Edgar Allan Poe -- Master of the Macabre
Five
stories by Poe were assigned for reading –
1.
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
2.
The Mystery of Marie Roget
3.
The Balloon Hoax
4.
The Oval Portrait
5.
MS. Found in a bottle
Thommo
Talitha
Poe
wrote poetry from the age of thirteen and is famous for his poem The
Raven published late in life, but many readers love his poem Annabel
Lee even more.
He was known for the genre of
detective stories he published under the title Murders in
the Rue Morgue. He
published Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, a spine-tingling
collection including The Fall of the House of Usher.
He battled depression and alcoholism, and suffered
when his young wife (for whom Annabel Lee was written) died at the
age of twenty, after he married her at age thirteen. He was never
well off. He died in mysterious circumstances
at the early age of forty,
after stumbling into a tavern in a delirium.
Saras
His
murder mystery language is a bit archaic, when you compare it to the
straightforward narratives of Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes
stories. Poe had a large vocabulary and used uncommon words and
elaborate sentence constructions.
Preeti
You
can read more about Poe at
Sunil
Here are the readers at the end of the session:
Sunil, Priya, Preeti, Thommo, Pamela, Saras, Talitha
Readings
1. Joe
Joe
was ill and could not be present but the passage he had prepared was
the following from Murders in the Rue Morgue:
Returning
home from some sailors’ frolic the night, or rather in the morning
of the murder, he found the beast occupying his own bed-room, into
which it had broken from a closet adjoining, where it had been, as
was thought, securely confined. Razor in hand, and fully lathered, it
was sitting before a looking-glass, attempting the operation of
shaving, in which it had no doubt previously watched its master
through the key-hole of the closet. Terrified at the sight of so
dangerous a weapon in the possession of an animal so ferocious, and
so well able to use it, the man, for some moments, was at a loss what
to do. He had been accustomed, however, to quiet the creature, even
in its fiercest moods, by the use of a whip, and to this he now
resorted. Upon sight of it, the Ourang-Outang sprang at once through
the door of the chamber, down the stairs, and thence, through a
window, unfortunately open, into the street.
The
Frenchman followed in despair; the ape, razor still in hand,
occasionally stopping to look back and gesticulate at its pursuer,
until the latter had nearly come up with it. It then again made off.
In this manner the chase continued for a long time. The streets were
profoundly quiet, as it was nearly three o’clock in the morning. In
passing down an alley in the rear of the Rue Morgue, the fugitive’s
attention was arrested by a light gleaming from the open window of
Madame L’Espanaye’s chamber, in the fourth story of her house.
Rushing to the building, it perceived the lightning rod, clambered up
with inconceivable agility, grasped the shutter, which was thrown
fully back against the wall, and, by its means, swung itself directly
upon the headboard of the bed. The whole feat did not occupy a
minute. The shutter was kicked open again by the Ourang-Outang as it
entered the room.
The
sailor, in the meantime, was both rejoiced and perplexed. He had
strong hopes of now recapturing the brute, as it could scarcely
escape from the trap into which it had ventured, except by the rod,
where it might be intercepted as it came down. On the other hand,
there was much cause for anxiety as to what it might do in the house.
This latter reflection urged the man still to follow the fugitive. A
lightning rod is ascended without difficulty, especially by a sailor;
but, when he had arrived as high as the window, which lay far to his
left, his career was stopped; the most that he could accomplish was
to reach over so as to obtain a glimpse of the interior of the room.
At this glimpse he nearly fell from his hold through excess of
horror. Now it was that those hideous shrieks arose upon the night,
which had startled from slumber the inmates of the Rue Morgue. Madame
L’Espanaye and her daughter, habited in their night clothes, had
apparently been occupied in arranging some papers in the iron chest
already mentioned, which had been wheeled into the middle of the
room. It was open, and its contents lay beside it on the floor. The
victims must have been sitting with their backs toward the window;
and, from the time elapsing between the ingress of the beast and the
screams, it seems probable that it was not immediately perceived. The
flapping-to of the shutter would naturally have been attributed to
the wind.
As
the sailor looked in, the gigantic animal had seized Madame
L’Espanaye by the hair, (which was loose, as she had been combing
it,) and was flourishing the razor about her face, in imitation of
the motions of a barber. The daughter lay prostrate and motionless;
she had swooned. The screams and struggles of the old lady (during
which the hair was torn from her head) had the effect of changing the
probably pacific purposes of the Ourang-Outang into those of wrath.
With one determined sweep of its muscular arm it nearly severed her
head from her body. The sight of blood inflamed its anger into
phrenzy. Gnashing its teeth, and flashing fire from its eyes, it flew
upon the body of the girl, and imbedded its fearful talons in her
throat, retaining its grasp until she expired. Its wandering and wild
glances fell at this moment upon the head of the bed, over which the
face of its master, rigid with horror, was just discernible. The fury
of the beast, who no doubt bore still in mind the dreaded whip, was
instantly converted into fear. Conscious of having deserved
punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its bloody deeds, and
skipped about the chamber in an agony of nervous agitation; throwing
down and breaking the furniture as it moved, and dragging the bed
from the bedstead. In conclusion, it seized first the corpse of the
daughter, and thrust it up the chimney, as it was found; then that of
the old lady, which it immediately hurled through the window
headlong.
