysterious and frightening. In the climax of
the story central idea is the great power of art that can immortalize through death:
“The portr ait, I have already said, was that of a young girl. It was a mere head
and shoulders, done in what is technically termed a vignette manner; much in the
style of the favorite heads of Sully. The arms, the bosom, and even the ends of the

48
radiant hair melted imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which formed the
back-ground of the whole. The frame was oval, richly gilded and filigreed in
Moresque. As a thing of art nothing could be more admirable than the painting itself.
But it could have been neither the execution of the work, nor the immortal beauty of
the countenance “
Portrait appeared in front of the hero alive and present, far more real than
anything around him. But Edgar does not say anything from himself – we see what is
happening throug h the heroes eyes, steeped in the border state of consciousness due
to fever and opium. Here is an element of autobiography, and it is known that the
writer himself often smoked opium, therefore, the symptoms of this condition were
familiar to him .
Poe frighten the reader not with a "gothic horror" as did the romantics from
Europe , his horrors does not come from somewhere else, it lie within a man,
inside .

49
Conclusions of Chapter 3

In this chapter, we have analyzed the characte ristics of the fantast ic stories of Poe –
the mystic , psychological, supernatural, science, awful, g othic which guided us to the
following conclusions:
– despite the fact that the short story of Poe belongs to the genre of science
fiction, can be very mu ch rational
– there is no plot as usual in the short story , there are events that describe
feelings, hunches, all the fantastic events have quite rational explanation;
– Image object in the short stories of Poe is human soul, confronted with the
world, the state of the human psyche, the moral consciousness of the individual;
– In many stories action is happening in a surreal, mysterious world where
the time is unreal .

50
Conclusion s

The aim of this thesis was to determine the identity of the fantast ic stories of
Edgar Allan Poe in the context of the American short story of the first half of XIX
century. A review of the different def inition approaches of the short story ideas:
"mystic", "fantastic", "the author's fiction," as well as to identify th e features of
American romanticism of the first half of the XIX century, as a factor that will affect
the work of Edgar Al lan Poe and his fantastic prose .
– story as a small narrative form in the literature, In work of Edgar Allan
Poe it expresses the confl ict and psychological state of his characters , the moral
consciousness of the individual .
– invention relates to both fiction and mysticism, and sometimes in the
works of Poe three genres take strange shapes, both events are very connected to
reality.
– comm on technique for Poe is mixing is several worlds, especially the
underworld and real, fantastic and domestic, mysterious and rational;
– for romantic fiction is characteristic a way of duality, tragedy and
gloom of Romantic grotesque;

– All the stories together it is a bold flight of imagination with a mathematical
calculation and iron logic, it mixes science and fiction in his work;

Thus, all this determines the special place of Edgar Allan Poe in the history of
world classics . A poet and mathematician , visionary and logic, and a rationalist
dreamer, seeker of the highest beauty .

51
Works Cited

The Massachusetts Review V ol. 4, No. 2 (Winter, 1963), pp. 291 -308

“A dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory “ V
J. A. Cuddon 2013

Niko lyukin A. N. (Russian ed.), ´´Encyclopedia of literary terms and concepts´´

Frederick Jackson Turner “The Significance of the Frontier in American History

“Poe’s Satiric Use of Vampirism in ‘Berenice’,” Poe Studies , December 1981, V ol.
XIV, No. 2,

M.A Petr ovsky "Morphology of prose " p.117

Myth" in Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 15, (London: Chicago William Benton
Publishers, 1973), p. 134.

Nikolyukin A. N. (Russian ed.), ´´Encyclopedia of literary terms and concepts´´
(p.558,p 559,p 888, )

From Range of articles “Dostoyevsky Materials and researchers " 2016 ( p. 127)

The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms (p.89)

Frederick Jackson Turner “The Significance of th e Frontier in American History”
1893 p .2

Brian Jay Jones “Washington Irving: The Definitive Biography of America's First
Bestselling Author “Arcade Publishing (January 4, 2008)

Lee Oser “T.S. Eliot and American Poetry “ University of Missouri Press 1998 ( p.14)

R. W. WALLACE “The Journal of Education, Vol. 68, No. 24 (1709) (december 24,
1908)

Fyodor M. Dostoevsky ( Vremia , 1861) p.230 -02311

The father of the modern short story : Journal of education, vo l. 68, no. 6 (1691)
(august 20, 1908), p. 173
The influence of Hoffmann on the tales of Edgar Allan Poe . V ol. III . p . 2

52

Selected Bibliography

Myth" in Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 15, (London: Chicago William B enton
Publishers, 1973)

Lee Oser “T.S. Eliot and American Poetry “ University of Missouri Press 1998

Edgar Allan Poe ” Selected Poetry and Tales ” edited by James M . Hutchissom
“Broadview editions “2012

Arthur Hobson Quinn “ Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography ” The Johns Hopkins
University Press 1998

Hayley Mitchell Haugen “ Readings on the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe”
Greenhavenpress, 2001
Shelley Costa Bloomfield “The Everything Guide to Edgar Allan Poe Book: The life,
times, and work of a tormented genius” Sep 1, 2007
Nikolyukin A. N. (Russian ed.), ´´Encyclopedia of literary terms and concepts´´

Nudelman RI // Short Fiction Literary Encyclopedia:. At 8 vols 7 / Ch. Ed. AA

L.V Monk “The theory o f literary genres ” . – 2006. № 3. 3 -12

S.T. Joshi. “Icons of horror and the supernatural : an encyclopedia of our worst
nightmares “ Vol 1 . Greenwood Press 2007

http://www.online -literature.com/poe/

Edd Winfield Park s “ Edgar Allan Poe As Literary Critic ” The Univercity of
Georgia Press 1964

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