Lect. univ. dr. Georgiana -Elena Dilă [620199]

UNIVERSITATEA DIN CRAIOVA
FACULTATEA DE LITERE
SPECIALIZAREA STUDII DE LIMB Ă ENGLEZĂ ȘI
LITERATURI ANGLO -AMERICANE

LUCRARE DE DISERTAȚIE

Coordonator științific:
Lect. univ. dr. Georgiana -Elena Dilă

Absolvent: [anonimizat] 2019

UNIVERSITATEA DIN CRAIOVA
FACULTATEA DE LITERE
SPECIALIZAREA STUDII DE LIMB Ă ENGLEZĂ ȘI
LITERATURI ANGLO -AMERICANE

Tracing Poe’s philosophical principles in his short stories
Trasarea principiilor filosofice ale lui Poe în povestirile
sale

Coordonator științific:
Lect. univ. dr. Georgiana -Elena Dilă

Absolvent: [anonimizat] 2019

Abstract

The present study examines Poe’s philosophical principles in his short stories from
“Tales of Mystery and Imagination”. The paper focus es on developing essential ideas of Poe’s
masterpieces with appreciations of his exceptional ability to bring life into the character s
portrayed, through his gothic and myster ious style.
The most melancholic topic is death. Because death becomes poetical when it is aligned
with beauty, the most poetic topic is the death of a beautiful woman and here we will refer to
“Berenice”. We will discuss about one of the major themes in “The Tell -Tale Heart, the effects
of guilt or conscience and the descent into madness. In “The Black Cat ”we will analyse both
physical and psychological transformations of the narrator, self -knowledge versus self-
deception, sanity versus madness, love versus hate, good versus evil, the power of obsession
and guilt, and the sources or motives of crime.

Contents

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4
Chapter 1. Exploring Edgar Allan Poe ’s life and literary
style ……………………………………………………… . 6
1.1.Novelty and talent in the writer’s work…. ………………………………….. ………………. 9
1.2. Discovering Poe’s style and his influence on other write rs ………………… 12

Chapter 2 . Poe’s philosophical principles andhis short stories ……………………… 15
2.1 Berenice – exploring the death of a beautiful woman. …………………………. …..18
2.2. The Tell -Tale Heart – brevity and close space……………………………. …21
2.3. The Black Cat – the power of obsession and guilt………………… ……………………… ..25
Conclusions ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 30
Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 31
Rezumat ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 34

Introduction

Edgar Allan Poe was born as Edgar Poe on January 19, 1809, being the second so n of a
family of travel actors. Until he reached the adult life in order to write, Poe had experienced
tragedy and loss that will follow him all his life, causing a remarkable, but troubled career .
“Tales of Mystery and Imagination” is the ultimate collection of the infamous author’s
macabre works. Focusing on the internal conflict of individuals, the power of the dead over the
living and psychological explorations of darker human emotion, the book f eatures some of his
most popular tales and tales like “The Black Cat” became more widely read after his death.
For the realization of the paper, we needed to explore the Gothic genre with the dark
settings, death, madness, buried alive and animals with hum an qualities. Our interest was to
analyse Poe’s gothic literature and his philosophical way of identifying himself in certain
circumstances.
In the first chapter of the dissertation, we will discuss about Edgar Allan Poe’s
biography and the reception of P oe’s theory, his novelty and talent which demonstrates his
intellectual superiority . Different critics, from different sides of the world appreciate his talent
and his contributions to tliterature with his masterpieces.
In the second chapter, Short Stories – the portrayal of Poe’s ideas, we deal with the
interpretations of the three short storie s “Berenice”, “The Tell -Tale Heart ” and “The Black Cat”
which emphasize Poe’s Gothic genre. In this section, the main features are the death of a
beautiful woman, crime, horror, fear, craziness, but in relation with the essay. Poe becomes
satisfied only if the reader has reached the effect desired. The short stories belong to the Gothic
class with symbols as depression, crime, mental illness, panic and supernat ural activity. Many
critics acclaimed Poe’s plots and style of writing, but also many of them thought that he was
just a simple madman. Mental disorders in characters are so common to Poe that those who
have read enough of his works tend automatically not to trust the sanity of any of his characters.
The works of Edgar Allan Poe are famous for featuring dark themes, violence, and
psychologically unstable characters. “The Tell -Tale Heart ” and “The Black Cat ” are two of his
best known works, both of which in volve narrators who are not of sound minds. In “The Tell –
Tale Heart ”, the narrator murders the old man he lives with because he is bothered by the man’s

eyes. Similarly, in “The Black Cat ”, the narrator attempts to kill his cat but murders his wife
when she tries to defend the animal. Madness is a shared characteristic of the narrators in these
texts. Each of the narrators commit and successfully conceal murder, but ultimately get caught
because of their own insanity. Poe has a unique way of showing this madness in these texts.
This paper will argue that Poe represents madness in “The Tell -Tale Heart ” and “The Black
Cat” through the narrators’ lack of motivation to commit murder and the ling uistic and
structural elements of the texts. “Berenice” is a meditation on the struggle between the
antisocial introspection of the intellect and the gregarious sensuality of the body. The two
extremes are destined to strive for dominance, Poe suggests, and once an upper hand is
achieved, only complete and absolute possession will satisfy the desire to own.

