A Study Of The Aesthetic Features Of Death In Allan Poe’s Works

Edgar Allan Poe(l809-1849) is a well-known American poet, novelist and critic. As one of the most controversial masters in American literature, Edgar Allan Poe experienced a short, miserable and legendary life. Although Poe’s creation theory and writing techniques are unique and have developed its own colors, he was not accepted and even got vilified by the literary arena then. It is because of his incompatibility with the contemporary writers and American literature that makes him not receive wide attention until the20th Century. Actually, Poe and his works have deep impact on the whole world literature as well as the European literature. When reading Poe’s works, no matter novels or poetry, people may find that the theme of death appears frequently. Poe loves the theme of death so much that Death is pervasive in his works, and is closely relevant to his aesthetic principles. As far as Poe is concerned, Death is the most melancholy theme and it becomes the most poetic when it is associated with "Beauty". He is exploring the beauty of death all his life and his unique understanding makes people have a deeper thinking of death. In his creation, death brings people different feelings—melancholy, horrible, mysterious, desperate, romantic or transcendental. Poe can always inspire people with his thinking of philosopher and ideas about death. Here, this thesis tries to find out the feelings of Beauty that Poe expresses through analyzing the death theme in Poe’s works so as to get deeper understanding and inspiration.This paper falls into six chapters:Chapter One mainly introduces the study purpose, significance, study feasibility and structure. The theme of death in Poe’s works is in a class by himself and has a significant influence to the contemporary writers all over the world. Choosing Poe and Poe’s creation as the object of the study, the thesis aims to dig out the beauty of death and understand Poe’s unique aesthetics of death.In Chapter Two. the author mainly illustrates the current research of Poe home and abroad so as to probe the research space of this paper.In the Third Chapter, this paper mainly discusses the factors that influence the forming background of Poe’s unique aesthetics. The deaths that Poe experienced in his short and miserable life--especially woman’s deaths, the influence of Gothic fiction’s tradition in Western literature, the traditional tragic and sublime aesthetic theories as well as the society and times that Poe was in are all the important elements that make an impact on Poe’s unique death aesthetics. The author tries to make sense of the presentation of death theme.The Fourth part focuses on how beauty of death is represented in Poe’s works. Poe pursues extreme beauty all his life and he regards death as its best embodiment. Poe’s understanding of death sees through life and death, which shows a philosopher’s thinking. Death brings people not only horror and terror but also a kind of heart-shaking and immortal beauty which is beyond time and space. In this chapter, the author illustrates the patetico and melancholy beauty, uncanny and horrible beauty, decadent and desperate beauty and romantic and transcendental beauty.Chapter Five mainly places Poe’s distinctive creation theory as its center. This part will study Poe’s aesthetics of death from the theories of "pure beauty","the unity effect" and "the death of beauty", which were put forward by Poe and were tagged with his own distinctive features. In Poe’s creation, he applies his literary theories into his creation consciously, which makes his works different from others’. Even today, Poe’s original creation theory has become an indispensable part of the most precious literary treasure.The last chapter is a conclusion of this thesis, mainly generalizing Poe’s status in the world literature, Poe’s achievements and influence, together with the inspiration of Poe’s unique aesthetics of death to the followers.During his short and miserable life, Poe puts forth effort to express death and darkness in order to reveal the evil side underneath human beings’consciousness and subconsciousness as well as his dissatisfaction with the real world. However, Poe’s ideas about death are far more than that. As the first writer who describes death directly, Poe tries to capture beauty in the ugly. He considers the death theme as his extreme pursuit to beauty and exerts himself to arouse people’s aspiration for beauty. On the other hand, people can feel not only eternal beauty, love for life but also the ease when facing death through his words. Poe realizes his aesthetic principle of "art for the art’s sake" with the help of his original literary creation theory. Thus, Poe develops a new field of understanding death, and that’s why Poe has become an indispensable part in American literature, even in the world literature.