Rationality, Irrationality And Artistic Beauty In Poe’s Works

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most unique and talented writers in America.Studies on his works are mainly concentrated on the following themes: beauty, death,female, symbolism, musicality, while few pay attention to the feature of rationalityand irrationality, or the tension generated in their collision. This thesis, focusing onrationality, irrationality, and their origin, as well as the beauty generated from theircollision in Allan Poe’s works, aims to discover the special artistic beauty in betweenthem. The first part of the thesis focuses on digging out the origin of Allan Poe’sirrationality and its manifestation in his works. The miserable life experience, theinheritance from romantic tradition and the influence of Poe’s social background areall sources of Allan Poe’s irrational creation. Through carefully designedcircumstances, fanciful images, dramatic plots and dialogues, Allan Poe managed tocreate works of strong irrational feature. Chapter two focuses on Allan Poe’s rationalthought and its origin. The rational aspect of Allan Poe is not only shown in his ownpersonality but also presented in his works. Based on Aristotle, Coleridge and Kant’sinfluence, and Allan Poe’s own reading, he forms a rational thought and generated hisown literary theories, such “unity of effect” and “pure poetry”, and applied them inhis works. Musicality is one of the main factors that demonstrate rationality. Exceptfor syllables, rhymes and other acoustic techniques, Allan Poe also employs visualtechniques, such as color and light. In addition, Allan Poe applies many scientificmethods and knowledge in his detective fictions. Logic and accuracy are always seenin Allan Poe’s stories. The third Chapter mainly discusses how Allan Poe combinesrationality and irrationality together and produces a unique charm of tension. Thistension especially is presented between life and death, imagination and reality andbest shown in “The Raven”. As the rational components and irrational componentscoexist and collide with each other, a unique effect of charm is produced. Allan Poe’sworks are filled with irrational factors, and are very emotional, they are also createdunder rational thought, and bear scientificity and logicality. Allan Poe has trulyachieved the aesthetic unity on form and content, and perfectly combined “soul” and“body”.Through an exploration of rationality and irrationality in Allan Poe’s works, andstarts from rationality and irrationality which are less explored by the predecessors, this thesis probes into Allan Poe’s works and Poe himself, and discovers thesurprisingly charm of the artistic beauty. Rationality and irrationality, as qualities ofhuman beings, are applied by Allan Poe into his works, their existence makes theworks of Poe a special charm, and their interaction and collision with each othergenerated an effect of tension, which is just the artistic beauty what Poe pursues.