edgar allan poe-versión corta

Upload: fran-cintado-fernandez

Post on 03-Jun-2018

228 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    1/43

    Edgar Allan PoePotica y Romanticismo

    Dra. Laura P. Alonso Gallo

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    2/43

    Edgar Allan Poe~Escritor de poesa y cuentos de terror (loco?)

    En todos los gneros literarios que cultiva, Poe explora la psique.

    Poe se sumerge en casos de locura y emociones extremadas paraexplorar los aspectos exticos y fascinantes de los procesos psicolgicos

    ~ Crtico literario serio y devastador de sus contemporneos~ Autor de una potica que influye a escritores de distintas latitudes y

    periodos

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    3/43

    Poe brings to mind images of murderers

    and madmen, premature burials, andmysterious women who return from the

    dead.

    Just as the bizarre characters in Poes

    stories have captured the publicimagination so too has Poe himself: Seen as

    a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the

    shadows of moonlit cemeteries or

    crumbling castles. This is the Poe of

    legend.

    Much of what we know about Poe is wrong,

    the product of a biography written by one

    of his enemies in an attempt to defame the

    authors name.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    4/43

    Indice

    Introduccin al Romanticismo

    Romanticismo oscuro (Dark Romanticism)

    Edgar Allan Poe: El hombre y la leyenda

    Poema Annabel Lee

    Crtica literaria: The Poetic Principle

    Crtica literaria: : The Philosophy of Composition

    Poema The Raven

    Relato: Ligeia

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    5/43

    Introduction to Romanticism

    ~ For the Schlegel brothers, Romanticism was a product of Christianity.

    The culture of the Middle Ages created a Romantic sensibility which

    differed from the Classical art styles which preceded it.

    ~ Christian culture dealt with a struggle between the heavenly perfection

    and the human experience of inadequacy and guilt. This sense ofstruggle, and ever-present dark forces and dark feelings, was present in

    the existing culture and part of the whole human experience.

    ~ Artists, often being idealists, wanted something more than the dark

    and narrow-minded views that society wanted to force on them.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    6/43

    Comparemos

    Esta pieza musical

    con sta

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWnPQ3vHYGMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUO5DMjEq3Ihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUO5DMjEq3Ihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUO5DMjEq3Ihttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWnPQ3vHYGM
  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    7/43

    Romanticism exalted

    individualism,

    subjectivism,irrationalism,

    imagination,

    emotions

    and nature.

    Romanticism valued

    emotion over reason

    and senses over intellect. Wandered Above the Sea of Fog (1818) byCaspar David Friedrich

    http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_David_Friedrichhttp://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_David_Friedrich
  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    8/43

    Joseph Turner. El naufragio, 1840

    Retrata el terrible y asombroso poder de la naturaleza sobre el ser

    humano.

    El paisaje es un reflejo del humor y las emociones del artista.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    9/43

    Francisco Goya y Lucientes -- Saturn

    Devouring his Son, 1821-23.

    -Canibalismo salvaje-Devora a un adulto

    -Locura y noasesinato fro.-Choque entre la

    juventud y laancianidad

    -Alegora del tiempocomo devorador de

    todas las criaturas ylas cosas

    -Alegora de lasituacinsociopoltica deEspaa, ya que la

    patria consume a suspropios hijos en

    guerras yrevoluciones.

    Tratamientoconvencional del

    tema.-Asesinato fro ycalculado-La relacin delpoder; elpoderoso devorala inocencia

    Comparemos estas dospinturas del mismo tema~

    Saturn Devouring His Son1636, P. Rubens

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    10/43

    Artists like William Blake, Henry Fuseli and Francisco deGoya are excellent examples of artists who dealt both with

    the dark feelings of guilt and inadequacy, but also withtheir rejection of such conceptsbecause they felt societycould and should be living up to a higher standard ofpersonal freedom and individualism.

    Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over the rationalism and materialism of the 18th-century.Blake's revolt was against the established values of his time:"Prisons are built with stones of Law, brothels with bricks of Religion."

