Publication details
Poetics of the psychological game: The role of the epigraph in the short stories by E. A. Poe
| Title in English | Poetics of the psychological game: The role of the epigraph in the short stories by E. A Poe |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Astra Salvensis - review of history and culture |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Keywords | romanticism; E. A. Poe; epigraph; double play; the principle of mirror reflection; duality; a hoax; a counterpoint |
| Description | In this paper we consider the originality of the techniques of romantic writings by E. A. Poe and, above all, the peculiarities of creating by the writer the strategies of the psychological game in the "terrible" (psychological) stories. Realizing the principle of the unity of aesthetic effect in the creation of his works, Poe skillfully uses specific artistic techniques. A unique place belongs to the epigraph to the text, the function of which in the short stories of the author is ambiguous. The epigraphs can set the stylistic tone of the work, stripping its meaningful dominant; foreign-language epigraphs; "quasi quotation"; the epigraph, "arguing" with the text are distinguished. Foreign-language epigraphs to the famous short stories "The fall of the house of Usher" and "Morella" create the effect of the psychological games that "support" the game of doubles, increase the author's mystification, become a mirror of the psychology of the characters, their bifurcated consciousness, the struggle of consciousness and sub-consciousness of the individual. The playing field of the text is determined by the situation of the unity of the dualistic psychological well-being that initially already included in the epigraphs to the short stories. In the short story "The fall of the house of Usher" an epigraph-counterpoint is realized and the whole short story can be regarded as a psychological mirror of the soul split not only of Roderick and the hero-narrator, but the author himself, and at the same time as art semantic extension of the epigraph. In the short story "Morella" the epigraph may also be regarded as the key -epigraph to the cipher. |