2. KumKum
KumKum
too was taken ill after a visit to Chennai and could not attend, but
here is the reading she had prepared from The Oval
Portrait:
THE
CHATEAU into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance,
rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a
night in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and
grandeur which have so long frowned among the Appennines, not less in
fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe. To all appearance it had
been temporarily and very lately abandoned. We established ourselves
in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apartments. It
lay in a remote turret of the building. Its decorations were rich,
yet tattered and antique. Its walls were hung with tapestry and
bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial trophies, together with
an unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in frames
of rich golden arabesque. In these paintings, which depended from the
walls not only in their main surfaces, but in very many nooks which
the bizarre architecture of the chateau rendered necessary — in
these paintings my incipient delirium, perhaps, had caused me to take
deep interest; so that I bade Pedro to close the heavy shutters of
the room — since it was already night — to light the tongues of a
tall candelabrum which stood by the head of my bed — and to throw
open far and wide the fringed curtains of black velvet which
enveloped the bed itself. I wished all this done that I might resign
myself, if not to sleep, at least alternately to the contemplation of
these pictures, and the perusal of a small volume which had been
found upon the pillow, and which purported to criticise and describe
them.
Long
— long I read — and devoutly, devotedly I gazed. Rapidly and
gloriously the hours flew by and the deep midnight came. The position
of the candelabrum displeased me, and outreaching my hand with
difficulty, rather than disturb my slumbering valet, I placed it so
as to throw its rays more fully upon the book.
But
the action produced an effect altogether unanticipated. The rays of
the numerous candles (for there were many) now fell within a niche of
the room which had hitherto been thrown into deep shade by one of the
bed-posts. I thus saw in vivid light a picture all unnoticed before.
It was the portrait of a young girl just ripening into womanhood. I
glanced at the painting hurriedly, and then closed my eyes. Why I did
this was not at first apparent even to my own perception. But while
my lids remained thus shut, I ran over in my mind my reason for so
shutting them. It was an impulsive movement to gain time for thought
— to make sure that my vision had not deceived me — to calm and
subdue my fancy for a more sober and more certain gaze. In a very few
moments I again looked fixedly at the painting.
That
I now saw aright I could not and would not doubt; for the first
flashing of the candles upon that canvas had seemed to dissipate the
dreamy stupor which was stealing over my senses, and to startle me at
once into waking life.
The
portrait, I have already said, was that of a young girl. It was a
mere head and shoulders, done in what is technically termed a
vignette manner; much in the style of the favorite heads of Sully.
The arms, the bosom, and even the ends of the radiant hair melted
imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which formed the
back-ground of the whole. The frame was oval, richly gilded and
filigreed in Moresque. As a thing of art nothing could be more
admirable than the painting itself. But it could have been neither
the execution of the work, nor the immortal beauty of the
countenance, which had so suddenly and so vehemently moved me. Least
of all, could it have been that my fancy, shaken from its half
slumber, had mistaken the head for that of a living person. I saw at
once that the peculiarities of the design, of the vignetting, and of
the frame, must have instantly dispelled such idea — must have
prevented even its momentary entertainment. Thinking earnestly upon
these points, I remained, for an hour perhaps, half sitting, half
reclining, with my vision riveted upon the portrait. At length,
satisfied with the true secret of its effect, I fell back within the
bed. I had found the spell of the picture in an absolute
lifelikeliness of expression, which, at first startling, finally
confounded, subdued, and appalled me. With deep and reverent awe I
replaced the candelabrum in its former position. The cause of my deep
agitation being thus shut from view, I sought eagerly the volume
which discussed the paintings and their histories. Turning to the
number which designated the oval portrait, I there read the vague and
quaint words which follow:
“She
was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee.
And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the
painter. He, passionate, studious, austere, and having already a
bride in his Art; she a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely
than full of glee; all light and smiles, and frolicsome as the young
fawn; loving and cherishing all things; hating only the Art which was
her rival; dreading only the pallet and brushes and other untoward
instruments which deprived her of the countenance of her lover. It
was thus a terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak of
his desire to portray even his young bride. But she was humble and
obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark, high
turret-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from
overhead. But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which went on
from hour to hour, and from day to day. And be was a passionate, and
wild, and moody man, who became lost in reveries; so that he would
not see that the light which fell so ghastly in that lone turret
withered the health and the spirits of his bride, who pined visibly
to all but him. Yet she smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly,
because she saw that the painter (who had high renown) took a fervid
and burning pleasure in his task, and wrought day and night to depict
her who so loved him, yet who grew daily more dispirited and weak.
And in sooth some who beheld the portrait spoke of its resemblance in
low words, as of a mighty marvel, and a proof not less of the power
of the painter than of his deep love for her whom he depicted so
surpassingly well. But at length, as the labor drew nearer to its
conclusion, there were admitted none into the turret; for the painter
had grown wild with the ardor of his work, and turned his eyes from
canvas merely, even to regard the countenance of his wife. And he
would not see that the tints which he spread upon the canvas were
drawn from the cheeks of her who sate beside him. And when many weeks
bad passed, and but little remained to do, save one brush upon the
mouth and one tint upon the eye, the spirit of the lady again
flickered up as the flame within the socket of the lamp. And then the
brush was given, and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment,
the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought; but
in the next, while he yet gazed, he grew tremulous and very pallid,
and aghast, and crying with a loud voice, ‘This is indeed Life
itself!’ turned suddenly to regard his beloved: — She was dead!
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