Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 to 1849, is an American essayist, short story compiler, and poet arguably viewed as one of the best as well as complex American literary figures that inspired many writers in the 19th century even beyond Gothic theme (Hutchisson 01). The choice of horrific themes and tones, distinctive use of vocabulary, specific composition techniques, and distinctive text structure characterize Poe’s literary works, especially poems. Poe is majorly remembered in modern time as the father of detective stories. The pure communication beauty of Poe’s poetry is distinctive. A significant amount of literary works of Poe refers to gothic fiction with a persistent theme of death. This paper examines vocabulary of Edgar Allan Poe as a significant style in his literary works and determines his tone in most of his literary compilation as melancholy presented by death and mourning.
Most people today would not remember the famous poems of Poe, but for the unique vocabulary, the artist employed. However, the fame of his works staying popular until today might be because of his gothic themes, or his distinctive manner of expression that his literary works and short stories stay remembered to date. The ancient vocabulary of Poe was at face value, horrific, defining mystery in places and characters who fit into the description of psychologically complicated (Barone, and Amendola 07). The Gothic theme from which Allan Poe and many other contemporary writers derived the physical environment of their stories emanates from the German Gothic novels (Hall 81). Contrary to many stories that present the concepts and vocabulary such as vampires, zombies or ghosts, the Gothic
theme of the stories of Poe comes from a simple vocabulary, yet unique. Scholars of the present time have defined this style as atypical Gothic stories with atypical vocabulary with all the characteristics of Gothic but have a distinctive vocabulary of the romantic ballads, which is highly individualized, and distinctive.
In his many compilations, Poe utilizes relatively repetitious, yet limited vocabulary with a twist of mechanical stereotype repeatedly to attain desired mood and effects. Such words and phrases that form the basis of Poe’s vocabulary include;
“Fate, weir, indescribable, grave, unalterable, sublime, shadowy fancies, unearthly, nothingness, deadly nausea, lurid, thrill, tormented, sickening of heart, sunder, depression of soul”
While these phrases and words can be part of anyone’s story or poem, Poe employs them in a uniquely repetitive fashion that reading his literary works makes the audience identify with the vocabulary, hence ability to recognize with ease that a style, based on particular vocabulary, is Poe’s or as maintained by some Scholars, “Poesque” ( Pinkrová 10).
Gothic
expressions are not the only diction that characterizes Poe’s vocabulary. The English Bible Quotes are a significant reference point that characterizes Poe’s vocabulary. The Poet referred to the English Bible in several of his works in addition to English and the Greek literature. Additionally, Poe read in French and had interest in Italian as well as Latin, all of which significantly contribute to his choice of vocabulary and tone. Even though these dialects did not significantly influence his poems or short stories, the use of foreign language in his literary works is significant.
Additionally, Poe’s use of mottos as well as quotations from other famous literary works is a sound feature in his prefaces. From the Bible, Poe derives “Shadow-- A Parable”, from Greek, Poe came up with “Silence--- A fable”, and from French “The fall of the House of Usher” among other references. Even though his intention of using a foreign language is unclear, he would not translate them to English; he probably aspired to draw the audience’s attention to the depiction of his characters or perhaps his erudition. A scholar notes that perhaps the setting of his Gothic stories such as “The Fall of the House of Usher” in a French environment is to allow fellow Americans to conjure a sense of pleasure in character foibles. Additionally, Americans get a relief to witness the sufferings, as the use of French in its preface alienates Americans from the story and they perhaps only participate as observers (Spears 01). In the very last sentence of his story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” Poe applies a quotation by Rousseau adding to an already bulk of foreign vocabulary, which occurs within his poems and texts that remains puzzling to the audience, yet characteristic of his literary works.
