Я. В. Петришина Л. В. Старкова

Transcription

1 Я. В. Петришина Л. В. Старкова АНГЛИЙСКИЙ ЯЗЫК ЖИЗНЬ И ТВОРЧЕСТВО ЭДГАРА ПО Учебное пособие Рекомендовано Сибирским региональным учебно-методическим центром высшего профессионального образования для межвузовского использования в качестве учебного пособия для студентов неязыковых специальностей Братск 2006

2 ББК 81.2 (Англ) Петришина Я.В. Старкова Л.В. Английский язык. Жизнь и творчество Эдгара По: учебное пособие. Братск: ГОУ ВПО «БрГУ», с. ISBN Пособие состоит из 8 оригинальных художественных текстов, составленных на основе рассказов Эдгара По, и дающих студентам возможность проверить свое умение читать и понимать неадаптированную литературу, которая представляет собой образец классического американского английского языка. Предназначено для студентов всех специальностей очной и заочной форм обучения. Может быть использовано в качестве дополнительного материала для проведения занятий по внеаудиторному чтению или в качестве спецкурса. ISBN ГОУ ВПО «БрГУ»

3 СОДЕРЖАНИЕ Введение... 4 The Life And Writings Of Edgar Allan Poe... 5 Part One... 5 Part Two...13 The Mask of the Red Death...21 The Story of William Wilson...30 Part One...30 Part Two...37 Part Three...45 Part Four...52 The Fall of the House of Usher...59 Part One...59 Part Two...67 Part Three...75 The Black Cat...82 The Murders in the Rue Morgue...89 Part One...89 Part Two...96 Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six The Tell-Tale 1 Heart The Cask of Amontillado Appendix Glossary...155

4 ВВЕДЕНИЕ Материал настоящего пособия предназначается для тех, кто уже владеет английским языком. Рассказы и послетекстовые упражнения подобраны специально для углубления навыков к чтению, устной и письменной речи. Словарь и структура текстов тщательно разработаны для удобства изучения и усвоения материала, при этом и словарь, и структура, безусловно, являются комплексом, так как включают в себя и грамматический, и лексический материал. В частности, сложные слова и выражения вынесены в примечания; многие из наименее употребительных слов включены в словарь в конце пособия и отмечены в тексте знаком (*); формы неправильных глаголов, используемых в текстах, приведены в приложении. Имеются упражнения для закрепления пройденного материала. Пособие «Жизнь и творчество Эдгара По» имеет целью развитие у обучающихся самостоятельного чтения с последующим переходом к монологической устной и письменной речи и предназначено для студентов 1-го и 2-го курсов неязыкового вуза очной и заочной форм обучения. Надеемся, что данное пособие даст учащимся импульс к дальнейшему «знакомству» со страной изучаемого языка.

5 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE Part One A Talk by Professor F. Cowles Strickland The American writer Edgar Allan Poe is probably better known outside the United States today than any other American writer. There was something about his poems and especially his short stories which interested people all over the world. Some of them were people whose whole way of living was completely different from his own. Perhaps it was the certain knowledge we all have that we must die which joins us together; perhaps that is what we feel we have in common with Edgar Poe. For his short stories, at least the ones people read today, are filled with death, with fear, with more than fear - with terror*; they deal with murders without reason, with murders for revenge*; they deal with beautiful women who softly and slowly pass from life into death, so quietly that no one knows just* when they died - or even whether they died at all! Poe's stories deal with the strange and the wonderful, with unreal happenings which seem real. Indeed, they seem so real that it appears Poe could not have written them at all if he had not himself had the experiences he describes. And so, as the years went by, people began to picture in their minds a man named Poe who was like the men in Poe's stories; a man who did not have complete control of his mind, a man who was mad, perhaps, or half-mad; a man who was in some strange manner being destroyed. There is no doubt that Poe used his own experiences in writing his own stories. This does not, however, mean that Poe was the men in his stories. Who was he, then? What was he? Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in January of His mother and father were actors. They moved around in the eastern part of the United States, traveling from city to city, acting in plays which no one remembers today. They had no real home; only hotel rooms. One day, when Poe was only nine months old, his father went away and was never seen again. No one knows why. Poor Mrs. Poe was left with two small children and a third one still unborn. And Poe was only

