Julio Cesar Jeha Edgar Allan Poe: The Fall of the Masque Faculdade de Letras Universidade ...

177 Pages·2014·6.37 MB·English

Julio Cesar Jeha
Edgar Allan Poe: The Fall of the Masque
Faculdade de Letras
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
Edgar Allan Poe: The Fall of the Masque
by
Julio Cesar Jeha
Submitted in partial fulfilment of
the requirements for the degree of
Mestre em Inglis
Thesis Advisor
Prof. Ana Lucia Almeida Gazolla, Ph.D.
Faculdade de Letras
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
June, 1986
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
Faculdade de Letras
This is to certify that the dissertation
presented by Julio Cesar Jeha, entitled "Edgar Allan
Poe: The Fall of the Masque," complies with the
University regulations and that it meets the
accepted standards of this Faculty with respect to
style and content for the degree of "Mestre em
Ingles."
Signed by the final examining committee:
/
Prof. Ana Lúcia Almeida Gazolla, PhD
Thesis Advisor
Prof. Vera Andrade, DocLet
7^
Próf. Thomas LaBorie Burns, MA
and by
Prof. Ana Lucia Almeida Gázoíla, PhD
Coordenadora dos Cursos de Põs-graduaçao
em Letras da FALE/UFMG.
Acknowledgments
To Ana Lucia Almeida Gazolla, teacher, advisor,
colleague and friend, not necessarily in this order. I
am grateful for her unfailing and knowing criticism, as
well as her disponibility and stimulation.
To Françoise Mamolar Somalo, Leila R. Ferreira and
Lúcia Helena Vilela, who assisted me with bibliography
in Belgium and the United States.
To Maria P. Matta Machado and Isolda Penna Machado,
kind and meticulous proof-readers.
Abstract.
This dissertation is a study of Edgar Allan Poe's
"The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Masque of the
Red Death," as representative tales of the Gothic and,
by extension, of the fantastic mode. It has two axes:
one is a survey of critical theories on the fantastic
and its main manifestation, the Gothic, in an attempt to
distinguish the constituents of the mode and to apply
them to a reading of Poe's tales. The other axis is
centred in one of such constituents, an esoteric
substractum which underlies both texts and is
fundamental to Poe's metaphysics as expressed in his
aesthetics. Finally, the specular construction of the
texts is examined, as well as the use of intertextuality
and the ideological questions projected in terms of a
theory of knowledge.
/
Table of contents
Introduction 1
Critical Theories on the Fantastic 8
"The Fall of the House of Usher" and
"The Masque of the Red Death" as Gothic tales U2
Elements of Gnostic Tradition 6 5
House and Mirror 7 6
Masque and Mask 124
Conclusion: The Fall of the Masque 154
Bibliography 162
Introduction
What do I fear? Myself? There's none else by.
Shakespeare
The fantastic, among all literary modes, seems to be the one
which best explores the complexities of the relationship between
man and his environment. It is generally more realistic than
realist literature, even though relying on a primary falsehood.
The fantastic text is often more psychological than the
psychological novel, notwithstanding the presence of overlapping
realities and their own laws, which prevents a purely
psychoanalytical approach. Such paradoxical condition can be
explained by the fact that this is a fictional mode which taps its
material from the interaction between the Self and the World, the
Self and the Other and the Self and the I. By so doing, the
fantastic is able to probe into historical, sociological and
psychological depths, always profiting from a multiplicity of
possible readings and, conversely, never allowing for a unilateral,
exclusivist search of a single meaning.
As the fantastic deals with human perception of reality, it
has as various manifestations as varied is the relationship man
holds with the universe. The Gothic, one of such manifestations,
deals mainly with the limits imposed on the individual by
society, his fellow citizen or by himself. Any transgression of
these limits seems to be eventualy repressed, so as to confirm the
norm prevailing within a given Zeitgeist. Nevertheless, or perhaps
because of this very reason, Gothic fiction is a means by which
man can assess his limits and endeavour to stretch them. Rather
than an escapist literature, as Gothic is often considered, it
attempts to analyse the elements of paranoia, taboo and
barbarism as the other side of officially accepted behaviour.
Whenever Gothic is surveyed, Edgar Allan Poe stands out as
a milestone of this polemic field. He was a remarkab!fe craftsman
of the intrincacies which underlie man's recollection and
perversion of received opinions on reality and abnormality. His
work is an enormous contribution of Gothic fiction, as well as to
4
literature in general, in terms of narrative technique, subject
matter and literary theory. Poe's masterly use of accumulating
suspense, of facts and details that intertwine so as to provoke
a single effect and of the successful achievement of such unity,
make him an obligatory reference for criticism, whether it be
favourable or unfavourable.
Poe's texts are important to literary studies, I would suggest,
due to the various features they have inscribed in themselves, such
as a theory of the tale and a philosophy of composition. In
addition to being excellent weird tales which have become a
paragon in Western literature, they prove to be a source of
interest for nowadays scholars. The modernity of Poe's texts
lies in the presence of constitutive elements privileged by
contemporary criticism. From the use of one of such elements,
mi.se en abyme^ emerges a specular construction that fills the
texts with duplicating images, with the disturbing presence of
the double and with an effect of loss of origin and end. Also,
Poe resorts to fictional texts and to Biblical and esoteric
traditions and thus generates a web of intertextual references.
This destroys the classical illusion of a unified meaning, for
intertextuality opens the way to a plurality of readings, all of
them possible and none demanding exclusiveness. Such complex
construction prevents Poe's texts from fitting into any single
theory of the fantastic. As paradigmatic of Gothic and, by
extension, of the fantastic, the texts allow for a problematising
reading of the theories when these are applied to their analysis.
In my dissertation, I will confront the traditional line of
critical theories on the fantastic, which consider the text as a
final product presented to the reader, with the more contemporary
ones, which privilege the deconstruction of textual production,
the decentring of the subject and the exposition of ideological
contradictions.