About Edgar Allan Poe's - "The Masque of Red Death"

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GRIN Verlag, 2007 - 56 Seiten
Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3 (A), Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (American Studies), course: Edgar Allan Poe, language: English, abstract: "The Masque of the Red Death" first appeared in May 1842 in Graham's Magazine. It is generally grouped together with three other of Poe's stories, namely "King Pest", which first appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger in September 1835, "The Cask of Amontillado", published in Godey's Magazine and Lady's Book 33 in 1846, and "Hop-Frog", published in The Flag of Our Union in 1849. Since all these stories take place dur-ing the carnival season, they are called "The Masquerades". In her book "The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe. A Psycho-Analytic Interpretation", Marie Bonaparte takes a Freudian approach to Poe's stories, Sigmund Freud himself wrote the preface, and claims that all the above tales are connected to Poe's father com-plex [Bonaparte; 507]. In her interpretation of "The Masque of the Red Death", the figure of the Red Death is an incorporation of the father who returns to punish the son. This is just one reading of the story. Much has been published about "The Masque of the Red Death", one of Poe's most read tales. Scholars have tried to find its roots, like Burton R. Pollin, who assumes that Poe used his own "Shadow - A Parable" as a source for "The Masque of the Red Death". Others attempted to compare the story of Prince Prospero and his followers to other great works of art, for example Christopher Brown, who saw parallels between "The Masque of the Red Death" and Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady. A lot of research has also been done on the narrator of the tale - I will only elabo-rate on the most plausible theories on who it is that is telling this tale. Equally important, "The Masque of the Red Death" is said to contain one of the most exact definitions of the grotesque in the literary sense. Finally, as almost all of Poe's ta

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Inhalt

The Masque of the Red Death
3
The Narrator of The Masque of The Red Death
12
The Masque of The Red Death and the Grotesque
17
Urheberrecht

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Seite 7 - The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound.
Seite 7 - Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth.
Seite 6 - This wide and universal theatre Presents more woeful pageants than the scene Wherein we play in. Jaq. All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players : They have their exits and their entrances ; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.
Seite 7 - Made to his mistress' eyebrow : Then a Soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard ; Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel. Seeking the bubble Reputation Even in the cannon's mouth : And then the Justice, In fair round belly with good capon lin'd ; With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances...
Seite 7 - All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players : They have their exits and their entrances ; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Seite 12 - And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night ; and one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall ; and the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay ; and the flames of the tripods expired ; and darkness and decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
Seite 5 - Having chosen a novel first, and secondly, a vivid effect, I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or tone — whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident and tone — afterwards looking about me (or rather within) for such combinations of event or tone as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect.
Seite 18 - TRUE! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily — how calmly I can tell you the whole story.
Seite 10 - The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed...

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