Tantalizing Terrors and Transcendent Thrills : Unveiling the Sublime Aspects in Three Works by Edgar Allan Poe

Sammanfattning: This essay explores the sublime aspects in Edgar Allan Poe’s fictional horror, namely "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843), "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) and "The Raven" (1839). The aim is to show that the sublime – an aesthetic experience articulated by Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant amongst many – can make the reader oscillate between horror and safety. This essay also examines Poe’s works through the lens of Sigmund Freud’s concept of the uncanny to provide a contrasting, more nuanced analysis and understanding. The evidence presented in the analysis shows that Poe’s masterful use of writing techniques, including literary devices such as irony, demonstrates his unparalleled ability to simultaneously terrify and amaze his readers – the core idea of the sublime. Above all, the narrators in Poe’s works play a critical role in conveying the experience of the sublime, as their transgressive actions provide a lens through which the reader can experience both horror, wonder, and incomprehension. Poe’s works involve conflicts between imagination and reason, and rationality and irrationality, as well as the narrow border between the unfamiliar and the familiar – all concepts that tend to evoke both horror and awe. All combined, they have the power to evoke a feeling of the sublime – a concept that could undermine horror and thus make it more pleasurable to read.