On The Beauty In Edgar Allan Poe

Widely as the investigations have been passed on Poe, the approaches usually fall into two categories: psychological and biographical. In this thesis I, focusing on his principles of Beauty, have undertaken what may be termed as a philosophic inquiry into the mind and writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Though Poe never confessed his intimacy with either aestheticism or transcendentalism, they do find their expressions in his writings. Nevertheless, Poe distinguishes himself from the former with his unique conception of Beauty—the supernal Beauty of the original Oneness and from the latter with his scientific preciseness exposed in Eureka. From his early poem "Tamerlane" on to his last great prose-poem Eureka, his works reveal his explorations into the ultimate principle of the ethereal Beauty of the original Unity. My method is primarily thematic, with occasional allusions to his biography. His writings, reviews, tales and poems alike, will all be collected under the theme of Beauty. My approach is to employ Poe's critical views on Beauty to illustrate his application of them to his own literary creations, poems and tales of terror in particular.Edgar Allan Poe is neither an "art for art's sake" aesthete nor a simple Gothic writer as he appears. On the one hand, his constant emphasis on artistic beauty—totality of effect, poetic musicality and beautiful female characters is not the end in itself, but serves as a vehicle to explore the supernal Beauty, an effect most elevating the soul. For he believes that the creative combination of artistic beauty may create an effect to vibrate the reader's soul and shed a light on the ultimate supernal Beauty. On the other hand, Poe's tales of terror, though seemingly horrible, are actually tales of Beauty shrouded in Gothic garments. They are fundamentally allegories of the same story—the poetic soul's struggling for the supernal Beauty of the original Oneness. Prompted by the innate desire for the...