6 two years old when his mother died and he and his brother and baby* sister were left alone in the world. This happened in Richmond, in the state of Virginia. A man named John Allan took Poe into his home in Richmond. But Mr. Allan never adopted Poe; that is to say, he never made Poe his son by law. And Mr. Allan never took Poe into his heart, either. This was the cause of many of Poe's troubles as he grew older. However, Mrs. Allan didn't have any children of her own, and she wanted a child very much. So she loved Poe more than was good for him. This, too, probably caused him trouble as the years passed. Mr. Allan did 1, however, provide young Poe with a good education. Poe went to good schools from the time he was four years old until he was seventeen. When Poe was seventeen he began to do special studies to prepare himself to go to a university. In those days not many young people were able to go to a university. But by that time Mr. Allan had become quite rich. For this reason it is difficult to understand what happened when Poe arrived at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Before Mr. Allan went back to Richmond he gave Poe some money; but he didn't give him nearly enough. Poe couldn't pay for even the most necessary things. The result was that at the end of his first day at the university he owed money to at least two people. He wrote to Allan, asking for more money; Allan sent him some, but again it was a small amount. By this time, however, Poe had discovered that the businessmen of Charlottesville would let him take things without paying. They did this because they knew that Mr. Allan was rich. They thought that Allan would pay. But this is only part of the story. Poe was a young man; and he was living and studying in the company* of other young men. He did the things they did. One of the things they did was gamble; they played games with cards and the winner took money from the loser. That is, from all losers except Poe, For Poe had no money. And he often lost. The result was that Poe owed still more money. Another one of the things these young university students did was drink. In English, when we use the word drink we usually tell what the person is drinking: water, milk, Coca Cola. But when we say, "He drinks," without telling what the person drinks, we mean that he drinks things like wine and gin and whiskey, things that have alcohol in them. These are the drinks which make a person feel good for a little time -

7 unless he drinks so much that he can't remain standing, or so much that he gets 2 sick. Well, Poe began to drink. I was about to say that he learned how to drink; the trouble is that he didn't 3. In those early days of the young United States life was rougher* than it is today. Most men did not think badly of another man just because he drank; but if the man didn't know how to drink - if he drank too much or at the wrong time of day or in the wrong place - then men felt that drinking was wrong. Poe was one who didn't know how. Oh, we mustn't think that Poe drank all the time. If that had been true he could not have written anything. No, there were long periods* when Poe didn't drink at all; but there were other periods when he felt le couldn't continue to exist* without drinking. Thus, Poe created* trouble for himself. This is not the only example of how Poe did the wrong thing, knowing that it was the wrong thing. Apparently it was a part of his character to do so 4. Poe recognized this problem in himself. In his story The Black Cat, he wrote: Who has not, a hundred times, found himself doing wrong, doing some evil* thing for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Are not we humans at all times pushed, ever driven 5 in some unknown way to break the law just because we understand it to be the law? At the end of the school year Mr. Allan came to the university to get 2 Poe. Poe's life had been a pleasant* enough 6 life until then. But his troubles were about to begin. For Allan learned what Poe had been doing. Now, Mr. Allan was a businessman. I can see him, in my mind's eye, his face red with anger, declaring that young Poe "didn't know the value of a dollar." Allan did 1 pay some of the money Poe owed, but not the money Poe lost playing cards. And so when Poe left the university he still owed a lot of money; and there was hardly* a day for the rest of his life that he didn't owe money to Allan took Poe back to Richmond. He told Poe that he would give him no further 7 money to continue his studies at the university. Allan wanted Poe to work for him, in his business. Poe, of course, was the kind of person who would be very unhappy as a businessman. One day in Match of 1827, after more angry words, Poe ran away from home. He was just* eighteen years old. Eighteen years old-and facing the world alone. Once or twice* in the following years he did 1 enter Mr. Allan's home again - once when Mrs. Allan died, Mrs. Allan, who had loved Poe so much - and whom Poe had loved so much. However, most of the time he was, as we say, "on his own." And he felt that he had been thrown out of his home.

8 Facing the world alone, Poe's chief purpose in life was to prove to Allan and to the world his value as a person. Poe wanted to be famous* more than anything else. He wanted everybody to know him and talk about him. He felt, it seems that it was better if people said bad or untrue things about him than if they did not notice him at all. We know little about what happened to Poe in the next few years. But it's not important for us to know day by day, month by month, exactly what Poe was doing. We do 1 know that he was writing; and that he was poor. He had been writing poems since he was fourteen years old. When he was only eighteen a friend had made a few of the young man's poems into a very small, thin* book. Few people bought it; almost no one even noticed it. But it was a book, even so 8. And two years later these poems and some new ones appeared in another book, still a very small one. Few people liked the poems; but even people who wrote that the poems were bad noticed them. Poe was already a poet. He was also about to become the first American professional* man of letters*; that is to say, he became the first American writer who tried to get 2 enough money to live just* by writing. This is an important fact in his life. Today good writers are paid enough so that they can make a living by writing. But in Poe's time this was quite impossible*. A writer needed a job which he could do with just a few hours of work each day, but which paid him enough for him to live, and left him time to write. Poe wanted such a job, and he thought, once, that he had found one. But he drank too much the day he had planned to talk to some important people about the job. Again he had let himself do what he knew was exactly the wrong thing to do. Who knows why? He probably would not have been able to explain it himself. So Poe was really forced to try to earn* a living by writing. But no one ever paid him for his writings what they were worth. As a result he almost never had enough money, and most of his remaining life he was poor, very poor. Notes 1. Did: This is a special, but rather common use of did; it provides contrast with something which has already been said. In this case, the speaker has just made a negative statement about Mi. Allan: Mr. Allan did not take Poe into his heart. The word did functions to tell us that a positive statement about Mi. Allan is about to be made. Similarly, in the

