Lexico-semantical Peculiarities of Edgar Allan Poe’s tales

Edgar Allan Poe, outstanding romantic poet, romancer. Consideration of the lexical-semantic features of his stories. Artistic manner and style of the writer. Consideration of vocabulary relevant to the intellectual and emotional human activities.
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Introduction

edgar poe lexical semantic style

Edgar Allan Poe, outstanding romantic poet, romancer, and short-story writer, was one of the first professional writers of the United States. But in his lifetime he was more popular in Europe than at home. In America he was often accused by critics of leading a disreputable life; and many readers did not understand him, thought he had a sinister mind and could not fully grasp his rich imagination. In Europe, however, critics highly praised his rare talent, and in the France and Russia of his days he was considered to be the only American poet of significance. All his life Poe struggled against anxiety and poverty, and strove for literary perfection creating poems and stories of many varied literary forms.

This report deals with lexico-semantic peculiarities of the psychological tales by Edgar Allan Poe. The marked lexical groups which are essential for understanding the writer's artistic manner, the thematic trend and concepts of his works have been singled out. A special attention is paid to the vocabulary pertaining to intellectual and emotional activities of the human beings. A detailed consideration of lexico-semantic peculiarities of Edgar Poe's tales makes it possible to draw conclusions concerning the style of the writer's works.

Lexico-semantical Peculiarities of Edgar Allan Poe's tales

Edgar Allan Poe entered into the history of literature as a brilliant stylist, master of psychological novel. But they give to little attention to the investigation of his creative manner, totality of his speech means and methods, the choice of which was determined by the contents, way and purpose of utterance, by the ideology of the literary artist.

The aim of this work is the investigation of the lexico-semantic peculiarities of Edgar Poe's tales. The full analysis of seven Edgar Poe's novels, which belong to the subgenre of “terrible” or “psychological” tales, was carried out on the grounds of the method of system-defined analysis of vocabulary. The dedicated marked categories of the vocabulary, which are essential for understanding the idea and the subject matter of the contents, were singled out in the process of investigation.

It is known, that E.A. Poe was strongly attracted by the disastrous plots, sullen events, and he masterly depicts the unique atmosphere, which draws us into the mysterious world of heroes. Very often the writer investigates the consciousness and behaviour of his personages in the extreme situations, when their all feelings and their consciousness are aggravated to the brim, when the mind is horror-stricken in front of the face of inexorable destiny. The constant feeling of fear and deadlock in the speech context is created with the help of elaborately selected vocabulary, among which we may single out several lexico-semantic groups /LSG/:

“DEATH”: death, tomb, grave, funeral, vault, coffin, entombment, corpse, interment, burial-ground, mortality; to die, to perish, to depart; enshrouded.

“FEAR”: fear, terror, horror, monstrosity, menace, awe, tyranny; to terrify, to shudder, to tremble, to dread.

“PAIN and GRIEF”: pain, suffering, torture, misery, grief, anguish, tears, blood; to endure, to grieve, to cry, to weep, to sign; morbid, intolerable, deplorable, miserable, pitiable.

“DISEASE”: malady, distortion, starvation, illness, hysteria, ague, folly, anomaly, invalid, cripple, dwarf; cataleptic, hypochondriac.

“LONELINESS”: loneliness, solitude, separation; alone, singular, lonesome, sole.

In most Edgar Poe's tales a motive of death is significantly felt. This theme was popular in the literature of American South, as it reflected the depression of decay of the Virgin Renascence period, affirmed the idea of inevitable destruction of the whole Splendid, Beautiful in the times of worship money flourishing. To some extent the Edgar Poe's “frantic” world became the reflection of the reality, but the theme of death takes a psychological aspect the writer's creative work. It is also interesting that death in Edgar Poe's artistic system becomes an aesthetic category and isn't perceived as only biological phenomenon. The writer considers the notion “death” as a symbol and even a special state of human consciousness. Some heroes admit that they do not fell the boundaries between the life and death; they imagine the death to themselves as a special form of existance of human spirit. Hence the motives of life, death, immortality ideal of the Elation, Beauty, drifting, create a certain complex unity. The very atmosphere of horror, despair, solitude, deadlock move the reader into the unique fantastic world of thoughts and feelings. The category of death in Edgar Poe's artistic system doesn't call any disgust, fear, on the contrary, it inspires the reader for the higher feelings and reflection about the sense of life. Callridge was right without any doubt, when he said that E. Poe gives his readers “satisfaction from the delight of extraordinary magnificence of artificial horror”.

