Abstract: Most of the themes of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories are murder, revenge and death. However, it is in such a weird and horrific context that Poe’s special perception of beauty is highlighted. In Poe’s terror fictions, there are mainly the beauty of form and the beauty of content. In terms of form, Poe utilized first person narration, elaborate narrative structure, and some criteria that work for reaching harmony to achieve his ideal aesthetic effect and shock the readers. In terms of content, his stories always create breathtaking and sad atmosphere. What is hidden in the under current is a kind of moralization. Besides, the space he created is always luxurious and exquisite. Those elements make short stories, especially terror fictions, more attractive and artistic. Based on Poe’s aesthetic ideas, this paper focuses on analyzing aesthetic effects of Poe’s terror fictions by combining sublime theory and tragic theory in western aesthetic theories. It is found that there is indeed a breakthrough in beauty effects in Poe’s terror fictions.

Key words: Edgar Allan Poe; aesthetics; effect; terror fictions

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1.-Introduction-1

2.-The Aesthetics in Literature-3

2.1 Western Aesthetic Theory-3

2.1.1Tragic Theory of Aristotle-3

2.1.2 Sublime Theory-4

2.2 Poe’s Basic Concept of Aesthetics-5

3.-Beauty in Form-6

3.1 The First Person Narrative-6

3.2 The Elaborate Structure-8

3.3 Harmonious Criteria-10

4.-Beauty in Content-11

4.1 The Beauty of Death-11

4.2 The Beauty of Moralization-13

4.3 The Beauty of Space-15

5.-Conclusion-17

References-19