    William Blake - Abel - 1825

    Odysseus in front of Scylla

    and Charybdis,Fuseli's

    Romance painting of

    Odysseus, 1794/6.

    Odysseus chooses btween

    two evils

    http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/romanticism/williamblake-abel.jpg
  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    11/43

    Paul Delaroche: The Execution of Lady

    Jane Grey. 1833

    Francisco de Goya y

    Lucientes, Aquelarre,

    1823. Goya se burla de la

    supersticin popular y de

    la Inquisicin en sus

    juicios de las brujas. El

    cuadro examina los temas

    de la violencia, el poder,

    la vejez y la muerte.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    12/43

    Who has not, a hundred times, found himself

    committing a vile or silly action, for no other

    reason that because he knows he should not?"

    (The Black Cat)

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    13/43

    Vida y personalidadBrief Biography

    Nace el 19 de enero de 1809 en Boston (Massachusetts).

    Estudia en la Universidad de Virginia y despus en La AcademiaMilitar de West Point.

    Aparece enfermo en un bar que se estaba utilizando como sala electoral.

    Se le encuentra vestido con ropas que no le pertenecen. Su editor lo

    hizo llevar al hospital, donde muere dos das despus.

    Poe fallece a la edad de cuarenta aos en Baltimore (Maryland) el 7 deoctubre de 1849. La causa de su muerte no se ha llegado a determinar

    con exactitud.

    http://www.biography.com/people/edgar-allan-poe-9443160http://www.biography.com/people/groups/born-on-january-19http://www.biography.com/people/edgar-allan-poe-9443160
  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    14/43

    Edgar Allan Poe

    (1809-1849)

    Escritor de

    -relato,-poesa,

    -una novela,

    -un libro de teora cientfica,

    -y cientos de ensayos y reseas.

    Inventor del gnero detectivesco

    Innovadordel gnero de ciencia ficcin

    y terror.

    Pero se gan la vida como el primergran crtico literario y terico de su

    pas.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    15/43

    -Son of actors, Poe never really knew his parents.

    -Poe went to live with John and Frances Allan, a successful tobacco merchant and his wife, inRichmond, Virginia.

    -Poe went to the University of Virginia in 1826, but he didn't receive enough funds from Allan to coverall his costs. He turned to gambling to cover the difference, but ended up in debt.

    -He returned home only to face another personal setbackhis neighbor and fiance Elmira Roysterhad become engaged to someone else. Heartbroken and frustrated, Poe left the Allans.

    -Published his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poemsin 1827, andAl Aaraaf, Tamberlane, and MinorPoemsin 1829.

    -He won a spot in West Point in 1830. Poe excelled at his studies, but he was kicked out after a year for

    his poor handling of his duties.

    -Lived in New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Richmond writing full time.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    16/43

    -From 1831 to 1835: stayed in Baltimore with his aunt MariaClemm and her daughter Virginia. Married in 1836 when shewas only 13 years old and Poe 2714 years her senior)

    -In Richmond in 1835, Poe worked for a magazine called theSouthern Literary Messenger.

    -Reputation as a cut-throat critic, writing vicious reviews of his

    contemporaries. His aggressive-reviewing style and sometimescombative personality strained his relationship with thepublication, and he left the magazine in 1837.

    -He worked at two other papers, Burton's Gentleman's Magazineand The Broadway Journal.

    -Poe became a literary sensation in 1845 with the publicationof the poem "The Raven."

    -Poe wrote a review where he accused fellow poet HenryWadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    17/43

    -Overcome by grief after the death of his beloved Virginia in1847. Continued to work, but suffered from poor health and

    struggled financially.

    -Mysterious death: Poe left Richmond on September 27,1849, and was supposedly on his way to Philadelphia. OnOctober 3, Poe was found in Baltimore in great distress. Hewas taken to Washington College Hospital where he died onOctober 7. His last words were "Lord, help my poor soul.

    -Shortly after his passing, Poe's reputation was badlydamaged by his literary adversary Rufus Griswold.