Chapter 1Exploring Edgar Allan Poe’s life and literary style

E dgar Alla n Po e was bor n in Bo sto n in Januar y 19, 1809, t he son of
two actors . Orphaned in 1811, he became the ward of John and Frances Allan of Richmond,
accompanying them to England in 1815 and then returning in 1820 to Richmond, where he
completed his early schooling. In 1826 he attended the University of Virginia, but gam bling
debts forced his withdrawal, and after a clash with his foster father, Poe left Richmond for
Boston. There in 1827 he published his first book of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems , and
enlisted in the U.S. Army as “Edgar A. Perry.” After tours of duty in South Carolina and
Virginia, he resigned as sergeant -major, and between two later books of poetry – Al Aaraaf,
Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829) and Poems (1831) – he briefly attended the U.S. Military
Academy. Court -martialed and expelled, he took refuge in Baltimore with his aunt, Maria
Clemm, and there began to compose fantastic tales for newspapers and magazines; in 1835 he
obtained a position in Richmond at the Southern Literary Messenger. Perhaps already secretly
wedded t o his thirteen -year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, he married her publicly in 1836.
At the Messenger Poe gained notoriety by writing savage reviews, but he also raised the
journal’s literary quality and enhanced both its circulation and reputation. In 1837, however,
economic hard times and alcoholic lapses cost Poe his job; he moved to New York, where he
completed a novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym , published in 1838. By then, Poe had
relocated to Philadelphia, where he wrote “Ligeia” as well as “The Fall of the House of Usher”
and “William Wilson.” During successive editorial stints at Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine
and Graham’s Magazine, Poe developed plans to establish high-quality monthly periodical. He
also published his first book, a volume titled Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), and
later produced the first modern detective story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” as well as
the prize -winning cryptographic tale, “The Gold -Bug.” In 1842 his wife suffered a hemorage
that marked the onset of tuberculosis. Poe returned to New York in 1844 and reached the peak
offis productivity, publishing such tales as “The Premature Burial” and “The Purloined Letter.”
He gained fame in 1845 with his poem “The Raven,” and that year a lso saw the
publication of two books: “Tales” and “„The Raven ” and “Other Poems ”. But the weekly
literary newspaper he had managed to acquire, The Broadway Review , collapsed at the
beginning of 1846. Moving to nearby Fordham, Poe continued to write and to care for Virginia
until her untimely death in 1847. In his final years, he composed the sweeping, cosmological
prose -poem, Eureka (1848), as well as some of his most renowned poetry, includ ing “The

Bells,” “Eldorado,” and “Annabel Lee.” After an election -day drinking, Edgar Allan Poe died
in Baltimore on October 7, 1849.
Chronology
Edgar Poe is born in Boston January 19, 1809 to Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe,
Jr. His parents are traveling actors. They had one son, and their daughter is born one year later.
In December 8, 1811 both of Poe ’s parents die of tuberculosis. Edgar went to live with John
and Frances Allan in Richmond, Virginia and he adopt ed his foster family ’s last name as his
middle name.
Poe attend ed the University of Virginia in February 1826 and start ed studying ancient and
modern languages but unfortunately, he was expelled for not paying his gambling debts. Even
though he was only 18 he claim ed he has 22 years old and enlist ed in the U.S. Army on May
26, 1827, under the name “Edgar A. Perry”. After enlisting, he published a collection of his
poetry called Tamerlane and Other Poems but it was not a success.While at the United States
Military Academy at West Point, Poe publishe ed his second book, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and
Minor Poems .
In the end he g ot himself kicked out of West Point. He is court -martialed and dismissed
when because he stop ped going to classes and chapel in 1831. After that he continuated to
publish several anonymous short stories and another book of poems and as a res ult, in December
1835, Poe bec ame the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger magazine.
He publishe d critical reviews of other writers ’ work as well as his own stories and
poems. His stories include “Berenice ”" “King Pest ”, and “Morella ”. And one year l ater, on May
16, 1836 Poe marrie d Virginia Clemm, who was his cousin, in Richmond and later they move d
to New York and Philadelphia.
Poe’s first novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym , is published. It is his only
complete novel,so his first one. Maybe because the critics responded negatively to the novel
and Poe himself later called it “a very silly book. ”
Luckily, Poe bec ame an editor at Graham ’s Magazine in April 1841. The magazine r an
Poe’s short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue ”, the first short story published in a genre
now known as the detective story.
Poe’s poem, “The Raven ”, is published in the New York Evening Mirror in 1845. It is
often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It remains one
of the mos t famous poems ever written.
. The author’s wife, Virginia, dies of tuberculosis at their home in the Bronx. In 30
january 1847. He tried to mask the pain with alcohol but one year later, in November 1848, he

got engaged to Sarah Helen Whitman. She agree d to marry him on the condition that he quit
drinking but because it was impossible for him, Whitman call ed off the engagement.
In August 1849, Poe bec ame engaged to his childhood sweetheart, Elmira Royster Shelton
under the condition to quit drinking, but two months later, on October 7, 1849 Edgar Allan Poe
died.
1.1 Novelty and talent in the writer’s work

Poe is well -known for his talent in giving life to the Gothic style, for his unique type of
relating a story ful l with darkness, but the most interesting element is that in his works , death
is brought with a humor that emphasizes the bi zarre and the unusual, allowing to the reader to
reflect if what he felt is absolutely real or not. Poe began to see himself as a poet of the Romantic
culture, wr iting in order to support his family and his dominant passion for poetry.
The question of authenticity in Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry and masterpieces is directly
offered by his style of writing and the effect that is produced when his works are read.
For example, the poet chose to express fear in many of his works as “The Black Cat” ,
“The Tell – Tale Heart ” and even in “Berenice” . Once the effect was chosen, then the artist
should decide in which way this effect must be achieved, by narration or through plot, or the
final, by incidents: “peculiarity both of incident and tone . . . looking . . . for such combinations
of event, or tone, as shall best aid . . . in the construction of the effect ” (Poe, 1946: 1). No other
creator of short stories and poems have used this type of writing, Poe’s creations bringing
something new in the history of writing. In m ost of his tales, h e chose to make use of
Gothic fiction including darkness and the motif of death, a style that allows to concept a land
that is not about the real life with supernatural, being considered one of the talents likewise
Mary Shelly and Bram Stoker, that have nothing in common with the formal novel, in
order to bring something new and create new emotions .
Even the new was in Poe’s opinion, the result of composition, a reconstitution of old
elements a ccording to a different order. This kind of authors makes use of symbols as medieval
castles, combining with romance, in order to be able to create an atmosphere much more
attractive and unique. Nowadays, this kind of writing is much better read, indeed for
the mys terious action and mixture of elements within the environment. With every other
work created, Poe became much better and much more appreciated, despite his strong
criticism revealed during his life. Even if the author ’s life beca me hard er and harder through

