On The Aesthetics Of Death In Edgar Allan Poe's Poetry Creation

Edgar Allan Poe ranked the most legendary writers of the United States for his unique creation theory and stirring poetry, and had an influential impact on European, American and even world literature. In many of Poe's works, death is almost everywhere and everywhere is filled with the atmosphere of madness and death. The beauty in Poe's heart is no longer from the sensory aspect, but the sacred extraordinary, surreal, pure, eternal beauty, and death is the best manifestation of this beauty. Therefore, under Poe's pen, death becomes an aesthetic form, the terror and brutality and even the ugliness of death has become another form of beauty. The author aims at interpreting and explaining his unique way of thoughts and writing style by the study on the philosophy and aesthetics of death so as to gain a more profound comprehension of death.A brief overview is made on the researches of the aesthetics of death in Poe's poetry creation at home and abroad to illustrate the theoretical significance and academic value of this research.Chapter one mainly illustrates that death is a beautiful life experience from the metaphysical point of view. If death is seen just from the medical or biological point of view, there is really no beauty at all, but death has become beautiful metaphysically. Therefore, the aesthetics of death in Poe's poetry creation is defined from a metaphysical point of view in this thsis. This section mainly discusses the beauty of death from philosophical, religious and artistic aspects to analyze the deep reasons of Poe's death creation, to provide proofs for Poe's death aesthetics creation and to fully feel the beauty of death represented in Poe's Poetry.In chapter two, the author will investigate the reasons for Poe's poetry creation on the esthetics of death from his miserable life experience, gothic traditions, the influences of romantic thanatopsis, western traditional aesthetics theories as well as the social backgrounds.Chapter three mainly illustrates the presentations of the aesthetics of death in Poe's poetry. Poe pursues the beauty, while the beauty is attached to the flowers of death and is accompanied by terror and strangeness. Through the presentations of death scenery, earthly beauty disengages the bondage of life, transcends the constraints of time and space, and becomes an eternal fantasy and the beauty shocked the soul of human beings. This part will interpret the presentations of the aesthetics of death in Poe's poetry creation from the horrific and mysterious beauty of death as well as the melancholy and transcending beauty of death.Chapter four focuses on Poe's distinctive creation theory presented in his poetry. In literary theory, Poe puts forward a great number of unique thoughts, and applies his literary theory to his poetry, which is stamped with the corresponding brands of Poe. This part will probe into the aesthetics of death in Poe's poetry creation from his distinctive theories: the death of beauty, the effect theory and the poetic theory of"pure beauty".The last part is the conclusion of this thesis.