9 next column did serves to introduce a positive statement after the speaker has suggested that Mr. Allan was not going to pay Poe's debts. There are two more examples of this on this page. 2. Gets sick = becomes sick: The word get has about 70 different meanings. The original meaning was "seize, take hold of." Today the word has the broader meaning of "gain possession of, obtain, acquire, achieve," and the idea of obtaining can be seen in most meanings. Here, the person is not sick, and when he becomes sick he "gets" something he did not have before. This basic meaning is more easily seen in the sentence below: "Mr. Allan came to the University to get Poe." 3. It is possible to use the word get too much. But it is one of the most important words in me language. The student must begin early to learn its many meanings. 4. He didn't = he didn't learn how to drink. Here did has what is called a surrogate function, that is, it replaces or substitutes for an entire idea which was earlier expressed. 5. To do so = it was part of his character to do the wrong thing, knowing that it was the wrong thing. Here, it is the word so which replaces an entire idea earlier expressed. This use is not uncommon. 6. Driven: See The Black Cat, note Pleasant enough = rather pleasant. 8. Further = more, additional: He would give Poe no money in addition to the money he had already given him. Farther cannot have this meaning; and although in other meanings either farther or further may be used, further is much more common in the United States. Some Americans use farther when the meaning is "more far away in space," and further for other meanings. 9. Even so: See note 4. "It was nevertheless a book, even though few bought it and almost no one noticed it." Exercises A. In this exercise you have three choices: a, b, and c. Choose the one which most nearly means the same as the words with a line under them. 1. Poe wanted to remain in the University of Virginia. a. study b. go back to c. stay in

10 2. Poe felt that he couldn't exist without drinking. a. be a critic b. continue living c. work on magazines 3. Poe and his family never had a lot of money. a. much b. enough c. too much 4. There was hardly a day in his life that Poe was not in trouble. a. many b. almost not c. not 5. Few people bought his books. a. several b. some c. not many 6. Poe was about to become a writer. a. soon b. going c. trying 7. Poe began to do special studies to prepare himself to go to a university. a. teach himself b. earn money c. get ready 8. Poe would not have been able to explain why he drank so much. a. give the reasons b. understand c. make plain 9. Poe discovered that he did not need money to get the things he needed in Charlottesville. a. learned b. thought c. explained 10. Poe was living and working in the company of other young men. a. business b. presence c. rooms 11. Poe recognized that it was part of his character always to do the wrong thing. a. believed b. learned c. understood 12. Poe never knew just when Allan stopped loving him. a. certainly b. properly c. exactly 13. Poe failed to find a job that paid him enough to live. a. did not try b. was not able c. tried

11 B. Answer the following questions. 1. What were Poe's father and mother like? 2. Why did Poe go to live with Mr. and Mrs. John Allan? 3. How much education did Poe receive? 4. What did Poe do at the University of Virginia that made Mr. Allan angry? 5. Why did Poe run away from home? 6. What was Poe's chief purpose in life after he left his home with Mr. and Mrs. Allan? 7. About how old was Poe when he began writing poems? 8. How many books of poetry had Poe written by the time he was twenty years old? 9. How successful were these books of poetry? 10. Why did Poe fail in his efforts to find a job which would pay him enough to live and still leave him enough time to write? C. Which group of words (a, b, or c) best completes each unfinished sentence? 1. People thought that Poe could not have written his stories... a. if he had not had complete control of his mind. b. if he had not had the experiences he wrote about. c. if he had not been in some strange manner destroyed. 2. Mr. Allan never adopted Poe; that is to say... a. he caused Poe much trouble as he grew older. b. he never took Poe into his heart. c. he never made Poe his son by law. 3. Mrs. Allan loved Poe... a. as much as her own children. b. more than was good for him. c. but never made Poe her son by law. 4. Before Mr. Allan went back to Richmond he gave Poe some money... a. but only enough to pay for the most necessary things. b. but Poe lost it playing cards with other students. c. but he didn't give him enough. 5. In those early days of the young United States... a. most men thought it was wrong to drink. b. most men did not think badly of a man because he drank.

12 c. most men did not know how to drink. 6. After Poe ran away... a. he was thrown out of his home. b. he never entered his home again. c. he was on his own. 7. Poe's first two books of poetry... a. were bought by very few people. b. were noticed by almost no one. c. made him famous as a poet. 8. Poe wanted a job... a. so that he would not have to write to earn money. b. as a professional man of letters. c. which paid enough to live and left him time to write. D. Some of the following sentences are true, some are not true. On a piece of paper write the numbers of the sentences and by the numbers put a cross (+} if the sentence is true and a circle (0) if it is not true. If the sentence is not true, write it again so that it becomes true. 1. Poe wrote his stories in such a way that real happenings seem strange and wonderful. 2. Poe could not have written his stories if he had not himself had the experiences he describes. 3. Poe was the only child Mrs. Allan had. 4. Mr. Allan gave Poe enough money for the necessary things, but not enough to pay the money he owed because of playing cards. 5. Mr. Allan wanted Poe to leave the university and work with him in his business. 6. Poe often drank too much or at the wrong time of day or in the wrong place. 7. Poe understood that it was part of his character often to do the wrong thing, even though he knew it was wrong. 8. Poe wanted to be famous more than anything else. 9. Poe wrote two books of poetry which many people liked. 10. Poe was the first American who found it possible to make enough to live just by writing. E. Change the sentence to a negative sentence, using not with the underlined verb. Say the entire sentence.

