Three Component Elements In Humor-A Tentative Study Of Edgar Allan Poe's Short Stories

Edgar Allan Poe is noted for his Tales of Horror, and his Tales of Detection are also regarded as the founder of detective stories. Yet among all works of Edgar Allan Poe, there exist some thoughtful ones that make the reader burst out laughing. Those should be counted as serious humor. If the Tales of Horror and Tales of Detection are little"out of time", then the Tales of Humor of Edgar Allan Poe just depict and touch the real situation of the United States in the first half of the 19th century.Of course, not all humor of Edgar Allan Poe is evident, so sometimes close analysis is necessary to figure out the intention of the author. Although his humor is of American sort, still it is distinct to certain extant. The reader is driven to reflect on the question what elements contribute to this distinct feature. In this thesis, a bold supposition of a new perspective of the humor in Edgar Allan Poe–three elements of humor–is to be introduced, followed by elaborations on the various contributing reasons and possible methods to analyze. These three component elements are horror, history, and satire. They are studied and deciphered by substantial text analyzing. And Poe's humorous short stories are to be divided into different categories, in order to assort with these three elements.To achieve this, several important humorous tales of Edgar Allan Poe are to be sampled out and researched on, with focus on the different elements of humor. Through systematic analysis, it is demonstrated powerfully that horror is the symbol of Poe's humor, while history is the label, and satire, the kernel. In addition, special attention will be paid to the internal relationships between those elements. The exploration will hereafter further extend to issues like the traits of American humor, the loss in Poe's humor in different times and some frequently-applied techniques of Poe, indirect satire, for example.With various topics, all-around evidence and a narrative-toned language, this thesis is hopefully going to present a brand-new viewpoint on the elements from the Tales of Humor of Edgar Allan Poe.