A Relevance-Theoretic Approach To Horror Construction In Allan Poe's Fiction

Edgar Allan Poe is now acknowledged as the master of horror tales, credited with the originator of the contemporary model for horror fiction. The focus of the previous researches has always been put on the horror construction of Poe's horror stories. However, so far, most of these researches take the perspectives of feminism, Freud's psychological analysis, or Poe's own"effect"theory, which still exclude the linguistic theories as their research basis.There is an agreement reached by some of the scholars that literary studies should be grounded in pragmatic theories, specifically cognitive pragmatic theories, because the particular linguistic features or structural peculiarities of literary texts are only significant insofar as they encourage characteristic kinds of pragmatic processing. Hence it occurs to the present author that cognitive pragmatic theory can be a good starting point of the research on the horror element of Poe's short stories. After detailed literature exploration and data collection, the author finds that relevance theory, as one of the most persuasive versions of cognitive pragmatics currently available, puts us on the right tracks in describing and explaining the linguistic and pragmatic choices Poe has made for the horror construction in his fiction, especially in terms of mental representations and processes, in terms of thoughts and thinking.Within the framework of Sperber & Wilson's relevance theory, the writing and reading of Poe's horror stories can be taken as a dynamic ostensive-inferential communication process, which follows the principle of relevance. Under such theoretic frame, this thesis gives detailed discussion on Poe's horror construction from the following aspects:Firstly, Poe's linguistic choices and plot design can be interpreted as ostensive stimuli for the readers to achieve certain contextual effects (i.e. horror effect in this case). Secondly, Poe's linguistic choices and plot arrangement in his horror stories should guarantee their own relevance to the communicative context. Thirdly, to interpret Poe's horror construction, the readers'inference should be based on dynamic cognitive context, which is continuously enriched and extended with the development of the story through absorbing the newly inputted information. Fourthly, in his writing, Poe should make precise estimation of his potential readers'cognitive environment so as to ensure the perception of the horror message by the potential readers. Fifthly, the search for relevance should be taken as the guidance for Poe's writing as well as the direction for his readers'inference in the process of communicating horror messages. Last but not least, it is the guarantee of optimal relevance in Poe's horror stories that allows the readers to obtain sufficient horror effect by paying justifiable effort.Based on the above discussion, this thesis is concluded by pointing out that the relevance theory has enough explanatory power in illustrating Poe's horror construction. It is hoped that this tentative research will shed some light on the future studies on Poe's horror stories. And it is suggested that relevance theory has its value not only in the interpretation, but also in the appreciation of literary works, and relevance theoretic approach can be adopted in the teaching of literary works.