Effect and combination : originality in Poe's gothic tales

Edgar Allan Poe borrows much from Gothic writers of eighteenth-century England and early America, but he also deviates extensively. By combining elements of the earlier literature with brevity, the withhholding of details, a shifted locus of terror from without to within, the retention of final ambiguity, humor, and first-person narration Poe creates a new kind of psychological Gothic whose aim is to create a single, unifying effect which engages the reader's intellect and imagination. This thesis analyzes Poe's Gothic technique by comparing his Gothic short fiction to the work of several authors. The Introduction defines and explains the various elements which Poe combines in order to achieve his single, unifying effect. Chapter One compares and contrasts Poe's Gothic technique to that of three important Gothic novels: Matthew Lewis' The Monk (1796), Ann Radcliffe's The Italian (1797), and Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland (1798). Chapter Two compares and contrasts Poe's Gothic fiction to specific tales from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, with the focus on the earlier tales (pre-1849). Through both chapters, the emphasis is upon such issues as treatment of the supernatural, violence, nature, insanity, psychological terror, and human perverseness. Poe adds resonance to each subject by leaving completion of the tale in the mind of the unsuspecting reader. The result is original in that this complexity of techniques is aimed toward achieving a single effect.