the years, he was in a continuous search of beauty of art, his writings evolved much more
intellectual ly and are seen as new techniques.
Throughout his career as a magazine writer, Poe created hoaxes and outright
fabrications. After moving to New York City in 1844, he sold a made -up story to a newspaper,
claiming to have crossed the Atlantic Ocean in three days in a hot -air balloon. It is obvious that
Poe did not limit his imagination to fiction , his mind was like an ocean full of knowledge and
also full of curiosity and desire to create and discover new things .
Another great achievements that demonstrates the novelty of the writer, was his
invention of the detective genre with “The Murd ers in Rue Morgue ”. His goal was to write with
the aim of reaching the popular market, popularity experienced into the twenty first century,
because of his skillful ability to frighten and disturb.
Due to the years of study that Poe spent in England and the English culture, made him evo lve
pretty fast, maintaining him to progress in his career. Also, through the trips made in England
and Scotland he discover ed the world as he did not know, with landscapes and buildings, later
brought together in his prose and poetry. The se two aspects, studying and travelling abroad,
were benefits in building the newly America n literature, a new type of materialized writing.
Philip Van Doren Stern in the book An Edgar Allan Poe Companion (1981), is cited confirming
Poe’s success through his confess ion:
“He gave us much and received pathetically little in return, for he was all his life starveling
poet and a miserably paid writer for ephemeral magazines. It is a final irony that his letters and
manuscripts have become the most valuable o f all American writers .” (Hammond, 1981: 24)
As a book reviewer, Poe achieved by circumstance to devote much of his energies to
evaluate volumes of indifferent poetry written by enigmatic authors . The talent of the American
writer was remarked during his lifetime by the critic James Russel Lowell, who declared: “Mr.
Poe is at once the most discriminating, philosophical and fearless critic upon imaginative works
who has written in America. If we do n ot always agree with him in his premises, we are, at
least, satisfied that his deductions are logical, and that we are reading the thoughts of a man
who thinks for himself, and says what he thinks and knows well what he is talking about. His
analytic power would furnish brave ly forth some score of ordinary critics” .
Poe’s influence on both Anglo -American and European science fiction has been
profound. A round the short stories , he combined realistic and allegorical elements . The writer
was a critical master that is imagined as revising on and on the works, until he was absolutely
satisfied with it as a work of art.

Thanks to the opportunity of his works in a wide variety of popular publication, there
are movie adapt ations based on his stories, today his name is known all over America and
Europe and his works growth translated into different languages. The fame which constantly
escaped during his life, was increasing even after his death.
Despite the critic ism Americans, t hat only after almos t a century began to treat in a
different way his masterpieces and made reviews, the Europeans, were a little unhurried, maybe
because of his relationships with European Romanticism tradition besides Mary Shelly, Byron
and Keats .

1.3. Discovering Poe’s style and his influence on other writers

Poe’s image in world’s literature is primarily based on his profound, ingenious and
unexpected short stories, poems, and critical theories. In his own work, he demonstrated a
brilliant knowledge o f language and a technique as well as an inspired and original imagination.
The French Symbolists of the late nineteenth century, who in turn altered the direction of
modern literature were inspired by his short stories.
Being known as the master of suspe nse and horror, Edgar Allan Poe is appreciated for
his Gothic writing style, as demonstrated in his short stories, but especially in “The Tell -Tale
Heart” and “The Black Cat”. His style is created by the use of punctuation, sentence structure,
word choice, imagery, and tone.
In her book, Shoko Itoh begins her chapter, “Gothic Windows in Poe ’s Narrative Spaces, ” with
a quote by Joyce Carol Oates —“Who has not been influencedby Poe? ” Itoh demonstrates how
Poe’s sense of the Gothic influenced William Faulkner ’s work, especially in relation to the
physical settings, particularly houses and even more specifically, windows. She looks,
particularly, at how both authors ’ works pay specific attention to the auditory associations with
Gothic windows.
The influence o f Edgar Allan Poes in the Spanish Literature is a well known fact. Pedro
Antonio de Alarcón, Rosalía de Castro, Ros de Olano and Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer are clear
examples of how the American author had a certain bearing over the 19 th century’s Spanish
Literature. As an example, Alarcon’s Narraciones Inverosimiles (1896) , displays a set of
thematic and stylistic features easily related to Poe’s style, at first sight.

Another writter who was influenced by Poe’s works and style, was Ray Bradbury, at the
first glance , most of the readers would notice the similitudes in style, atmosphere and setting in
the works of both writers, and the use of somptuous language, which does not corespond with
the gruesome nature of their plots and actions. In Zen in the Art of Writing (1992), a collection
of essays on childhood reading preferences, Bradbury talks about Edgar Allan Poe as one of his
major literary influences on his formation as a writer: “I wrote at least a thousand words a day
from the age of twelve on. For years Poe was looking over one shoulder, while Wells,
Burroughs, and just about every other writter in “Astounding” and “Weird Tales” looked over
the other ” (1992). He also confesses that some of his first writings were attemps to imitate Poe
and other authors: “I grew up reading and loving the traditional ghost stories of Dickens,
Lovecraft and later, Kuttner, Bloch, and Clarck Ashton Smith. I tried to write stories heavily
influenced of these writers, and succeeded in making quadruple layered mudpies, all language
and style, that would not float, and sank without a trace. I was too young to identify my problem.
I was too busy imitating. ”(1992)
Poe and Bradbury, stand out as proeminent examples of the American Gothic literature,
together with Washington Irving and Nat haniel Hawthorne. When he was not a source of
writing inspiration, he helped other writes and the readers to identify themselves with the stories
and the characters. A strong example is Charles Baudelaire, who said that when he first read a
french transla tion of Poe, in 1846 or 1847, he felt that in finding Poe he finds himself, and
thoughts of himself. He became Poe’s greatest admirer and made use of every opportunity to
call people’s attention on his American friend.
This preocupation was so intense tha t he dedicated sixteen years of life to translating
Poe’s prose, and the poems: “ The Raven”, “The Conqueror Worm”, “The Haunted Palace”.
Baudelaire analysed his works and appreciated him, because their biographies and lives were
quite similar. The bigges t correspondence that links Poe with him is their tragic worldview.
Another French writer, Mallarm é, believed that poetic creation is a conscious process that has
an intended effect on the reader. He spent many hours creating a single poem by using the ideas
Poe expressed in his “The Philosophy of Composition” and “ The Poetic Principle”. He wrote
in a letter to a friend: “The more I work,the more I will be faithful to the strict ideas that my
great master Edgar Poebequeathed to me.” In the latter piece Poe states that “Music, when
combined with a pleasurable idea, ispoetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea
without the music isprose from its very definitiveness. ” As a poet Mallarm é became obsessed
with the use of language in order to produc e musical effects through poetry. They both
associated pure poetry with beauty as its ultimate goal, rejecting political, social, or moral

