An Analysis Of Beauty Of Death In Edgar Allan Poe’s Poetry

Edgar Allan Poe stands apart from every other in the American literature. Poe’sworks and his creation ideas have made a deep influence to the American literaryarena, and even the whole world. Death plays a significant role in Poe’s most literaryworks. It is known that death is horrible on the physical level, however, death in Poe’smind is not perceived by organs, but is an eternal and transcending beauty. Therefore,death in Poe’s works is a kind of aesthetic form, in which the horror and ugliness ofdeath transforms into another form of beauty. In this thesis, the author hopes toobserve the progress of western aesthetics systematically and mainly discusses Poe’saesthetic minds and the attitude toward death. Through studying the combination ofbeauty and death in Poe’s poetry, the author longs for a new perspective to understandbeauty of death and analyzes the eternity and goodness of life for a new explanationof death.The study of Allan Poe in the foreign countries is developing with the attitudetowards him. It must be a rough and long process from the initial negation of Poe’screation till the final affirmation of his works. However, the domestic study about Poeis insufficient compared with the foreign study. For example, till now there appears noone version of Poe’s biography. Even though gradually some researchers begin tostudy Poe’s works, they are confined to some famous ones, such as The Raven andThe Fall of the House of Usher. The author notices that in the most of thesis on theresearch of Poe’s works, researchers put the emphasis on his creation but not muchattention to the beauty of death. Therefore, the innovations of this thesis are that ittakes full advantages of bibliography, comparison, logical deduction, and studies thebeauty of death in Poe’s poetry from the aspect of absurd aesthetics.The first chapter explains the presence of absurd aesthetics in Poe’s poetry fromPoe’s experience, social background in Poe’s time and Western creation styles. Poe’smother dies when he is3-year-old, and in Poe’s life, beautiful ladies dies one by one,which endows Poe’s creation theme with the death of beauty. Besides, Poe lives in thebeginning of industrial revolution, American democratic process has a strong impacton Poe’s old-fashioned idea. Western gothic literature and romanticism’s influence on Poe’s creation is reflected by effect theory and pure beauty. The history of WesternAesthetics can be concluded into five different periods: classicism, Neo-Platonismand rationalism, English empiricism, German classical aesthetics, Russian realism.Classicism emphasizes the beauty in form, which means beauty only concerns withforms or images, which are perceived by senses, therefore, only the object ormovement perceived by senses can be called beauty. Neo-Platonism and rationalismassist beauty in perfection, which both has relation with beauty in form and differsfrom it; what English empiricism emphasizes is beauty in delight, it criticizes thebeauty in form and long for the delight resulting from human instinct and emotions;beauty in rational content is German classical aesthetics’ idea. Kant, as the father ofGerman classical aesthetics, does not get a perfect theory, but his contribution to theaesthetics cannot be ignored; Russian realism stands the beauty in life. These fiveaesthetic ideas are both compatible and different, so they influence each other in thedevelopment of aesthetics. Some of them undoubtedly affect Allan Poe’s ideas. ForPoe’s aesthetic ideas, Aristotle influences him a lot; for poetic ideas, Poe evolvesColeridge’s ideas; for philosophical ideas, Poe is impacted by Kant deeply.The second chapter analyzes Poe’s unique creation ideology. From Poe’s point ofview, in his works death does not only exist on the physical level, but also themetaphysical one. This part will analyze death from philosophical and artistic aspects.In Poe’s all works, the main opinion is the unity of effect. Poe sets forth his creationprinciples that a smart and skillful artist should build up a story first, then elaboratelyplan the plot, and come up with a unique and distinctive effect. He combines theseplots together as his best, and what he describes helps him construct this preconceivedeffect. Therefore, he ensures that every accident, every detail, and even every wordcan make a certain unity effect, a preconceived effect. Poe’s effect theory can bestated from four perspectives–unity, feeling, rationality and melody.The third paragraph illustrates the presentation of beauty of death in Poe’s poetry.The beauty in Poe’ pens always companies with death. Therefore beauty is labeled bymystery, romance, and transcendence. This part will combine death and beautytogether and interpret beauty of death from the mystical and horrible beauty of deathin Poe’s poetry–The Raven, The Conqueror Worm, The City in the Sea and Ulalume; from melancholy and romantic beauty of death in To Helen, Annabel Lee, Israfel, TheSleeper and The Raven; and finally from divine and transcendent beauty of death inTo Helen.The last part is the conclusion of the thesis, which summarizes Poe’s influenceand contribution to the American and even the world literary arena.