13 Example: Poe had enough money to buy food. Poe did not have enough money to buy food. 1. Poe's stories dealt with murders without reason. 2. People began to think that Poe was like the men in his stories. 3. Mr. Allan wants Poe to work with him in his business. 4. They thought that Mr. Allan would pay. 5. Poe did the things his friends did. 6. Poe often lost. 7. Allan provided Poe with a good education. 8. Allan paid the money Poe owed. 9. Poe felt that he had been thrown out of his home. 10. People bought many copies of Poe's books. 11. Poe tried to find a job which would pay him enough to live. 12. Poe let himself do what he knew was the wrong thing to do. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE Part Two In 1827, when he was only eighteen, Edgar Allan Poe found himself separated from his family and without any means to support himself. In the coming years he tried to live by selling his writings. But no one ever paid him for his writings what they were really worth, never in his whole life. So he was poor; most of the time, very poor. He was not completely without family and friends, however. When he left his home with the Allans in Virginia, one of the first things he did was look for his grandmother, his father's mother. He found Mrs. Poe in Baltimore, a very old woman who was living in a little house with her daughter, Mrs. Clemm, and Mrs. Clemm's young daughter, Virginia. Poe immediately liked these people; he felt they were a new home. They, too, were poor, and at first he didn't want to make them carry also a part of his troubles. But after four difficult years of living alone, when he had almost no money at all, he went to Baltimore and began living in one of the rooms of his grandmother's house. He was ready to do anything to help the family. He tried to find work, without

14 success. He did not therefore just sit and do nothing. He continued to write. In those days a writer who wanted to be famous*, to be noticed and talked about, could take his poems or stories to meetings in the homes of rich people who enjoyed having famous people around them. At these meetings the writer could read his poems or stories and in that way become known. And Poe did this. But this was the slow way. If a person's writings appeared in a magazine or a newspaper many more people would know them. There were several magazines which appeared once every month or every two months. They contained poems, stories, articles* on literature or on the problems of the nation, notes on interesting and unusual happenings, letters from readers - indeed, almost anything. One of the magazines which accepted and published* some of Poe's poems and stories was called the Southern Literary Messenger. The owner of the magazine soon asked Poe to read new books by other writers and to write articles about them. In this way Poe began to work as a critic*. The greatest part of all that Poe wrote was articles about other writers, about literature, and about the art of writing. This is a fact that students of American literature often forget. Poe had been writing for the Southern Literary Messenger for only a few months when the owner of the magazine asked him to come to Richmond to help publish the magazine. Poe was very pleased and accepted at once. The pay he received for his work was quite small. But at that time Poe had no money at all, so it looked large to him. And it was perhaps even more important to Poe that he now had a forum*: he now could choose what would be published and what would not. Often he chose something he himself had written. Poe was never a good businessman. But he was a good editor. He made the magazine - and himself - known all over the nation. His writings as a critic were especially well known. For Poe was not only a man with a fine mind who was a good writer; he had very clear opinions about the art of writing and had no fear at all about publishing those opinions. If he didn't like a book or a poem or a story he cut it and the writer into pieces with his words. Poe became a man with a few good friends, and with many enemies. It is hard for us today to understand why Poe wrote some of the things he did 1 ; he was often more unfriendly than seems necessary, even unjust*. At home with Mrs. Clemm and Virginia, and when he was with

15 other women, Poe was a sweet and loving man, who never failed to consider carefully the feelings of those around him. But Poe clearly felt that he was a better writer than most of the others. He considered himself a proper judge of the art of writing, and a judge that other writers should listen to. By the time Poe went to Richmond Mrs. Clemm and Virginia were alone and without any means of support; the other members of the family had either died or gone away. And Poe needed the Clemms; he needed Mrs. Clemm for a mother and Virginia for a sister. They finally agreed to go to Richmond with him, and two years later Poe married Virginia. He was twenty-eight years old and she was not yet fourteen. Some critics have claimed that Poe married Virginia just* to be sure that he would not lose his new mother, Mrs. Clemm, and the home she had given nun. The Poes stayed in Richmond only two years. Poe had been working for the Messenger only a month when he appeared in the office early one morning and it was clear that he had been drinking already; he immediately lost his job. Poe promised he would never do that again, and he was allowed to come back. But in the next two years he did it at least twice* again, and finally the owner let him go and would not take him back. The family moved to New York City. Poe couldn't find work. They found a large house, with several rooms they didn't need. And for a certain amount of money Mrs. Clemm let people live in those rooms and eat at her table. For months the money she got in this way was all the money they had. Finally Poe left New York City and went to Philadelphia to become editor of Burton's Magazine. Later he was editor of Graham's Magazine. Then he was editor of the Broadway Journal, in New York City again. We could spend many minutes talking about his work as an editor and as a critic. He was a good editor. Every magazine he worked with became a better magazine and got more readers. But he never stayed with any magazine more than two years. It was not only because of his drinking; for a long time during these years he didn't drink at all. But he and the owner of the magazine finally would have 2 very different opinions about something and after many angry words Poe would leave the magazine. Poe did not like to be told what he, as editor, ought to be doing.