subjects as themes in their poems. His art istic purpose was to be able to write the perfect poem,
and he believed tha t with conscious effort, language could be refined to the point of writing the
perfect one.
From Baudelaire and Mallarm é, Valery inherited excellent translations of Poe’s tales,
poems, literary essays, along with a sense of great admiration for the American author. At the
age of eighteen, Valery wrote to Mallarm é, describing himself as a young man “lost in the
provinces ” and “deeply imbued with the cunning doctrines of the great Edgar Allan Poe –
perhaps the most subtle artist of this century! ”. Here we can remark the fact that Valery was
impressed and interested in studying Poe early in his career is evident and he also wrote an
essay in 1889 entitled ‘‘On Literary Technique,’’ which is an obvious reinterpretation of ‘‘The
Philosophy of Composition.’’ His o pening line states that “literature is the art of playing upon
the mind of others ”. He goes on to explain that a poet’s main purpose is to create an effect upon
the listener which is calculated from the very beginning. Even if it was left unpublished, the
manuscript was found between Valery’s papers after his death. When Valery went to live in
Paris in 1893, as a result of his frequency to Mallarm é’sTuesday evening literary circle he
developed a personal relationship with the poet, a strong realtionship th at lasted until
Mallarm é’s death in 1898. Valery recalled that at their first meeting, the subject of Poe brought
them together as kindred spirits.

Chapter 2. Poe’s philosophical principles in his short stories

Poe’s literary works have not been well viewed from the s tarts of his writing, but later
he became the one who brought the genre of Gothic style in the United States. In spite of his
simple life, Poe tried to demonstrate that through ambition and knowledge , one can become
more than an ordinary person. The poet had been rejected during his life, seen as a difficult
man, even incomprehensible. Poe’s ideas of bringing poems with characters as a beautiful and
dead female , males that are insane, plots with crime, physical and mental torture, settings as
darkness and medieval castles, even in that time, in Europe were already common, in America
were not so easily accepted, the critics trust that Poe was deeply insane . Although, for the young

artist was the only extreme situations that the human beings could disclose their true nature.
Poe’s style of horrifying the community was deeply incorporated in grotesque methods.
His intellectual superiority needed to compens ate his poverty and social darkness. As
the most of the world writers, Edgar Allan Poe ’s works were affected by his life ’s events,
finding his path into art. In his case, the deaths of the women that had a major representation in
his life, were crucial. Th e first loss was felt when he was just a young boy of three years old,
his mother, becoming the first traumatiz ing event. A fter a while, his foster mo ther, Frances
Allan, died too. This affected him, considered to be today the events that had as result these
unique creations. Poe ’s essay is a manner of exhibit ing his thoughts as regards literary work
and some views how should his rivals especially poets, demonstrate their beliefs through poetry.
Like his poems and writings, his life presents a lot of drama, mystery and melancholy.
His image is associated with his characters and imagery contained in his works: half -mad,
gloomy, dark. Even if he is considered a suffering artist or a misan thropic monster, the reality
lies somewhere in between.
We will nev er trace all the sources for Poe’s knowledge of philosophy. To Emerson and
those who reacted positively or negatively to his works, his mind was an inexhaustible ocean
of knowledge and curiosity.
In his writings, Poe mentions that the unity of effect in a key principle with which a
writer should start to create a masterpiece, but only after having determined the way in which
the novel end ed and what kind of message intend ed to reflect. The unity of effect is the device
predominant in the American writer’s works to highlight the approach of the reader’s
affection in order to be near the writing. Usin g this device, Poe’s concern is deciding what effect
would have above the reader of the story or the poem and keeping it to the end. In other words,
Poe follows the idea of feeling something deep in the time of reading and therefore makes use
of repetitions and gothic words, to put the accent on what he want ed to spread.
Poe’s wri tings are centred on people’s personalities, reflected in his characters, whose
emotions are fragile, because Poe undeniably created terror, being considered the tortured
genius of literature, rooted in the soul, and adapted from the Gothic tradi tion, in order to recreate
that terror.
Gothic fiction’s features depict terrifying imagery and psychological agony, dark
ancient a tmosphere, ghosts, anxiety and supernatural involvement. There are identified two
types of Gothic: terror and horror. Terror Gothic deals with feelings of anxiety and suspense in
the reader ’s state with macabre events. In his works, Poe explored an expansive sphere of
shocking subjects such as: fear, depression, death, crime, mental illness, panic and

supernatural activity . By contrast, the Horror Gothic is about the feeling of revulsion that
usually follows a frightening experience .
In contrast to the others who were far more popular in his days, Poe’s short stories are
still attracting new generations of readers.
The selfish character of the human kind is reflected in Poe’s affirmation : “An infinity of error
makes its way into our Philosophy, through Man’s habit of considering himself a citizen of a
world solely – of an individual planet – —instea d of at least occ asionally contemplating his
position as cosmopolite proper – as denizen of the universe. Poe, “Marginalia” (June 1849 )
He was also capable to see his defects and he tried to reflect them into his writings, but
not only his imperfections, also his character s’. It is well known that the cat was Poe ’s favou rite
animal and for some years he had a cat, named Catarina, a much loved member of his
household, accompanying h im on his various removals. In “„The Black Cat ” he create d a weird
fantasia by showing his affection for these animals and reflecting his fear of his violent temper
when he was affected by alcoho l, which makes us belie ve that alcohol was also a part of his
life, and in this story he tries to combine or contrast his good side with his dark one.
Closely linked with “The Black Cat ” in mood and form is “The Tell -Tale Heart ”. This
master piece, was initially rejected by the edit or of the Boston Miscellany, then it was published
in the first issue of James Russell Lowell ’s new magaz ine, The Pioneer (January 1843). Here ,
as in “Berenice” and in “The Black Cat”, the narrator again protests his sanity but reveals his
deranged mind by the fevered nervousness of his language and his behaviour, and the total
irrationality of the story h e unfolds. It is a detailed mu rder of the c oldblooded criminal, a murder
committed for no other mo tive than that the victim has “the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye,
with a strange film over it ”. The murderer bur ies the dismembered body under the floorboards
of the chamber, but is haunted by the conti nual sound of a heartbeat: he considered that it was
the old man ’s heartbeat but in reality it was the sound of his own heart exaggerated by
excitement and tension.
To contemporary readers such st ories must have seemed the product of a disordered
brain, but to our own neurotic age, with our knowledge of the deep wells of fear and darkness
in the human unconscious, his wi ldest fictions strike an answer ing chord.