    -Days after Poes death, Griswold wrote a vilifying obituaryof the author in revenge for some of the offensive things Poe

    had said and written about him.Griswold followed the obituary with a memoir in which heportrayed Poe as a drunken, womanizing madman with nomorals and no friends.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    18/43

    The legendGriswolds attacks were meant to cause the public to dismiss Poe and his works, but the

    biography had exactly the opposite effect:

    Instead, the sales of Poes books drove higher than they had ever been during the authors

    lifetime.

    Griswolds distorted image of Poe created the Poe legend that lives to this day while

    Griswold is only remembered (if at all) as Poes first biographer.

    T.S. ELIOT escribi muchos anos despus de su muerte que los sentimientos de amor dePoe eran puros e inocentescompletamente ajenos a lo sexual y a lo fsico.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    19/43

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    20/43

    Poetry:Annabel Lee(1849)

    -Poema pstumo

    -El ttulo contiene la letra l (muchas de sus nombres de mujercontenan esta letra: Helen, Eulalia, Leonora, Lenore, Ulalume,Ligeia.

    -Tal sonidoproduce un efecto demelancola y tristezael sonido lpermanece ms tiempo en el paladar al pronunciarse.

    It was many and many a year ago,

    In a kingdomby the sea,

    That a maiden there lived whomyou may know

    By the name of Annabel Lee;

    And this maiden she lived with no other thought

    Than to love and be loved by me.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf7aBCrfOQEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf7aBCrfOQE
  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    21/43

    Poetry:Annabel Lee(1849)

    Temas y motivos

    -Motivo: prdida de un gran amor

    -Tema: dolor del yo lrico por la muerte prematura de la amada.

    -Resolucin:

    Hombre que rescata lo vivido y promete fidelidad an despus dela muerte

    La promesa de amor eterno.

    -Subtemas:

    a) Familia/sociedad (Capuletos y Montescos)b) Lo sobrenatural

    c) La naturaleza

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf7aBCrfOQEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf7aBCrfOQE
  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    22/43

    Poesa:Annabel Lee(1849)

    Frmulas

    -Frmula de cuentos de hadas:

    a) Muchos, muchos aos

    b) reino junto al mar

    c) patricio tutor

    d) ngeles, serafines

    -Frmula gtica: los ngeles demonizados (que codician el amor delos amantes)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf7aBCrfOQEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf7aBCrfOQE
  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    23/43

    Poetry:Annabel Lee(1849)

    Esttica y figuras retricas

    -El poema es una cancin por la prdida de un gran amor.

    -Hiplage: angeles infelices que codician y envidian

    -Anfora: velando a mi amada, mi amor, mi consorte

    -La composicin esta perfectamente cuidada-El efecto: cada verso es un sollozo. Hay un momento en que larepeticin produce el efecto de desvaro, de perder el hilo deldiscurso. El narrador desvela una suerte de locura.

    -El tiempo presenteutilizado en el ltimo verso produce un efectosobrecoger. por qu?

    -(Parece que Poe altera las convenciones de la balada para crear unefecto especfico).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf7aBCrfOQEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf7aBCrfOQE
  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    24/43

    Poetry:Annabel Lee(1849)

    Mtrica y composicin

    -Tiene estructura de baladaabcbdb en la mayora de las estrofas.

    -Los crticos no lo consideran una balada por 1) la incoherencia mtrica y2) la ausencia de dialogo.

    Sin embrago, como la balada, este poema tiene un tono lrico-narrativo,corta extensin y empleo frecuente del dilogo, al modo del romance.

    Narra un suceso legendario?