16 During the year that Poe was editor of Graham's Magazine he was paid enough so that the family was not always poor. But that was only one year. Poe began to drink again. He knew that Virginia would not live long; and Poe himself had some kind of sickness, no one knows what. By December of 1846, in New York City, they were so poor that a group of Poe's rich women friends went to visit their own friends in the city to ask them for money and clothes and food to give to the Poes. Poe's chief work, thus, was done as a critic. But it is for his stories that he is remembered today, and for some of his poems, especially The Raven. These were the writings people liked best in his own time. This was the age of Romanticism* in Europe. And Americans still considered Europe to be the best source of new ideas. One of the most important Romantic ideas was the escape from reality*; poems and stories could take people out of real life and into a dream world where they felt and saw and heard things that never were and never will be. Poe wrote these stories with so much skill* that they seemed real, at least for a few minutes - until the reader reached the end of the story and dropped back into the cold reality of his everyday life. Poe himself stated that he wrote horror* stories because that was what people wanted to read. He wrote them because he knew they would bring him fame*. And they did 1. They brought him little else, however. During these last years Poe had a battle* of words with a group of editors and critics in New York City. By early 1847 Poe knew that he had lost this battle. He came out of it with many more enemies and no more friends. In January of that year Virginia died. From that time on 4 it was all down hill for Poe. His spirit was broken. He spent more than a year running from New York City to Richmond to Philadelphia, trying to find one of his rich women friends who would marry him. He did 5 continue writing and he published some interesting things. But his great work was done. In the middle of 1849 Poe returned to Richmond to give a talk 6 on literature. We must remember that Poe lived as a child in Richmond. Now he was famous in his home city. Surely he enjoyed that. But he was a sick man. A few weeks later he was found in Baltimore, lying in the street, and in a few days he died. No one knows why he had come to Baltimore or what he died of. He was not yet forty-one years old. Almost none of his friends came to see his body put into the ground. And many people were not sorry to see him go.

17 Poe had lived a hard life, and during most of that life the dreams he dreamed remained only dreams. He drank to escape from the troubles of the real world. He escaped into his dream world in his poems and in many of his finest stories. Poe himself said that he was a dreamer. Think, he said, think of that moment when you are about to go to sleep 7, but are not yet sleeping. You dream strange dreams. If you go to sleep you forget them. Poe claimed that he could come near to sleeping and then call himself back to the real world, remembering the dreams of the half world from which he had just* come. These, he said, were the materials of some of his writings. If he said it, we may believe that it is true. But in addition to that, he filled his poems and his stories with the dreams he dreamed when not asleep* at all. Notes 1. Did = wrote: See Part 1, note Would have = had; This is a special use of would, meaning that an action happened repeatedly in the past. Poe was editor of several magazines. And he fought with the editor of each magazine and always left the magazine. 3. Would: here would is simply the past tense of will. He knows Virginia will not live long. He knew Virginia would not live long 4. On is another of the "function words" which have many different meanings, or functions. Here it means "toward a point which lies ahead in time." For an example of its use to mean "forward in space." See The Fall of the House of Usher, Part 2, note 3. Compare also The Mask of the Red Death, note Did; See Part 1, note 1 6. Give a talk = talk for an agreed period of time about a special subject. 7. Go to sleep = begin sleeping. Exercises A. In this exercise you have three choices: a, b, and c. Choose the one which most nearly means the same as the words with a line under them.

18 1. Poe liked Mrs. Clemm and Virginia immediately. a. a great deal. b. at once c. very quickly. 2. Poe never received for his stories what they were really worth. a. got b. asked c. wanted 3. People said Poe married Virginia just to be sure he would not lose the home Mrs. Clemm had given him. a. in order b. wishing c. only 4. Poe never failed to consider the feelings of people around him. a. think about b. hurt c. listen to 5. Poe spent more than a year trying to find a woman who would marry him. a. lived b. paid c. passed 6. Poe had very clear opinions about the art of writing. a. feelings b. ideas c. rules 7. As editor Poe could choose what the magazine would publish and what it would not publish. a. decide b. buy c. try to find 8. Poe drank to escape from the troubles of the real world. a. forget b. get away from c. run 9. Most of the time Poe and his family lived a very hard life. a. working b. poor c. difficult 10. Just before he died Poe gave a talk in Richmond. a. talked to someone about a job b. read a poem c. spoke 11. The Southern Literary Messenger accepted some of Poe's stories. a. returned b. published c. bought 12. Poe stated that he used his own dreams in his stories. a. said b. believed c. thought

