Edgar allan poe, joyce carol oates and the mysterious world of the gothic literature

Edgar Allan Poe, Joyce Carol Oates and the mysterious world of the Gothic Literature

“Words have no power to impress the mind without the
Exquisite horror of their reality” Edgar Allan Poe

Writing expressions such as literature connect ideas and terms about history, fantasy, mystery, gothic, and any other topic of universal interest. Talking specifically of American literature; author’sprincipal topic is the value and importance of the individual; they emphasize democracy, and the values and equality of people. They also use characteristics about nature to create a fabulous background, which involves the reader into the story. Americans are usually innovative, related to literature they break literary tradition and the results are almost always authentic and wonderful.

If wetalk about Gothic literature, we have to refer to one of the greatest authors of gothic literature that the world has ever known: Edgar Allan Poe. His mysterious and fascinating stories of shadows and fear are one of the exquisite ingredients in the recipe of the gothic literature. The mesmerize world of the gothic literature is the muse of Edgar Allan Poe, but also it is of Joyce Carol Oates, whois also a gothic novelist inspired by the terror of Poe and the horror of the gothic literature. These two artists belong to a unique genre of literature, even though their styles of writing is evident different, both still crude, obsessive, and gothic. However, what is their relationship, their similarities and differences in literature?

First of all, we need to establish what gothicliterature is. Gothic literature also known as Gothic romance is a genre of literature that combines horror and romance. The gothic authors enlighten the appreciation of the joys of extreme emotion; they are captivated by the thrills of awfulness and fearfulness. They represent the horror like a sublime stage of the mysterious and underground world of gothic. The ruins of some gothic buildings inspiredthe gothic authors to associate their stories with medieval period showing it like a dark and terrifying time. Some other elements of the gothic literature includes terror, mystery, supernatural events, ghosts, haunted houses, gothic architecture, castles, darkness, death, decay, madness, secrets and hereditary curses. There have been important periods of time in which Gothic literature has existed.Some of those are the Romanticism period in which Gothic literature started, the Victorian era and the post-Victorian era.

Edgar Allan Poe is the son of the Victorian era authors of the gothic literature. He once said that “terror is not of Germany, but of the soul”. His story “The Fall of the House of Usher” explores the terrors of the soul. His stories have been translated to manylanguages and have influenced many authors, in many other languages, in as much as Julio Cortazar in Spanish and Joyce Carol Oates in the English language. His most recurring themes deal with concept such as death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, the reanimation of the dead, the demons of the human soul and the terror of it. Beyond terror, he also wrote satires, which areincluded in the gothic literature (an example of it is Jane Austen’s satire Northanger Abbey). He used irony and extravagancy in order to liberate the reader from the stereotypes of the society. He received the influence of Ann Radcliff, one of the experts of the gothic novel. She uses the supernatural and the mysterious in her works creating a charming world of terror and horror. With all thesereferents, Poe gives to the literature a terrific and mysterious view of life and human nature.

Moreover, another great artist of the unknown is Joyce Carol Oates, who is an artist that combines the unknown and the supernatural with the current events in life. In contrast, Oates is not inspired in terror specifically, like Poe, but in real-life incident. Nevertheless, she uses the supernatural in...