Poe’s technique of writing employed a bound together vocabulary featuring keywords. Such key expressions and words appear strategically in his writings, at the start of his narratives, and several times in the body of his stories in particular paragraphs. Ideally, Poe applies vocabulary as a style to create a rhythm, coherence, emphasis, and a general memorability of his works through repetition. In other contexts, Poe replaces the keywords with their synonyms, maintaining the concept of repeated emphasis and somewhat monotonous regularity of his vocabulary. An excerpt from “The Pit and the Pendulum”
(1843) is a classic example:
“The vibration of the pendulum was at right angles to my length. I saw that the crescent was designed to cross the region of the heart. It would fray the serge of my robe—it would return and repeat its operations—again—and –again. Notwithstanding its terrifically wide sweep (some thirty feet or more), and the hissing vigor of his descent, sufficient to sunder these very walls of iron, still the fraying of my robe
would be all that for several minutes, it would accomplish… I could arrest here the descent of the steel… I forced myself to ponder upon the sound of the crescent as it should pass across the garment…”(Poe 14).
The Pendulum and its associated synonyms feature several times, robe and associated terms such as tear and its synonyms such as garments appear several times elsewhere within this paragraph. Poe’s signature phrases and words, such as fray or sunder are also evident in this paragraph. From this paragraph, Poe mention of his central motif represents more than ten per cent of the total word count leading to a conclusion that nearly every sentence of Poe contains a reference to his central theme displayed by a distinctive style of repetition and the interplay of vocabulary. A modern day reader perspective would be that Poe appears ambiguous by using complex sentences; sometimes a paragraph consists of a single sentence characterized by a stylistic use of colons, dashes, or semicolons. However, Poe demonstrates a persistent elegance in his writing owed to his choice of vocabulary a concept he passed on even to other great writers such as Vladimir Nabokov and Nathaniel Hawthorne (Kleinberg-Levin 159). A closer look at Poe’s poems and short stories also reveals his valuing punctuation and figurative language to make a point.
The underlying tone of melancholy in Poe’s literary work is developed through horror and terror in his depiction of criminal investigations and forensic science after death occurs. The author, in some of his many works, demonstrates knowledge in the scientific innovation, enhancing his ability to construct stories that intertwine ideas of mystery, horror, and rational thought. Horrific events and mystery of the unknown underpins the era that Poe writes most of his stories, depicting death, mystery, mental degeneration as some of the elements of the medieval period. Consequently, Poe and most writers at the time presented a tone of melancholy to conform to the events of darkness at the time.
In most of his writing, considering all the possible aspects of melancholy available, Poe chooses to use one significantly in many aspects, death. For instance, in his poem, “The Raven”, Poe uses the Death of a young woman representing a painful mindset. The mindset presented in this context is vulnerable to the madness that death brings upon it, by the passing of a beautiful young woman, Lenore (Poe 16). The melancholy of death in the Story depicts Poe’s introvertedness that comes out to be uniquely attractive and moving to the audience.
In conclusion, Allan Edgar Poe, uniquely exploited vocabulary in most of his writing, choosing to use repetition and specific phrases to convey his stories stylistically. Even as the theme of his works referred to gothic or horror, his choice of vocabulary was simplistic, neutral and sometimes even depicts romanticism. Poe, was also conversant with other languages such as French, Latin, German among others that enables his literary style sometimes depicts Americans as observer audience, arguably alienating them from horrific actions depicted in the characters of some of his stories. Though Poe did not explicitly state his reason for using a foreign language in his prefaces, his choice of such linguistic style and vocabulary attempts to achieve inclusivity as a global short story icon. There are numerous tones to the works of Poe. However, melancholy defined through death and the underlying suffering in most of his literary compilations, especially poems characterizes Poe’s literary tone.
Works cited
Hutchisson, James M. Edgar Allan Poe: Beyond Gothicism. Newark: University of Delaware, 2011.
Hall, Daniel. French and German Gothic Fiction in the Late Eighteenth Century. Vol. 14. Bern: Peter Lang, 2005.
Barone, Linda, and Alfonso Amendola. Edgar Allan Poe Across Disciplines, Genres And Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018, p. 07.
Pinkrová, Eva. "Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s Style of Writing in Graded Reader Publications." 2008, p. 01-46
Spears, Shelby. "A Place for Poe: The Foreign in Two Tales of the Gothic." (2016).
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Pit And The Pendulum. La Vergne: Dreamscape Media, 2017.
Kleinberg-Levin, David. Redeeming Words and the Promise of Happiness: A Critical Theory Approach to Wallace Stevens and Vladimir Nabokov. Lexington Books, 2012.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "The philosophy of composition." (1846).