19 B. Answer the following questions. 1. Why didn't Poe want to live with his grandmother, at first? 2. What did Poe do to help his grandmother's family? 3. What was the best way for a writer to become known? 4. What kind of things did magazines usually publish? 5. How did Poe become a critic? 6. How well was Poe paid when he worked for the Southern Literary Messenger? 7. In what way was Poe a good editor? 8. Was Poe well liked by his men and women friends? Explain. 9. Why did Poe marry Virginia? 10. Why did Poe write horror stories? 11. Why were Poe's stories well liked by people who lived in those times? 12. Were people sorry when Poe died? 13. What kind of dreams did Poe use in his stories? C. Which group of words (a, b, or c) best completes each unfinished sentence? 1. After Poe ran away from his home in Richmond... a. he was without family and friends. b. he passed four difficult years living alone. c. he went to live with his grandmother in Baltimore. 2. The best way for a young writer to become famous was to... a. read his poems and stories at meetings in the homes of rich people. b. have his writings published by a magazine. c. find a job which paid enough for him to live and left him time to write. 3. The owner of the Southern Literary Messenger asked Poe... a. to write articles about other writers. b. to write notes on interesting and unusual happenings. c. to write articles on the problems of the nation. 4. Poe received...for his work as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. a. no money at all

20 b. enough money to live c. very little money 5. Because of his work as a critic, Poe... a. had almost no friends. b. felt that other writers were his enemies. c. had a few good friends and many enemies. 6. Poe never stayed with any magazine more than two years because... a. he came to the office when he had been drinking. b. the owner tried to tell him what he, as editor, ought to do. c. he had clear opinions about writing and had no fear about publishing those opinions. 7. Poe is remembered today mostly... a. for his stories and poems on Romantic themes. b. for his poem The Raven. c. for his work as an editor and a critic. 8. After Virginia died Poe... a. wrote his greatest stories. b. continued to write some interesting things. c. stopped writing and began giving talks on literature. D. Some of the following sentences are true, some are not true. On a piece of paper, write the numbers of the sentences and by the numbers put a cross (+) if the sentence is true and a circle (0) if it is not true. If the sentence is not true, write it again so that it becomes true. 1. Poe is most famous for his work as editor and critic. 2. After he left home, Poe was completely without family and friends. 3. Poe read his stories and poems at meetings in the homes of rich people because he wanted to become known. 4. Students of literature often forget that Poe's most important work was his work as editor and critic. 5. While he was editor of the Southern Literary Messenger Poe was able to decide whether his own poems and stories would be published. 6. Poe wrote some things which seem more unfriendly than necessary.

21 7. Poe never stayed with any magazine for more than two years because he continued to drink while working. 8. At home, Poe never failed to consider carefully the feelings of those around him. 9. Poe wrote horror stories because that is what people wanted and he knew they would make him famous. 10. After Virginia died Poe did not write anything more that was very interesting. E. Change the sentence to make a question. Say the entire question. Example: Poe used his own dreams in his stories. Did Poe use his own dreams in his stories? 1. Poe left his home in Richmond and went to Baltimore. 2. Poe just sat and did nothing. 3. Poe read his poems and stories in the homes of rich people. 4. Students of literature forget that Poe was best known as a critic. 5. He cut the poem and the writer into pieces with his words. 6. Poe felt that he was a better writer than most of the others. 7. He writes poems and articles for the magazines. 8. We know what Poe was doing in the first years after he left home. 9. Poe spent a year trying to find a woman to marry him. 10. Poe found his grandmother in a little old house in Baltimore. 11. Poe's poems and stories soon became well known. 12. Poe could now choose what would be published and what would not. 13. A group of Poe's friends went to ask their friends for money to give to the Poes. THE MASK OF THE RED DEATH The Red Death had long been feeding on 1 the country. No sickness had ever been so deadly* - so great a killer - or so fearful* to see. Blood was its mark - the redness and the horror* of blood. There were sharp* pains, and a sudden feeling that the mind was rushing* in circles inside the head. Then there was bleeding* through the skin, though it was not

22 cut or broken - and then, death! The bright* red spots upon the body and especially upon the face of the sick man made other men turn away from him, afraid to try to help. And the sickness lasted, from the beginning to the end, no more than half an hour. But Prospero, the ruler of that land, was happy and strong and wise*. When half the people of his land had died, he called to him a thousand healthy, happy friends, and with them went far away to live in one of his palaces*. This was a large and beautiful stone building he had planned himself. A strong, high wall circled it. This wall had gates* of iron. The gentlemen, after they had entered, brought fire to heat the iron of the gates to make them close so firmly that nobody could open them. Here they could forget the sickness, the Red Death. They would leave 2 the outside world to care for itself. Prospero had supplied everything they needed for pleasure*. There was music, there was dancing, there was beauty, there was food to eat and wine to drink. All these were within the wall, and within the wall they would be safe. Outside the wall walked the Red Death. It was near the end of their fifth month there that Prospero asked his friends all to come together for a dancing party, a masquerade. Everyone was asked to come dressed in fine clothes and with his eyes, or perhaps his whole face, covered by a cloth mask*. It was a scene of great richness, that masquerade. There were seven rooms in which Prospero's friends danced. In many old palaces the doors can be opened in such a way that rooms like these seven can be seen all at the same time. In this palace it was different. Little more than one of them could be seen at one time. There was a turn every twenty or thirty yards. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, was a tall pointed window. The windows were of colored glass, of the same color that was used in each room. The first room had blue cloth hangings on the walls-and blue were its windows. 3 The second room had wall hangings of that blue-red known as purple, and here the windows were purple. The third was green, and so 4 was the glass of the windows. The fourth had hangings and windows of yellow - the fifth of white - the sixth of violet*. But the seventh room had hangings on the walls made of a rich soft cloth which was black, black as night, and the floor, too, was covered with the same heavy black, cloth. In this room the color of the windows was not the same. It was red - a deep 5 blood color. All the rooms were lighted through the outside windows. The resulting light was strange indeed, as it colored the shapes of the dancers.

