A high forehead topped by disheveled black hair, a sickly pallor, and a look of deep intelligence and deeper exhaustion in his dark, sunken eyes. Edgar Allan Poe’s image is not just instantly recognizable – it’s perfectly suited to his reputation. From the prisoner strapped under a descending pendulum blade, to a raven who refuses to leave the narrator’s chamber, Poe’s macabre and innovative stories of gothic horror have left a timeless mark on literature.
高高的额头和蓬乱的黑发, 病态的肤色, 一双深邃的黑眼睛里 流露出智慧,埋藏着疲惫。 埃德加 · 爱伦 · 坡(Edgar Allan Poe) 的外貌形象不仅让人一眼认得出, 也完美贴合他的名声。 不断下降的钟摆刃底下被捆绑住的囚犯, 和栖息在主人公房里不愿离去的乌鸦—— 坡的哥特式作品构思新颖,情节恐怖 对文学的发展产生了深远的影响。
But just what is it that makes Edgar Allan Poe one of the greatest American authors? After all, horror was a popular genre of the period, with many practitioners. Yet Poe stood out thanks to his careful attention to form and style. As a literary critic, he identified two cardinal rules for the short story form: it must be short enough to read in one sitting, and every word must contribute to its purpose. By mastering these rules, Poe commands the reader’s attention and rewards them with an intense and singular experience – what Poe called the unity of effect.
但究竟是什么让埃德加 · 爱伦 · 坡 成为了美国文学伟人之一呢? 毕竟当时恐怖题材很受欢迎, 有许多人都写过。 但坡之所以鹤立鸡群, 是因为他特别注重形式和风格 作为一名文学批评家, 他提出了短篇小说体裁的两条基本规则: 短到必须能让读者一口气读完, 且每一个字都需推动故事的发展。 掌握了这两条规则后, 坡便能牢牢抓住读者的注意力, 带给读者奇特的,强烈的情感体验—— 他称其为“统一效果论”。
Though often frightening, this effect goes far beyond fear. Poe’s stories use violence and horror to explore the paradoxes and mysteries of love, grief, and guilt, while resisting simple interpretations or clear moral messages. And while they often hint at supernatural elements, the true darkness they explore is the human mind and its propensity for self-destruction. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a ghastly murder is juxtaposed with the killer’s tender empathy towards the victim – a connection that soon returns to haunt him. The title character of "Ligeia" returns from the dead through the corpse of her husband’s second wife – or at least the opium-addicted narrator thinks she does. And when the protagonist of “William Wilson” violently confronts a man he believes has been following him, he might just be staring at his own image in a mirror. Through his pioneering use of unreliable narrators, Poe turns readers into active participants who must decide when a storyteller might be misinterpreting or even lying about the events they’re relating.
虽然常常使人害怕,但这个效果 带来的不止是恐惧。 坡的故事通过暴力和惊悚探索 爱、 忧郁、 和罪恶中的矛盾和奥秘, 同时避免粗浅的解读和明确的道德讯息。 虽然作品中常出现超自然元素, 但故事真正想要探索的黑暗 是人的心理和自毁倾向。 在《泄密的心》中,一场可怕的谋杀 和凶手对受害者那温柔的同情并存。 这份同情很快便使他得到了报应。 《丽姬娅》中,丽姬娅 通过丈夫的第二任妻子 的尸体起死回生—— 至少吸食鸦片成瘾的 主人公是这么认为的。 《威廉 · 威尔逊》中的主人公 疯狂地对他认为在纠缠他的男人下手时, 他或许只是面对着镜中的自己。 通过第一人称的不可靠叙事这一创举, 坡促使读者积极主动地 去分辨叙述者是不是曲解了现实, 或者甚至是在故意撒谎。
Although he’s best known for his short horror stories, Poe was actually one of the most versatile and experimental writers of the nineteenth century. He invented the detective story as we know it, with “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” followed by “The Mystery of Marie Roget” and “The Purloined Letter.” All three feature the original armchair detective, C. Auguste Dupin, who uses his genius and unusual powers of observation and deduction to solve crimes that baffle the police. Poe also wrote satires of social and literary trends, and hoaxes that in some cases anticipated science fiction. Those included an account of a balloon voyage to the moon, and a report of a dying patient put into a hypnotic trance so he could speak from the other side. Poe even wrote an adventure novel about a voyage to the South Pole and a treatise on astrophysics, all while he worked as an editor, producing hundreds of pages of book reviews and literary theory.
众所周知,坡的短篇恐怖小说最为出名, 实际上,他是十九世纪文风最为多变, 最有实验精神的作者之一。 他是推理小说的鼻祖, 代表作有《莫格街谋杀案》、 《玛丽 · 罗杰疑案》 和《被窃之信》。 三篇小说里都出现了 史上首位安乐椅侦探人物: 奥古斯特 · 杜平。 他发挥自己敏锐的观察力和推理能力, 解决了一起起让警察瞠目结舌的案件。 坡也讽刺过当代的文学和社会思潮, 还写过恶作剧, 其中有些成为了科幻小说的先驱。 例如一次通往月球的热气球旅行, 和一位濒死的病人被催眠, 死后也能继续和催眠师对话的故事。 坡还写过南极旅行的冒险小说 和关于天体物理学的论文。 当时他是一名杂志编辑, 写了几百页的书评和文学理论。
An appreciation of Poe’s career wouldn’t be complete without his poetry: haunting and hypnotic. His best-known poems are songs of grief, or in his words, “mournful and never-ending remembrance.” “The Raven,” in which the speaker projects his grief onto a bird who merely repeats a single sound, made Poe famous.
提到坡的文学生涯, 自然要提到他的诗歌: 令人难以忘怀,如痴如醉。 他最出名的诗歌都有着哀伤的基调, 或用他的话来说: “悲凄与永不止息的追忆。” 《乌鸦》中,主人公将自己的悲伤投射在 一只只会重复一句话的乌鸦上。 该作使得坡声誉鹊起。
But despite his literary success, Poe lived in poverty throughout his career, and his personal life was often as dark as his writing. He was haunted by the loss of his mother and his wife, who both died of tuberculosis at the age of 24. Poe struggled with alcoholism and frequently antagonized other popular writers. Much of his fame came from posthumous – and very loose – adaptations of his work. And yet, if he could’ve known how much pleasure and inspiration his writing would bring to generations of readers and writers alike, perhaps it may have brought a smile to that famously brooding visage.
但即使在文学上成绩斐然 坡仍然一生贫困潦倒, 他的个人经历和文风一样黑暗。 他的母亲和妻子 都在 24 岁那年因肺结核而去世, 使他受到了沉重的打击。 坡经常酗酒 也常招致其他出名作家的反感 他的名声大多来自于他死后 对他的作品的一些不严谨的改编。 不过,如果他知道自己的作品 将带给一代又一代的读者和作者 多少乐趣和灵感, 或许他那有名的忧郁的面容上 也会出现一丝微笑。