2.1. Berenice – exploring the death of a beautiful woman

In this part we are referring to the theme “"The death of a beautiful woman ”, also found
in “Ligeia ”, “Morella ”, “"The Oval Portrait ”, “The Philosophy of composition ”. Poe’s gothic
style and his gothic and mysterious motives ca n be recognised very easily. He made his Gothic
stories more sophisticated, dramatizing terror by using more realistic images.
The main theme of this story lies in his question: “How is it that from beauty I have derived a
type of unloveliness? ”
Even from the beginning of the text we are dealing with a big contrast, the replace ment
of beauty with the unloveliness and soon we jump to the conclusion that “evil is a consequence
of good ” and good can turn into evil. The action takes place in a mansion in unidentified locale.
We have first person narrative, the narrator identifies himself with the name Egaeus, Berenice ’s
cousin. The second character is Berenice and the two are both representative characters. In his
description and that of Berenice we find another contrast. Whi le he was “ill of health ”, she was
“fragile, graceful and overflowing with energy ”. We are no strangers of Berenice ’s beauty and
physical perfection, she is presented as a beautiful woman with the most perfect features. She
has a gorgeous yet fantastic bea uty, and a stunning presence she has no flaws, no blemishes, no
defects. What she does have is a set of teeth that drive her cousin crazy. These teeth do not have
a single speck on their surfac e, not a shade on their enamel , not an indenture on their edges.
Berenice’s teeth are utterly perfect, shining white and gleaming with happiness. These teeth are
the symbol of good but, even though they may be good, all good becomes evil.
The main change that takes place is the appeara nce of Berenice ’s disease and also his
disease, manifested through an “intensity of interest… in the contemplation of even the most
ordinary objects of the universe ”, things like “the flame of a lamp ”, “"the perfume of a flower ”.
The narrator of the stor y is a diseased man, with a case of monomania. This mo nomania
is an “addiction of body and soul to the most int ense and painful meditation ”. The illness causes
the narrator to act oddly, which triggers his strange habits. Once the narrator sees the flawless
teeth of Berenice – he immediately becomes obsessive about them. His monomania kicks in,
making the teeth most desirable. He felt their p ossession could alone ever restore him to peace,
in giving him back to reason. To the narrator, these faultless te eth are his remedy . Now all the
narrator can think about is having these teeth in his possession, in order to make him sane for
the rest of hi s life. Unluckily, his thoughts can only lead him to an evil consequence.

Egaeus suffers serious problems with his memory, because of his disease. After seeing
the tomb, he finds himself sitting alone in the library, and very confused “I had done a deed –
what was it?” he asks himself. Although he was confused, he knows that Berenice had been
buried or at least he seems to be sure of that. He remembers pieces of what happened but he is
not sure if it was a dream or something that really happened. He feels li ke he has done something
but he cannot remember what. He notices a little box which seemed familiar, the box belonged
to the family’s physician but he does not remember how it got on to his desk. Also, in that book
he finds on his desk, the underlined wor ds “my companions said to me that my troubles would
in some measure be relieved if I visit the tomb of my sweetheart”. Reading these words, the
blood congeals within his veins, but he cannot understand why because he remembers nothing.
After this, a servan t knocks in his door and tells him that Berenice’s grave was violated and that
she is alive and breathing, the servant points to Egaeus’s clothes, which are covered with blood
and dirt. His hand are shaking and while he was grabbing the ebony box, the box fell and
Berenice’s teeth fel l along with some instruments of dental surgery. He had been obsessed with
her teeth, her teeth are the reason why Egaeus violated her grave.
Because of his disease, his mind is focused over Berenice -the-Ideal and Berenice -the-
Mortal. He is incapable of accepting her mortality and seeks to extract her most idealized item
–her teeth. “I had seen her not as the living and breathing Berenice, but as the Berenice of a
dream ”, she was also seen “-not as a thing to admire, but to analyse -”. For him, feelings are of
the mind, not the heart.
Berenice’s death is the result of her perfect teeth. This supports Poe’s theme that evil is
a consequence of good. From beauty, Poe has unwound a sense of hideousness and sin. In the
mind of Po e, excellence can only lead to malevolence. The disease means changing, and the
changing that we have here is the fact that Berenice was no longer a young girl, she became a
woman.
We have two different spaces, reality and fiction. What happens is in the n arrator’s mind
is much more than in the relation ship between him and Berenice. The reality is produced in his
imagination, the story itself becomes an exploration of the protagonist’s mind. He starts to see
reality as visions and his wild ideas and visions become his reality. We can identify many signs
of schizophrenia, such as: memory loss, hallucination, lack of interest in life.
If we analyse the whole situation, we can also relate to a satiric use of vampirism ,
Berenice’s description is similar to vampires ’ characteristics such as : paleness, lifeless eyes,
the way he describes the long hair falling over his forehead, giving it an evil trait, and her teeth
are described as thin and sharp whit e. We can also refer to our characters as two living dead.

Egaeus is being introverted and solitary, these are characteristics that may be associated
with vampirism. Another feature is the vampire who has this obsession with the body character
of Berenice, emphasizing the teeth, in the case of the v ampires are the most precious source
with which they bite . When Berenice is hit by a sudden and mysterious disease, Egaeus’
explanation suggests vampirism: “the spirit of change swept over her, pervading her mind, her
habits, and her character”. Egaeus emphasizes the supernatural nature of the disease, for even
after “the destroyer came and went”, she remains sick. Also, her malady suggests the symptoms
of the typical victim of a vampire bite: Berenice abruptly atrophies “in the moral and physical
being ,” and later she falls in and out of the familiar vampire “trance” .
While these images suggest that Berenice has been victim of a vampire’s attack and it
may evolve into a vampire herself, the narrator also reports that “In the meantime, my own
disease, . . . then, grew rapidly upon me”. Because his disease also involves trance -like periods
of “absolute bodily quiescence”.
This text, “The Black Cat” and “The Tell -Tale Heart” are examples of how Edgar Allan
Poe cleverly represents madness in his works, which contributes to his reputation as an excellent
writer of Gothic literature.