23 But the light that fell on the black hangings through the blood-colored 6 glass was the most fearful of them all. It produced so wild a look on the faces of those who entered that there were few of the dancers who dared* to step within those dark walls. In this room stood a great 7 clock of black wood. Gently* it marked the seconds as they passed; and when it was time to mark the hour the clock spoke with a loud, clear voice, a deep tone* as beautiful as music, but so strange that the music and the dancing stopped and the dancers stood still to listen. And then, after another sixty minutes, after another three thousand and six hundred seconds of Time, of flying Time, the clock struck again, and the dancers stopped as before. Nevertheless*, it was a happy and beautiful masquerade. And you may be sure 8 that the clothes the dancers chose to wear, their costumes, were strange and wonderful. The dancers looked like the forms we might see in troubled dreams. And these - the dreams - danced softly through the rooms, taking the color of the rooms as they moved. It did not seem that their steps followed the music, but that the music rose from their steps. But into the seventh room the dancers do not go, for the red light coming through the windows, and the blackness of the wallhangings, make them afraid - and he who enters hears more deeply* the striking of the great black clock. But the other rooms are crowded, and in them beats hotly the heart of life. And the dance goes on 9 until at last the clock begins to strike twelve, Again the music stopped. Again the dancers stood without moving while the slow striking sound continued. Before the clock was quiet again, many in the crowd saw that in the first room, the blue room, there was a masquerader who had not been seen before. As they talked softly to each other about him a feeling of surprise spread through all the dancers, then a feeling of fear and of sickening horror. In such a group as this, only a very strange masquerader could have caused such a feeling. Even among those who laugh at both life and death, some matters cannot be laughed at. 10 Everyone seemed now deeply 8 to feel that the stranger* should not have been allowed to come among them dressed in such clothes. He was tall and very thin*, and covered from head to foot like a dead man prepared for the grave.* The mask which covered his face - or was it really a mask? - the mask which covered his face was so much like the face of a dead man that the nearest eye could not see the difference, And yet all this might have been acceptable but the masquerader whom nobody knew had made himself

24 look like the Red Death itself! His clothes were spotted with blood. And the mask over his face was covered with the terrible red spots... or perhaps it was indeed his face! When Prospero looked upon this fearful* form he was first filled with terror* - and then with anger. "Who dares?" he cried. "Take him! Seize* him! Pull off his mask so that we may know who 11 we must hang at sunrise!" Prospero stood in the blue room when he spoke these words. They sounded through the seven rooms, loud and clear. At first, as he spoke, some of the dancers started to rush toward the strange masquerader. But they stopped, afraid, and no one dared to put out a hand to touch him. The stranger started to walk toward the second room. He passed within a few feet of Prospero, who stood still, surprised. And while the dancers moved back from the center of the room, the stranger moved quietly, without being stopped, with a slow and measured step, through the blue room to the purple room -through the purple room to the green room through the green to the yellow - through this to the white - and then to the violet room. As the stranger was entering the seventh room, Prospero suddenly and angrily rushed through the six rooms. No one dared to follow him. He held a sharp knife* high over his head, ready to strike the stranger. When he was within three or four feet of the strange masquerader, the stranger turned and stood silent, looking firmly into Prospero's eyes. There was a cry - and the knife dropped shining upon the black floor, upon which a minute later Prospero himself fell, dead. The dancers then rushed into the black room. The strongest of the men tried to hold the masquerader, whose tall form stood beside the black clock; but when they put their hands on him they found inside the grave-clothes no human form, no body - nothing! Now they knew that it was the Red Death itself that had come in the night. One by one the dancers fell, and each died as he fell. And the fires died. And the clock stopped. And darkness and decay* and the Red Death ruled forever over all. Notes 1. Feed on: one of the many two-word verbs in English. Feed usually means "give food to." Adding on changes the meaning, which be-