    -The short lines rhyme through the vowel sound e, using redundanciesand a consistent rhythm.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf7aBCrfOQEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf7aBCrfOQE
  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    25/43

    La potica de Poe: Resumen

    ~Paradigm of the Classic Poet: Rigor and Precision

    ~Subject matters (sorrow, nostalgia, remembrance) are colors of the artists palette,and not the province of the poem

    ~The poet must recover the pristine value of language, the original value of words

    ~Beauty is not the quality of something

    > it is an impression upon the human spirit

    > it is a pleasure devoid of any sensitive attraction, passion, orsentiment

    > it is a spiritual delight

    ~Beauty does neither affect our intelligence nor our heart:

    it only affects our spirit in an aesthetic way.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    26/43

    El principio potico (1850, pstumo)1- Paradigma del poeta clsico: rigor y precisin-Sienta las bases de una nueva poesa

    >de Poe va a surgir el simbolismo francs (Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimabaud,Mallarm y Paul Valry), y el concepto de el arte por el arte.

    >Tambin, directa o indirectamente, el modernismo sudamericano

    >Tambin Dostoievski, Stevenson, Maeterlink

    >Y el gnero de la novela policial (Conan DoyleSherlock Holmes).

    2- Material extraesttico-Para la sensibilidad romntica, hacer poesa era verter en los versos la vidapasional, la subjetividad humana. Pero haba mucho material extraesttico.

    Incluso Goethe, Lord Byron y Vctor Hugo introducan retrica y fraseologa

    pomposa y a veces hacan discursos edificantes, enseanzas histricas omorales, o polticas y filosficas.

    -Poe detect el problema de los romnticos y de otros movimientosanteriores: el vicio de mezclar la poesa con cosas extrapoticas. Poe reaccioncon su visin clsica, pero tambin reaccion contra el principio aristotlico y

    sobre todo el horaciano del principio pedaggico: dulce y til.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    27/43

    El principio potico (1850,

    pstumo)3- La misin de la poesa

    -La misin de la poesa no es fortificar los espritus niperfeccionar las costumbres, ni aportar beneficio til.

    El fin de la poesa es ser poesa. La ciencia y la moral le sonextraas. No debe adoctrinar.

    -La finalidad de la ciencia es la verdad

    -La finalidad de la moral es el bien.

    -Hay que depurar la poesa de elementos extrapoticos, de

    disertacin moral, de doctrina filosfica, de enseanza histrica yde moraleja.

    -El poeta no es, como decan los griegos, un preceptor de moralni un profeta o hroe de la cultura. El poeta es un creador debelleza, un forjador de poesa.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    28/43

    El principio potico (1850, pstumo)4- Contra el sentimentalismo potico.

    -El contenido esencial de la poesa es la pasin.-Poe negaba que lo esencial de la poesa fuese la pasin : La pasin es la embriaguezdel alma y por lo tanto, algo irracional, turbio, extraesttico.

    -Un poema es una obra de arte y por su forma obedece al clculo y a la medida. Lapoesa es hija de la inteligencia y no del sentimiento. Se construye como una catedral:

    Ningn punto de la composicin puede ser atribuido a la casualidadni a la intuicin; la obra ha marchado, paso a paso, hacia susolucin con la exactitud y la rigurosa lgica de un problemamatemtico.-Qu compone un poema? La musa, la inspiracin, el frenes creador.

    Poe negaba la musa: El poema lo compone discernimiento, el estudio y la claridadmental.

    -Quien est embriagado de pasin es incapaz de aplicar la claridad y el intelecto delartista.

    Qu hacer? Se debe objetivar la pasin, no caer presa de ella. Contemplar elsentimiento con serenidad y aprovecharlo y disponerlo de forma artstica. Esta es la

    ruptura entre el arte y la vida, el arte por el arte.

    El principio potico (1850

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    29/43

    El principio potico (1850,pstumo)5- El arte de la palabra

    -La palabra es un instrumento para expresar ideas y conceptos. Las ciencias se sirven

    de la palabra. Es el vehculo de la historia, la moral y la filosofa porque poseen unvalor semntico.Pero adems del valor semntico, la palabra tiene un valor artsticoen s misma:

    -ritmo -calidad-sonido - y significado-color

    La combinacin sonora y rtmica de las palabras, sin sentido, no es poesa.

    -El valor semntico est en funcin del efecto, ni es un fin ni es el nico medio.tengo muchas ideas buenas pero no puedo escribir versos buenos, deca un escritor a PaulValryy ste le contest: la poesa no se hace con ideas, sino con palabras.

