Edgar Allan Poe（1809–1849 ）

    

On January 19, 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe's father and mother, both professional actors, died before the poet was three years old, and John and Frances Allan raised him as a foster child in Richmond, Virginia. John Allan, a prosperous tobacco exporter, sent Poe to the best boarding schools and later to the University of Virginia, where Poe excelled academically. After less than one year of school, however, he was forced to leave the university when Allan refused to pay Poe's gambling debts.

    Poe returned briefly to Richmond, but his relationship with Allan deteriorated. In 1827, he moved to Boston and enlisted in the United States Army. His first collection of poems, Tamerlane, and Other Poems, was published that year. In 1829, he published a second collection entitled Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. Neither volume received significant critical or public attention. Following his Army service, Poe was admitted to the United States Military Academy, but he was again forced to leave for lack of financial support. He then moved into the home of his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter Virginia in Baltimore, Maryland.

    Poe began to sell short stories to magazines at around this time, and, in 1835, he became the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, where he moved with his aunt and cousin Virginia. In 1836, he married Virginia, who was thirteen years old at the time. Over the next ten years, Poe would edit a number of literary journals including the Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia and the Broadway Journal in New York City. It was during these years that he established himself as a poet, a short story writer, and an editor. He published some of his best-known stories and poems, including "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and "The Raven." After Virginia's death from tuberculosis in 1847, Poe's lifelong struggle with depression and alcoholism worsened. He returned briefly to Richmond in 1849 and then set out for an editing job in Philadelphia. For unknown reasons, he stopped in Baltimore. On October 3, 1849, he was found in a state of semi-consciousness. Poe died four days later of "acute congestion of the brain." Evidence by medical practitioners who reopened the case has shown that Poe may have been suffering from rabies.

    Poe's work as an editor, a poet, and a critic had a profound impact on American and international literature. His stories mark him as one of the originators of both horror and detective fiction. Many anthologies credit him as the "architect" of the modern short story. He was also one of the first critics to focus primarily on the effect of style and structure in a literary work; as such, he has been seen as a forerunner to the "art for art's sake" movement. French Symbolists such as Mallarmé and Rimbaud claimed him as a literary precursor. Baudelaire spent nearly fourteen years translating Poe into French. Today, Poe is remembered as one of the first American writers to become a major figure in world literature.

Poetry

Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827)

Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829)

Poems (1831)

The Raven and Other Poems (1845)

Eureka: A Prose Poem (1848)

Fiction

Berenice (1835)

Ligeia (1838)

The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)

Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1939)

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)

The Black Cat (1843)

The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)

The Purloined Letter (1845)

The Cask of Amontillado (1846)

The Oval Portrait (1850)

The Narrative of Arthut Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1850)

  埃德加·爱伦·坡（Edgar Allan Poe）（1809～1849），19世纪美国诗人、小说家和文学评论家，美国浪漫主义思潮时期的重要成员。

  埃德加·爱伦·坡1809年1月19日生于马萨诸塞州的波士顿，他年幼时父母双亡，随即被弗吉尼亚州里士满的约翰和弗朗西丝斯·爱伦夫妇收养，在弗吉尼亚大学就读了短暂的一段时间后辍学，之后从军，爱伦·坡离开了爱伦夫妇。爱伦坡低调地开始了他的写作生涯，匿名出版了诗集《帖木尔和其它的诗》。1835年他在巴尔的摩和13岁的表妹弗吉尼亚·克莱姆结婚。1838年《阿瑟·戈登·皮姆的故事》出版并被受到了广泛的关注。1839年夏天，爱伦·坡成为《伯顿绅士杂志》（Burton's Gentleman's Magazine）的助理编辑。这期间他发表了的随笔、小说，和评论，加强了他在《南方文学信使》工作时期开始确立的敏锐批评家的声誉，同期，《怪异故事集》上下卷在1839年出版。1845年1月，爱伦·坡发表诗歌“乌鸦”，一时声誉鹊起。1849年10月7日逝于巴尔的摩。