While reading the Edgar Poe's tales, we can always feel, that some powerful forces operate the life and destiny of the heroes. The presence of deep mystery is seen, which attracts the reader's attention and calls peculiar elation and mental excitement in him. As a rule the reader endeavours to penetrate into the very essence of events, open the mystery, find the internal forces that rule them, but very often he leaves helpless in the face of the sacrament of existance: the author never gives unambiguous simple answer. We feel the internal fight of mysterious forces in every tale, and realize, hat the writer plunges into the essence of human existance, admiring and charming the reader. The frequent usage of the words God, Saint, Seraph, Heaven and others are the evidence of not the depth of writer's religiousness, not of the useless human efforts and not of determinacy of the man's destiny, but most probably of the complexity of that ties, with which it is connected with the world. E. Poe always tried to realize the eternal problems of being, which worried the whole generations of great thinkers.

The evidence of this may be the usage of the lexical units, which have the common theme "mystery, superhuman, forces", which helps to create the elated tone in his tales. These are the following words and word combinations:

God, Divine Father, the Mighty Ruler of the Universe, Soul in Paradise, Heaven, Seraph, saint, angel, spirit, shadow, omnipresence, omnipotence, demon, destiny, fatality, fate, doom, futility, spell, mystery, riddle, secret, marvel, enchantment; mystic, Magical, phantasmagoric, superhuman, beyond human control, unnatural, fantastic, unreal, uncommon.

E. Poe's psychological tales are marked with the solemnity and well-groundness. They are characterized by the philosophical depth and wide scale of the comprehension of problems. In the form of expression it shows itself in the frequent usage of abstract vocabulary: beauty, good, evil, being, existence, universe, Life, material world, spirit, Humanity, Time, limitless, nothingness, plentitude, abstraction.

In the world literature E. Poe is considered to be an unsurpassed master of creation the hard, sullen atmosphere. Considering that the surroundings of human being has a psychological influence on her, forms her emotions, feelings and mood, the writer very often goes into detailed description of houses, interiors, scenes. Every, even the smallest, detail in the decoration of interior, the unnoticeable at first sight subjects, serve for the creation of the general atmosphere and are a part of a whole.

The typical elements for such descriptions of architecture and interiors are the following attributive word combinations:

castellated abbey, melancholy House of Usher, misty-looking house, quaint and old building, prison-like rampart, mansion of gloom, bizarre architecture, comfortless and antique chamber, a large and lofty room, dark, high, turret-chamber, remote turret, dark and intricate passage, the Gothic archway of the hall, wilderness of narrow passages, vacant, eye-like windows, bleak wall, ebony blackness of the floors, smooth slim and cold wall, massy doors, ponderous gate; sable draperies, dark tapestries, fringed curtains of black velvet, gloomy furniture, gigantic sarcophagus of black granite, phantasmagoric armorial trophies, manifold and multiform armorial trophies.

Not only the placement of fanciful subjects, that surround the heroes, plays a great role in the creation of general atmosphere, but also the light, sounds, even the movement of the air, which creates the impression of extraordinary things and mystery of everything that takes place.

The author pays a special attention to the depiction of the light. In the tales he clearly warps the reality and the ordinary feeling of environment, though the action always stays in the boundaries of the reality. The light creates a special effect and mood, hiding some and opening the other details. As a rule, these are the darkened and somehow sullen beams, which correspond to the general atmosphere of helplessness, downcast and depressed state. The examples may be the following word combinations:

feeble gleams of ancrimsoned light; some faint ray of light; wild sulphurous lustre; ghastly luster; the rays of the numerous candles; gleam and the radiance of the full, blood-red, s...