    -Poe defenda que la palabra se haba desgastado y que el poeta deba devolver el rigororiginal, el brillo primigenio, a la palabra.

    -El estremecimiento medular que produce la lectura de El cuervo no se debe al temade la muerte ni a la desesperanza absoluta que siente el estudiante. El prodigio no esel tema, sino la virtud de los vocablos, que viene de la precisin y el rigor con que sonusados. (Eso mismo harn Mallarm y Valry)

    The Philosophy of Composition (1846):

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    30/43

    The Philosophy of Composition (1846):Formula de Poe

    METHOD (denial of muse, formal perfection in a mathematical sense)

    And TOTALITY OF EFFECT (emotional reaction that the writer plansto achieve).

    TOTALITY OF EFFECT:-Length (at one sitting, 100 lines, at the service of effect, in direct relation to

    the elevation of the soul)-Province (beautythe object may or may not be beautiful: beauty is created

    and has an effect upon the listener/reader)

    -and Tone (choose a tone that excites or elevates the soulthe most legitimateof all tones is melancholywhy? Because it excites the soul in a more powerfulor intense way)

    Among the subjects that melancholy tones can serve, the saddest and thus mostpoetic is the death of a beautiful woman.

    Structure, theme, tropes, setting, characters, conflict, and plot are to be decidedafter the effect has been determined.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    31/43

    Unidad del efecto: Dimensin, dominio y tono

    FRMULA DE POE: DIMENSIN(en una sesin), MTODO(negacin de la musa: perfeccinformal en el sentido matemtico) Y TOTALIDAD O UNIDAD DEL EFECTO (reaccin emocionalque el escritor quiere crear)

    Dimensin al servicio del EFECTOin direct relation to the elevation of the soul.Province: Soul seeks Beauty; Mind seeks Truth; Heart seeks Passion

    That pleasure which is at once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the

    contemplation of the beautiful.

    When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect they refer, in

    short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul not of intellect, or of heart upon which I have

    commented, and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating "the beautiful.

    Now the object, Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are,

    although attainable, to a certain extent, in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose. Truth, in fact, demands a

    precision, and Passion, a homeliness (the truly passionate will comprehend me) which are absolutely antagonistic to

    that Beauty which, I maintain, is the excitement, or pleasurable elevation, of the soul.

    Originalityin subject

    Tone: sadness > melancholy (loss)tone of its [Beautys] highest manifestationand all experience has shown that this tone is one of sadness.

    Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is

    thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.

    Among melancholy tonesthe saddest and thus most poetic > death of a beautiful woman.

    Structure, theme, tropes, setting, characters, conflict, and plot are to be decided after the effect has

    been determined.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    32/43

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    33/43

    The Raven Poes poetry, grounded in the Southern tradition, was very musical and strictly

    metrical. The Raven (1845) is his most famous poem. He explained his poetics in the light of

    this poem.

    Length, province, and tone

    Repetition of one word or phrase in each stanza:Nevermore, ever more

    Be consistent with the monotony of this linethe final line in each stanza This word would be the same, yet it would have different meanings

    Quality and value of this word:

    ~ must have the value of sound, color, and rhythm,

    ~and the quality of an extended emphasis

    Oa long vowel, the most powerful soundRmost vigorous consonant

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    34/43

    The Raven-Rimbaud, for example, said that each vowel had a color:

    ~ Ablack ~ Ewhite ~ Ired ~ Oblue ~ Ugreen

    -In Spanish, the word aoranza is a blue word; pasin is red both in content and sound.

    -Poe looked for a word that was both intense and gloomy, a red and black word.

    -More than its meaning, its rhythm and color endow the word nevermore with the quality of

    melancholy.

    -The ending r associated to the long o produces an effect of distance which, associated to the

    melancholy m gets stronger, and produces an effect of infinite sadness.