2.2. The Tell -Tale Heart – brevity and close space

As we already know, Edgar Allan Poe is famous for his dark themes, violence,
psychologically unstable characters and overall, his gothic and horrific fiction. In this story he
explains how and why he had to kill his neighbour , because of the old man ’s evil eye, which
bothered him very much. Each night for a week, he opened the door of the old man ’s apartment,
starin g at him and waiting for the perfect moment to begin his crime.
On the eighth night as he was waiting in at midnight, the narrator was almost caught in
the old man’s room, and at the thought of the man not knowing what he was doing, he became
nervous and scared. When the man asked if anyone was there, the narrator froze. After waiting
a long while hidden, he decided to open the lantern a tiny bit, in order to accomplish his purpose,
(because, since the eye was the problem, the narrator could not kill him if the eye was not open),
and a ray fell upon the old man ’s eye. Because of his suspense and tension, the narrator

mentioned that he could hear the old man’s heart beating in fear. The narrator felt that the
beating became louder because his tension and fear were increasing, so he decided that he would
take this moment to attack. The old man shrieked once before the narrator pulled him to the
floor and the bed on top of him. He waited until the beating heart stopped, then pulled off the
bed and released the corpse, realising in the end that his work was done.
Very carefully, he dismembered the body in a tub to collect the blood, then buried the
pieces under the floorboards. After washing everything carefully, he finished around four in the
morning. An unexpected knock came at the door, and he found three policemen who had been
called due to a strange shriek overheard by some neighbours who were wonde ring if foul play
was involved. The narrator, trying to act calmly, invited the policemen inside and encouraged
them to search the place. He explained that the old man was off in the country, and that he was
the one who had screamed due to a bad dream. In his supreme confidence, the narrator even
brought chairs into the room on top of the floorboards where he had buried the man and invited
them to sit down and rest. His own chair was placed directly over the body. As they were
talking, the narrator began to hear a noise coming from the floorboards. Unfortunately for him,
he recognized it as the beating heart of the old man. He was thinking that the policemen could
hear the sound too, so he start talking louder and louder. If they could hear it, they would su spect
what he had done. After a couple of minutes in tension and suspense, he could not take it
anymore and told them to tear up the floorboards if they want ed to find the dead body.
The short story, “The Tell -Tale Heart”, one of the famous tales of Edgar Allan Poe,
explores the basic duality of the human character and the potential dark part of the soul that is
constantly fighting for expression in life. He often utilizes symbolism in order to explore the
darker nature of the human mind. This horror story and psychological thriller is truly significant
in the fact that this is told from the first -person perspective of a madman. There is some
evidence that Poe suffered from heart disease in the later yea rs of his life and “The Tell – Tale
Heart” may well be in one sense an imaginative interpretation of his own fears of disease.
From our point of view, this one is his most original writing because here the madness
reaches its maximum power and because Edgar Allan Poe explores the mind of an anonymous
psychopathic murderer. Here, the vulture eye’s motif represents the narrator’s obsession and
the reason of the murder. Madness is the main theme, h is madness is also represented through
the premeditation and planning before committing the murder. He says: “You should have seen
how wisely I proceeded – with what caution – with what foresight – with what dissimulation I
went to work”! Due to the fact that he had been planning the murder for a w eek, we can
understand that he had ample time to reassess his reasons for killing the old man.

The second essential theme is time, because in this writing, time is both a friend and an
enemy. During the crime scene, the passing of the time creates an agoni zing effect on him,
despite the fact that the action takes place after midnight. He is not only terrorized by time and
by the vulture’s eye, but also by the sound of a heartbeat which seem to increase his madness.
We realise that the narrator is an insan e man because he states “I think it was his eye –
yes, it was this”, and he uses the word “think” as opposed to declaring with certainty, this was
why he killed the man, so in the first instance he was not sure, we have an insane man’s
situation, so this w riting’s purpose is to provide a study of paranoia and mental deterioration.
A disturbance of the emotions could be both the cause and the “sole manifestation” of
mental illness. The morally insane man might be rational, might realize that thos e around him
would condemn his behaviour , but he himself would not so, and here we can identify a sort of
narcissism . If we try to analyse his entire monologue, we will notice that the narrator’s
monologue is actually a long argument trying to establish no t his innocence -he has already
confessed to killing the old man – but rather his sanity.
Besides the themes, the story works on a number of subthemes. The first one refers to
the fact that the people have evil sides, that every human being possesses an evil, perverse and
wicked personality. The second one refers to the fact that it is worse to be evil inside than to be
evil outside. We know that the old man was not an evil person, his only “evil side” was his
hideous eye, which makes him ugly from outsi de, contrary to the narrator’s ugliness , which
comes from the inside. The third one refers to karma, or maybe crime and punishment, the
narrator could not escape, although he left no signs of murder .
The story’s central contradiction involves the tension between the narrator’s capacities
for love and hate. Poe explores a psychological mystery, that people sometimes harm those
whom they love or need in their lives, he is so obsessed with the eye as an evil element that he
wants to separate the man from his “Evil Eye”, he sees the eye as completely separate from the
man and this is an original idea apart his other writings. The story itself represents a profound
and ambiguous investigation of a man’s paranoia.
Poe created a series of rhetorical characters who try to persuade and guide their readers
to particular ends. Let us consider the protagonist of “The Tell -Tale Heart.” It has been
customary to see that tale as a confession, but it becomes clear that the narrator has already
confessed to th e murder of the old man who was his former living companion. The tale, then,
is not so much a confession as a defence : “The Tell -Tale Heart” is actually a specimen of
courtroom rhetoric – judicial, or forensic, oratory. This is not to say that he is necess arily
arguing in a court of law; he may be speaking to his auditor(s) in a prison cell –but that he is

telling his side of the story to someone (rather than writing to himself in a journal) is clear by
his use of the word “you”; and that he is speaking rat her than writing is clear by his exhortation
to “hearken” (listen) to what he has to say. The important point is that his spoken account is
forensic insofar as that means a legal argument in self -defence . To this end, the narrator has a
considerable grasp of the techniques of argument but, like a damned bad rhetorician, he fails in
his rhetorical performance even while striving desperately to convince.
By choosing a first person narrator, Poe introduces the reader in the middle of the action,
because, the reader can identify himself with the narrator, we can see through his eyes.
In most of his tales of criminal insanity, he begins in the present tense, because they are written
as confessions, and flashback to previous crimes. Most of the story is based on description, the
only action that takes place is during the night of the crime.
The space of the writing is inside a random old house about which, few details are given,
but the place where the most important part of the action takes place is small, c losed, between
four walls, the old man’s room becomes scarier and scarier because we can not see it, it is not
described. If we are used to consider our bedroom a private place w here we can rest and where
we are not disturbed, this man’s privacy is violated and the most terrifying is the night spying.
The suspense reaches its point in the moment of the police’s arrival. From this point, the narrator
became more and more nervous, he felt the guilt, he felt terrorized, and revealed his guilt in the
end.
To conclude, we must emphasize that Poe wrote entertainingly and lucidly on many diverse
subjects over a long period of time. As an artist, he has given to this terror and to his gothic
style an imaginative representation which has remained valid. His short stories present
questions of moral responsibility as it is dramatized the increasingly problematic nature of
the human personality. It is Poe’s credit terror an imaginative representation which has
remained valid.