    爱伦·坡的哥特小说创作不但对传统哥特小说所具有的悬念、言情、凶杀、恐怖等通俗元素予以杂糅，还表达了独树一帜的创作理念，对美国早期本土文化、对物欲驱使的资本主义社会中人们的非理性情感予以关怀，从而使得他的哥特小说创作在一定程度上打破了严肃小说和通俗小说的界限，在更广阔的审美空间上实现了与读者的心灵沟通。爱伦·坡把哥特故事同侦探推测故事结合起来的成功尝试对后代作家影响极大。“伊迪丝·沃顿、威廉·福克纳、尤多拉·韦尔蒂、弗兰纳里·奥康纳、哈特·克兰、斯蒂芬·金以及其他众多作家的作品之中都借用爱伦·坡的哥特风格。这一切无不说明了爱伦·坡的哥特小说创作在接受美学的层面上产生的巨大影响及其强大助审美功能。  

  受到过爱伦·坡影响的主要人物有：柯南·道尔、波德莱尔、斯特芳·马拉美、儒勒·凡尔纳、罗伯特·路易斯·斯蒂文森、希区柯克、蒂姆·伯顿、江户川乱步等。爱伦·坡、安布鲁斯·布尔斯（1842～1914？）和H.P.洛夫克拉夫特（1890～1937）并称为美国三大恐怖小说家。

Annabel Lee                

                             

It was many and many a year ago,

   In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you 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.

I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

   I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

   My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

   And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

   Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

   In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

   Of those who were older than we—

   Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

   Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

   In her sepulchre there by the sea—

   In her tomb by the sounding sea.

     Annabel Lee, like many other poems of Edgar Allan Poe, describes the theme of the death of a beautiful woman which is called “the most poetical topic in the world” by the poet himself. In the poem, the narrator and Annabel Lee had an extremely strong love for each other since they were children. Unfortunately, their love is so strong that even angels envy them and Annabel Lee was killed by them. However, the narrator retains the deep love for her after her death. Just as the last stanza shows us, the narrator dreams about Annabel everyday and lies by the side of her tomb at night. It seems that their love is beyond grave and death.  There are many speculation of who is the inspiration of Annabel Lee. I would like to believe that Annabel Lee is referring to Poe’s wife Virginia who died at the age of 26.  She was loved as a child by Edgar Allen Poe because she was only 13 when she married the 27-year-old Poe. And she was the only bride of him. Poe set the scene in a kingdom by the sea and uses some images like sepulcher and tomb, which add some Gothic touch to the poem. With the repetition of some words and phrases, the poem has a nostalgic tone and gives us a mournful feeling. The mysterious tone of the poem makes us feel that only in mysterious and ancient time does such kind of love exist. Besides the content, the poetic structure of this poem is also what I appreciate. It is composed of six stanzas with lines at different length, which gives me a feeling of the waves of the ocean. When I read it, the rhyme and the different length makes it has a musical effect and it is like telling a story to someone.

     "Annabel Lee" was composed in the form of a fairy tale.First, the poet chose simple everyday words as that of tales to compose his poem, so that it could be easily reached by everyone, even by small children. Second, the starting line "It was many and many a year ago, / In a kingdom by the sea," suggests that the tale has existed for a long time and it has been told many times, which indicates the strong love between the narrator and Annabel Lee doesn't fade with time, and it will be told from generation to generation; by this way, their love will reach immortality."Annabel Lee" also shows some characteristics of a ballad. For example: The language is simple; it is accessible to the common people and children. The theme is tragic and the tone is melancholy; the poem tells the death of a beloved young beauty, which is the most frequently seen theme in Poe's poems. Poe uses insistent repetition of phrases like "Annabel Lee", "in this kingdom by the sea" for effect, which might be considered as refrains in a ballad.

  诗歌的大意是:很久很久以前,在海边的某一国度里,诗人与一位名叫Annabel Lee的少女深深相爱,尽管他们还是少年,但是他们的爱情却超出常人之恋甚至遭到天使的忌妒,于是天使借助寒风夺去了少女Annabel Lee的性命。但是,在诗人的心目中,他与Annabel Lee的爱情却是神圣的、浓厚的、永存的。无论是天堂的天使,还是地狱的恶魔,他们可以夺去情人的性命,却不可以夺走他们彼此深深相爱的心灵。明澈的月光伴诗人梦见美丽的Annabel Lee,闪烁的星光使诗人仿佛看见了Annabel Lee那双明亮的眼睛。每当夜幕降临,海潮涨起之时,诗人便来到海边情人的墓地,与她相伴,与她共眠,与她一起聆听那大海的涛声。诗歌纯洁,完美,极富想象力。贯穿全诗的是忧伤,悲愤和无尽的爱恋。诗人用词独特,以讲述神话的形式将读者带到一个在时间和空间上都很遥远的美妙世界。