Beauty, Charm And Light Of Darkness In Poe’s Works

Edgar Allan Poe is an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic. As his creative techniques and literary theories are greatly different from the main stream in his time, he is not recognized by readers and his counterparts in his home country for quite a long time. Not until the20th century did Poe’s works call the awareness of men of letters to his importance and the value of his works. Eventually, an upsurge of discussion and study on his poems and tales flowers in the literary world.In Poe’s works, darkness almost penetrates everywhere with the atmosphere of death, horror, and madness. In Poe’s notable dark romantic works, death is far from horror and ugliness, and becomes romantic experience. Horror is not simply terrible but mysterious. With the guidance of his aesthetic views and the theory of "effect", Poe fully displays them in his works. Meanwhile, he enriches the range and heightens the content of gothic fiction by establishing the unique technique of evoking psycho-horror. And he makes great contribution to the flowering of American literature. The researches on the theme of death and his style of gothic fiction occupy a relatively large proportion. However, men of letters rarely take new insights into darkness exaggerated by deaths, colored by horror. Darkness of inner souls reaches extremity and shows an irresistible force. Poe’s darkness carries hope and light which could be found in some of dark works.The core of the thesis is to discuss the dark romance of women’s death hidden in the description of the serene and melancholy atmosphere, to unveil mysterious darkness in a shroud of secrecy and horror, to touch darkness closing around innermost souls of characters of the nervous intensity, meditation, ruthlessness, to search for brightness and hope hidden in darkness. Therefore, this thesis endeavors to explore darkness and search for charm of darkness in Poe’s works based on a combination of aesthetics and psychology. The thesis also aims at interpreting and explaining Poe’s unique ways to express darkness. The thesis is composed of five parts. Chapter One generally introduces Poe’s literary achievements as well as the researches done by scholars on Poe’s study. Chapter Two discusses darkness in Poe’s works and appreciates beauty of darkness. Chapter Three analyzes the ways used by Poe to express dark elements. Chapter Four gives a brief historical overview of Poe’s life and social background, and then comes to the formation of Poe’s aesthetic theory from two aspects. Chapter Five arrives at the conclusion that darkness in Poe’s works presents beauty, charm and light, and brings reading delights which Poe tends to pursue.