Edgar Allan Poe’s linguistic talent in formulating terror and horror in “the tell-tale heart”

Other Title(s)

الموهبة اللغوية لإدغار ألان يو في صياغة الهلع و الرعب في قصة "القلب الشاهد"

Author

al-Tarawinah, Anud Zayd

Source

Mu'tah Lil-Buhuth Wad-Dirasat : Humanities and Social Sciences Series

Issue

Vol. 36, Issue 2 (30 Apr. 2021), pp.33-54, 22 p.

Publisher

Mutah University Deanship of Academic Research

Publication Date

2021-04-30

Country of Publication

Jordan

No. of Pages

22

Main Subjects

Languages & Comparative Literature
Literature

Abstract EN

This paper argues that the transition from syntactic structures of inversions and dashed statements to structures following the underlying structure [NP VP [NP/0] [PP]] in Edgar Allan Poe‘s ―The Tell-Tale Heart‖ induces the effect of perceiving two levels of fear — terror and horror.

The story is full of PPs‘ fronting as in ―Above all was the sense of hearing acute‖.

Also there are other inversions and numerous parentheticals as in ―True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?‖ In contrast to these structures, the story has sentences with no syntactic inversions or even parentheticals as in ―He was stone dead‖.

By the syntactic inversions and the parentheticals, we, as readers, perceive terror.

When reading the sentences composed with no inversions or parentheticals, however, we experience a frozen level of fear — the horror.

Linguistically, the story has transitions from a factive world, the world of horror, to a reflective world, the world of terror, and vice versa.

As Arthur Palacas (1989) puts it, ―each and every meaning expressed in a (spoken or written) text is assigned to a linguistic world‖ (p.

508).

Poe creates gothic in ―Tell-Tale Heart‖ through syntactic and pragmatic transitions.2 Due to moving from one linguistic world to another, the story conveys terror and horror.

American Psychological Association (APA)

al-Tarawinah, Anud Zayd. 2021. Edgar Allan Poe’s linguistic talent in formulating terror and horror in “the tell-tale heart”. Mu'tah Lil-Buhuth Wad-Dirasat : Humanities and Social Sciences Series،Vol. 36, no. 2, pp.33-54.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1285033

Modern Language Association (MLA)

al-Tarawinah, Anud Zayd. Edgar Allan Poe’s linguistic talent in formulating terror and horror in “the tell-tale heart”. Mu'tah Lil-Buhuth Wad-Dirasat : Humanities and Social Sciences Series Vol. 36, no. 2 (2021), pp.33-54.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1285033

American Medical Association (AMA)

al-Tarawinah, Anud Zayd. Edgar Allan Poe’s linguistic talent in formulating terror and horror in “the tell-tale heart”. Mu'tah Lil-Buhuth Wad-Dirasat : Humanities and Social Sciences Series. 2021. Vol. 36, no. 2, pp.33-54.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1285033

Data Type

Journal Articles

Language

English

Notes

Includes bibliographical references : p. 55-56

Record ID

BIM-1285033