2.3. The Black Cat – the power of obsession and guilt

“The Black Cat ” is a short story which portrays the ability of the human mind to assess
itself. Here, t he narrator of the story accepts his deteriorating mental condition and trie s to do
something about it before it is too late.

The story is presented as a first person narrator, the beginning portray s a happy family,
husband, wife and a cat , the relationship between the members was good until the narrator
became an alcoholic . The things began to change f rom the moment when he started to drink
alcohol, he was e asily irritated even in the closest friends’ company, and after that, he started
to abuse his wife physically , and also his beloved cat. Here we can see the difference between
the normal narrator and the alcoholic one, because in the beginn ing of the story he was spending
major ity of his time pampering the cat, and now he is abusing it.
The major form of animal abuse is when he hangs his cat, Pluto, after coming home
drunk and after gouging his eye out. After the fire that destroyed his house the night before , the
narrator returns to the ruins and found, imprinted on the single wall that survived the fire, the
image of a gigantic cat with a rope around the animal ’s neck.At first, this image deeply disturbs
the narr ator, because he felt guilt, but gradually he finds a logical explanation for it, that
someone outside had cut the cat from the tree and thrown its corpse into the bedroom in order
to wake him during the fire. The narrator begins to miss Pluto and hate him self for his actions,
feeling guilty again.
Soon after this event, another cat comes to live with the narrator, but he abused it too,
so we face the major theme, which is the them e of violence. Violence climaxes when he murders
his wife and he blames his v iolent acts on alcoholism. In the end of the story he tries to convince
himself that it was not the alcohol to blame for his actions, but it was asupernatural power which
took over him while he was drunk. After realizing his mistake and regretting, he turn s over
himself and starts hurting himself with the knife that he used to carry with him. Even if in some
writings the alcohol has both positive and negative effect on the characters, in “The Black Cat ”
we can talk about only a negative one. Here, the use of it leads to the narrator ’s moral
breakdown.
“But my disease grew upon me -for what disease is like alcohol! -and atlength even Pluto, who
was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish -evenPluto began to experience
the effects of my ill temper.. .” (Poe, A.1843)
The theme of love and hatred can be seen in the graduate passing from t he narrator's
affection for Pluto and for his wife to his sins and alcoholism. “Pluto – this was the cat’s name –
was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about
the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from f ollowing me through the
streets.” (Poe, A.1843)

Another theme is the loyalty, because the cat was still playing with the narrat or, even if
he gouged its eye out. A normal cat would have le ft his home and searched for a loving family,
so the theme of loyalty is portrayed by the cat.
Like the narrator from “The Tell Tale -Heart”, this one can also be accus ed of insanity,
even if he insists he is not insane, during the story, we can find sufficient evidence to make the
case that the narrator is suffering from some kind of mental illness. Amongst all the animals he
had he loved the large black cat most. They had been inseparable ever since he could remember.
A very interesting fact about this cat is that it was named after the ruler of the underworld,
Pluto, so we have an hidden meaning. Additionally, black cats are associated with bad luck and
due to their connection with witches they are often thought to be evil or bringing bad luck.
Without a doubt, this dark symbolism is meant to subtly foreshadow the cruel future events.
In the next parts of the story we can see the narrat or’s moody attitud e, which makes us
think of a mental disease. For instance, he characterises himself as “moody”, “irritable” and
“regardless of the feelings of others”. Given the fact th at he was really used to have a gentle
and sensitive “disposition” in former days, one has to state – as a consequence – that there is a
dramatic change of personality, which is not normal for an ordinary person.
After all the murders, the depersonalised narrator does not see himself as the actor, he
underlines that he f eels as if he cannot recognise himself: “I knew myself no longer.” Even at
the end of the story, the nonself -critical narrator doesn ’t seem to be confessing out of a sense
of guilt. Over the course of the story, the narrator provides several reasons for his various
behaviours . He does not blame himself for his crimes and he tries to find excuses, such as
accusing the cat of having “sedu ced […] [him; D.R.] into murder”. Throughout the tale, he tries
to present himself as a victim in order to arouse compassion, by making use of emphatic
repetitions and a dramatic climax: “[…] these events have terrified – have tortured – have
destroyed me […].”
He seems to contradict himself at every turn. Sometimes he says he is not crazy, but
then he says he is not capable of understand ing his own reality, so, not being able to understand
his own reality can make us believe that he is sane.
This avoidance of madness is the true fear being exploited within “The Bl ack Cat”, the
narrator refuses to acknowledge the possibility that he may be mad, and instead of this, he
wholeheartedly attributes his downfall to alcohol and to the e vents out of his con trol, because
even in his last hours of his life, he does not fear death, but he fear s being associated with
madness and this fact really represents madness.

The narrator’s dark side can be easily remarked, because he uses irony when talking
about the desc ription of the torture and mutilation of the cat as a “silly action ” done for no real
reason, and also by his very calm retelling of the murders of both his wife and the cat. Overall,
the idea of being calm in this type of situation, and especially, creati ng these situations can
symbolize the state of the narrator ’s black, mutilated, and decaying soul.
This story is centred over the transformation from a good person, animal lover, good
husband, to a criminal who has to be executed (by hanging, given the fate of his first pet cat)
for the murder of his wife. As time passed, he became more and more violent, his irritation was
growing, all of these being the result of his overuse of alcohol.
If we analyse the situation, the creation of a black cat can represent a strong symbol
because the colour black is associated with dark, dangerous, mystery and even death. I think
that, bec ause of his love for animals, Poe tried to transpose his soul into a loving and devoted
cat, and the other side of his soul was mutilated and decaying, associated with the black colour .
We also have the symbols of perception related to the narrator’s parti cular mutilation of Pluto,
like his pet, the narrator is half -blind, not only in the past, in the story he relate s, but also in the
present, because he is still unable to understand what it all means. In the past he was half –
blinded by drink ing, and in bot h the past and present by guilt, rationalizing, or unwillingness to
accept and see the unpleasant things and situations, created by him.
The symbol of rationality or the defeat of the rationality is repr esented by the dark scene
when he buried his wife in the wall, in this act, the narrator extinguished his rationality, because
he showed his lack of humanity and self control.
Talking about the second cat, we can refer to the feeling of humanity, excepting the
physical description, “a large, a lthough indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole
region of the breast.”, the cat had the habit of “fastening its long claws in my dress” to “clamber,
in this manner, to my breast.”. As hard as he tried, the narrator could not sleep because its
weight was pressing upon his heart “its vast weight [was] . . . incumbent on my heart!”, so it
can be unde rstood as a revenge, a physical press ure upon his body, which came after Pluto’s
hanging. The symbols of “breast,” and especially “heart” point to the narrator’s fatal deficiency
of love and compassion.
In the end, the cat’s screams from the wall are described in symbolic terms: It begins
“like the sobbing of a child,” but quickly turns into a “continuous scream . . . such as might
have arisen only o ut of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the
demons that exult in the damnation.”