    The sound mor is penetrating; it seems to penetrate endless darkness; it is the sound of death itself; it

    also echoes the Latin word mors, which is the root of the English word mortality.

    -The word never, also ending with an r, has a metaphysical reverberation. It refers both to alwaysand never. It takes us to the beyond, to the unseen, to the despair of an eternal nothingness.

    -Both words together give the poem an atmosphere of devastation.

    -The monotonous repetition of this word doubles the anguish and communicates to readers an innerving

    sensation and a shivering effect.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    35/43

    The Raven

    The stylistic resource of introducing a raven (not a parrot, not an angel) creates anatmosphere of irrationality, mystery, and connection with the unseen.

    The poem ends in a frozen scene of death-in-life:

    And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

    On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,

    And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on thefloor;

    And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

    Shall be lifted- nevermore!

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    36/43

    The Influence of PoesPoetics

    In his essays, Poe is laying the foundation of a new poetics based on Classicism(however, rejects Horaces paradigm of art being dolce et utile), revision of the

    Romantic literary practices, and development of the short story poetics.

    Influenced:

    >French Symbolism (Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimabaud, Mallarm y PaulValry),

    >The concept of art for arts sake

    >Directly or indirectly, South American Modernism

    >Dostoyevsky, Stevenson, Maeterlinck

    >Detective story genre (Conan DoyleSherlock Holmes)>Gothic genre

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    37/43

    Ligeia

    http://www.traileraddict.com/ligeia/trailerhttp://www.traileraddict.com/ligeia/trailer
  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    38/43

    Various Interpretations:Ligeia as an Idea

    ~ Ligeia as an idea:

    -The Perfect Woman > Perfection

    -The muse that dies (inspiration) > burlesque on belief that poets did not work (poet+opium)

    -German (the Gothic) vs. English (Tradition established by England; U.S. imitates, does

    not have a national art) > burlesque-grotesque (satire).

    Poe was a master of the Gothic horror tale, but did not invent the Gothic genre. Poe was

    criticized for his "Germanism," a synonym for Gothicism, since critics considered this

    kind of fiction outmoded.

    -Mockery of Transcendentalism

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    39/43

    Various Interpretations:Ligeia as a Real Woman

    ~ Ligeia as a real woman (exalted in the memory-dreams of the narrator)

    -Longing of a lover for reunion with the beloved (narrator says he recovers his lost love onlyin the

    world of dreams)

    -Effort of the poetic soul to escape consciousness > dream

    -Poetic soul at war with physical world (the physical, the factual, the rational, the prosaic are not

    escapable).

    -Human soul is diseasedPoedoes not see God in naturerather, he sees a mechanistic world in

    decadence (aristocracy)

    -Childhood and prior incarnation is where the soul enjoys a serene unity of beingperhaps thisis why this narrator behaves like a child or like an individual without consciousness.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    40/43

    Various Interpretations:Mortality

    ~ Ligeia does not illustrate personal reincarnation, but the

    reincarnation of the life process itself.

    ~ Life repeats itself, only to die again, like Ligeia, whose weaknessof will yields to the angels. Then Rowena. Because Death always

    wears the same face.

    ~ The history of man as a narrative of recurrent death that Poe

    condenses in one symbolic night.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    41/43

    Various Interpretations:The Scientific, Perverted Mind

    ~ The unreliable narrator helps build some of the previous

    interpretations.

    ~ This unreliable narrator could be a scientist whose perversion

    leads him to kill his beloved (seeking the forbidden knowledge

    about woman, who at this era represents mystery, sexuality, and

    beauty). This is a common interpretation that has been refuted

    by important critics.

    V i I t t ti F i i t R di

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    42/43

    Various Interpretations: Feminist ReadingCritica feminista de Ligeia

    -Ligeia representa a la mujer, la libertad, independencia y potencial intelectual que tiene la mujer y no ha desarrollado

    en este momento del siglo XIX. Representa la perfeccin.-Sociedad patriarcal los hombres son protagonistas--La mujer no necesita que la protejan y la cuiden los hombres.