25 comes "take food or nourishment from," or, as here, "take support from, be supported by." 2. Leave: here, means "allow to continue to do" something. A similar meaning, though not exactly the same can be found in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Part 3: "The police had left the room as they found it." A different meaning occurs in William Wilson. Part 2: "I left that old school and never entered it again," and also Part 4: "You must leave my room, and leave it now." 3. Changing the order of words (from the usual "its windows were blue") draws the listener's attention to the color and emphasizes the importance of that color. Changing the order of words to achieve a special effect is a frequent feature of Poe's style. 4. So = green: See Life and Writings, Part 1, note Deep: usually means "going a rather long distance into (She put the knife deep into his heart) or down into (The hole in the ground was deep)." It has other meanings which are not closely related to distance, but most of them have some meaning similar to far, such as "more, very, much." Deep blue is a very blue blue, without any green or yellow in it; it also implies that the color is rather dark. A deep blood color is, then, a very red red of low brilliance. 6. Blood-colored; See The Fall of the House of Usher. Part 2, note Great: here, means not only "big" or "large" but "very large." Great has other meanings, but all of them contain the idea of "more than is usual" or "more than others of its kind." Here, the clock is much bigger than clocks usually are. Near the end of The Fall of the House of Usher the story-teller notes that because of their "great thickness" the clouds cut off all light from the moon and the stars. The meaning of "large" is here not as important as the meaning "thicker than clouds usually are." 8. Most of Poe's stories were written using the pronoun I: the storyteller "talks" with the reader. Poe probably felt that this stylistic device helped give a feeling of truth to his stories. Here, the phrase "You may be sure that..." adds little to the meaning of the sentence, "The clothes the dancers wore... were strange and wonderful." But it does help to make the reader feel as if he is really hearing the story. 9. Goes on = continues: Compare Life and Writings. Part 2, note Laughed at: See The Story of William Wilson, Part 1, note Who we must hang at sunrise: Since who is the object of the verb hang some might think it should properly be whom; but this would

26 sound strange, and is not usually said. The question word who has never had the form whom in normal speech; and who in the present case is really a question word. The sentence, "Pull off his mask so that we may know who we must hang at sunrise!" means, "Pull off his mask so that we may find the answer to the question: who must we hang at sunrise?" Exercises A. In this exercise you have three choices: a, b, and c. Choose the one which most nearly means the same as the words with a line under them. 1. No sickness had ever been so great a killer or so fearful to see as the Red Death. a. dead b. deadly c. deadening 2. The ruler of that land lived in a large and beautiful stone building. a. farm b. house c. palace 3. Everyone was asked to come to a party dressed in fine clothes and with his eyes, or perhaps his whole face, covered by a piece of cloth. a. mask b. mash c. masquerade 4. Everyone seemed now deeply to feel that the person who had not been seen before should not have been allowed to come among them dressed in such clothes. a. strangely b. strangeness c. stranger 5. When Prospero looked upon this fearful form he was first filled with great fear and then with anger. a. terror b. wonder c. terrorism 6. The knife had a fine cutting edge. a. was sharp b. was dull c. was pretty 7. He felt that his mind was going very fast in circles inside his head. a. rushing b. crushing c. brushing

27 8. I was afraid to enter the room. a. dared b. did not dare c. did not care 9. When it was time to mark the hour, the clock spoke with a deep sound as beautiful as music. a. tone b. tongue c. ton 10. The clothes the dancers chose to wear were strange and wonderful. a. customs b. costume c. costumes 11. In the room stood a great clock of black wood. a. famous b. large c. noisy 12. The light that fell through the blood-colored glass was the most fearful of them all. a. afraid b. frightening c. filled with fear 13. The color of the windows in the seventh room was a deep blood color. a. clear bright red b. blue-red color c. very dark red B. Answer the following questions. 1. What is a masquerade? 2. What was the Red Death? 3. What did Prospero do when half the people of his land had died? 4. What were the first six rooms like? 5. What was the seventh room like? 6. What was the stranger wearing? 7. What did Prospero say when he saw the stranger? 8. Who was the stranger? C. Which group of words (a, b, or c) best completes each unfinished sentence? 1. The mark of the Red Death was... a. the redness and the horror of blood. b. music and dancing and beauty.

28 c. a mask which made it look like a dead man. 2. A strong, high wall circled... a. the gates of iron. b. the city where they lived. c. the large and beautiful stone building Prospero had planned himself. 3...within the wall. a. There was music, dancing, beauty, food to eat and wine to drink b. There were gates of iron c. The outside world was 4. Prospero's friends... a. could see all seven rooms at the same time. b. supplied everything he needed for pleasure. c. danced in six of the seven rooms. 5. The hangings in the seventh room... a. were red - a deep blood color. b. were made of a soft rich cloth which was black as night. c. were of the same color as the windows. 6. A great clock of black wood... a. looked like the forms we see in troubled dreams. b. spoke with a deep tone as beautiful as music. c. produced a wild look on the faces of those who dared enter there. 7. The red light coming through the windows of the seventh room... a. made deeper the striking of the great black clock. b. colored the shapes of the dancers as they moved. c. made the dancers afraid. 8. The stranger... a. was wearing a mask which covered his face. b. seemed to feel that he should not have been allowed to come among them. c. was dressed from head to foot like a dead man prepared for the grave. 9. Prospero was first filled with terror-and then with anger... a. when he looked upon the stranger. b. as he started to rush toward the strange masquerader. c. when he started to walk toward the second room. 10. When the dancers put their hands on the stranger they found...