Referring to the title, the first impression or the first thought is that the action must be centred
over a cat, it sugge sts that the cat is important and that all the important aspects are linked to a
black cat. The most interesting thing regarding the title, is the fact that, while reading the story
we discover the presence of two black cats, not only one.
The use of the s ingular for “cat” has a hidden message, and the two cats may be the
same one, and the second is merely a reincarnation of the first. Reme mbering the beginning of
the text, we have a passage where the narrator talks about his wife ’s opinion about the black
cats, saying that all black cats are witches in disguise.
We can think to the title as a symbolic one because we can associate the black cat with
a warning. According to the supers tition, if a black cat crosses someone’ s path, it provide s bad
luck, so in this story, the black cat brings the warning of what will happen if the narrator
continue s drinking alcohol.
In the end of th e story, the black cat represents a final warning, because it ends up
warning the policemen, and they are able to arrest him and charge him with murder, so he
cannot harm any more animals and people.

Conclusions

In the realization of this paper we took account of the essential aspects sustained in
some of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories. He composed notes, short essay and editorial comments
on a vide variety of topics, in art, imagination, reason, genius, insight, spiritual revelation,
that reflect his concern mostly during the 1840s, a period of profound uncertainty when he was
increasingly drawn toward a compensatory vision of cosmic unity.
The short s tories “The Tell -Tale Heart” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” as well
as his famous poem “Annabel Lee,” all deal with death, sickness, the grotesque, the macabre,

even insanity. He is a subject studied by many literary scholars, mostly due to his deep ly
impressionable and penetrating works that are still read and discussed at length today.
Edgar Allan Poe achieved greater acclaim as an author and poet writer in
international circles, in United States. The main motif of the American writer demonstrated in
this paper, is the death of a beautiful woman which from his point of view should expend a
sublime effect on the public.
One can examine Poe’s life experiences, as well as his obsessions and fears, to better
understand the meaning behind his most famous works. He experienced death and loss
throughout his life, starting from a young age with the untimely death of his mother j ust a short
time after Poe’s father abandoned the family. Also, years later, his young wife, Virginia Poe,
died at the age of 24 due to Tuberculosis. Quite naturally, these horrific events had a definite
impact on his life and how he related to people, got close to them, and how he saw the life
experience, and this naturally seeped into his creative life: his famous writings.
These tales connect with fear and terror, being fictions constructed on a deep
rejection of his contemporaries and their ethical and esthetic myths. The three essential
elements used in the writer’s essay, demonstrated the capacity of Poe ’s genius and ability to
criticism. It is this point that Poe’s essay s, poem s and short stories embody the narrative aspects,
in order to drive a more accurat e understanding the mind -style.
We must emphasize that Poe wrote entertainingly and lucidly on many diverse subje cts
over a long period of time. What we need to understand is that his short stories represent
questions of moral responsibility as it dramatized the increasingly problematic nature of the
human personality.
To conclude, writer Edgar Allan Poe was a dark soul who wrote even darker works of
English literature. More than 150 y ears after his death, Poe is still talked about and highly read
in classrooms all across the world. In just a short life, he accomplished so much. And it should
be acknowledged that he was at least able to turn such a painful experiences into beautiful wor ks
of art. His legacy will endure as long as people experience pain and suffering.

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Web Sites

https://www.enotes.com/topics/black -cat/in -depth – accessed on 6 June, 2019
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2019

Rezumat

Prin intermediul personajelor și a supranaturalului, Edgar Allan Poe evidențiază problemele
societății a primei jumătăți a secolului al 19 -lea, avân d ca termen general de definirea operei
sale, stilul gotic.Povestirile și poemele sale tratează categoriile urâtului, grotescului și a
macabrului.

In vederea unei analize amanunțite a textelor respective,a fost necesară o atenț ie deosebită
asupra expresiilor lingvistice despre viața și evidența umană.
In cadrul cercetarii s -au folosit nu numai cele trei nuvele ci si siurse autobiografice si stiintifice
pentru a avea ca rezultat investigarea accentuată a informațiilor învederea unei analize ș
iinterpretă ri eficiente.
Așadar, putem spune că nuvelistica lui Edgar Allan Poe intruchipează o lucrare bazată pe
intertextualitate, care demonstrează stilul gotic și nuvela detectivă introdusă de scriitorul
American.
Inteligența dovedită de Poe prin limbaj, structură și caractere nonconformiste dovedesc
imaginaț ia nelimitată a scriitorulu i prin scenarii macabre, implicând supranaturalul.
Multitudinea de personaje cu manifestări de paranoia, obsesie, coșmar, crime sau nervozitate
,contribuie la inspirarea a diferiți artiști, lucrările sale fiind intr-o continuă interpretare .

DECLARAȚIE DE AUTENTICITATE

Subsemnatul/a Milcu Lorena -Mihaela , absolventa a studiilor de master, promoția 2019, în
specializarea STUDII DE LIMBA ENGLEZA SI LITERATURI ANGLO -AMERICANE, Facultatea de Litere, în
legătură cu elaborarea lucrării de disertație cu titlul TRACING POE’S PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES IN
HIS SHORT STORIES coordonator lector universit ar doctor Georgiana -Elena Dilă , prin prezenta declar
pe propria răspundere că:
a. Lucrarea a fost elaborată personal și îmi aparține în întregime;
b. Nu au fost folosite alte surse decât cele menționate în Bibliografie;
c. Nu au fost preluate texte, date sau ele mente de grafică din alte lucrări sau din alte surse
fără a fi citate și fără a fi precizată sursa prelucrării
d. Lucrarea nu a mai fost folosită în alte contexte de examen sau concurs.

Data, Semnătura,