    -City near the Rhine: ruinas, decadente, sistema patriarcal (place where lovers met). Doble sentido: She must die(porsu enfermedad o porque debe morir puesto que es peligrosa)

    -The narrator does not explain how sad must have been to lose herrather, he distances himself from the grief. Hisfeeling is fear rather than grief; he is helpless rather than grieving.

    -La mujer, Ligeia que es gigante y parece todopoderosa, debe sucumbir a la fuerza de la muerte (more stern power of

    death) y a la fuerza del hombre, que gobierna el orden social.

    -The narrators failure to kill Ligeia: It seems the narrator is going to kill every woman he marries, but Ligeia keepscoming back to him in the person of Rowena. Ligeia lives on, not only in Rowena, but in every woman. Herepresents the man: men kill thewoman. But the woman haunts him forever. The man is tormented, confused,going mad.

    -We should not identify Poe with the narrator. The writer likes the first-person narration because is confessional andcreates credibility. He also uses an unreliable narrator that does not tell us everything, that is, he hides facts fromthe reader. Poe, the writer, may have implied a positive message: forcing women into submission does not put menin a better place. The narrator after Ligeias death continues to mourn her and succumbs to opium and drugs to

    fight the loss.

    -Cita (atribuida a Glanville): El hombre no se doblega a los ngeles, ni cede por entero a la muerte, como no sea por laflaqueza de su dbil voluntad--La muerte de Ligeia no represental el fin. Mientras la mujer mantenga la voluntadde ser libre su es ritu vivir ara siem re.

  • 8/12/2019 Edgar Allan Poe-Versin Corta

    43/43

    BibliografaCurrent-Garca, Eugene. Poe's Short Fiction. The American Short Story Before 1850: A Critical History.

    Boston: Twayne. 1985. 59-83.Hume, Beverly. The Madness of Art and Science in Poe's 'Ligeia. Essays in Arts and Sciences(EAS).

    24. 1995. 21-32.

    Jay, Gregory S. Poe: Writing and the Unconscious. The American Renaissance: New Dimensions. Ed.Harry R. Garvin and Peter C. Carafiol. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses. 1983. 144-169.

    Kennedy, Gerald.Allan Poe, American Writer (1809 1849). Mystery and Suspense Writers. The

    Literature of Crime, Detection and Espionage. Ed. Robin W. Winks and Maureen Corrigan. New York:Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.

    --------. The Limits of Reason: Poe's Deluded Detectives.American Literature 47.2 (May 1975). 184-196.

    Lawrence, D.H. Edgar Allan Poe. The Symbolic Meaning: The Uncollected Versions of 'Studies in ClassicAmerican Literature'. Centaur Press Limited, 1962. 115-130.

    Garrison, Joseph M. Jr. The Function of Terror in the Work of Edgar Allan Poe. American Quarterly 18.2(Summer 1966): p136-150.

    Schroeter, James. A Misreading of Poe's Ligeia. PMLA 76. 4 (Sep. 1961). 397-406.

    Schueller, Malini Johar.Harems, Orientalist Subversions and the Crisis of Nationalism: The Case of EdgarAllan Poe and 'Ligeia. Criticism37.4 (Fall 1995). 601-618.

    Von Mucke, Dorothea. The Imaginary Materiality of Writing in Poe's Ligeia. Differences: A Journal ofFeminist Cultural Studies.11.2 (Summer 1999): 53-67.

    Zanger, Jules. Poe and the Theme of Forbidden Knowledge.American Literature49. 4 (Jan. 1978) 533-43.

    http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.fiu.edu/ps/advancedSearch.do?inputFieldName(0)=AU&prodId=LitRC&userGroupName=flstuniv&method=doSearch&inputFieldValue(0)=%22Gregory+S.+Jay%22&searchType=AdvancedSearchFormhttp://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.fiu.edu/ps/advancedSearch.do?inputFieldName(0)=AU&prodId=LitRC&userGroupName=flstuniv&method=doSearch&inputFieldValue(0)=%22Gregory+S.+Jay%22&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm